[Ennis]

I thought this business has technology cycles. It's just that AMD has missed a few and now Intel is at the mid-stage of it's current architecture. Wouldn't they be naturally back on top in a few years while AMD retools a new architecture family? I don't get the "intel is done for" reasoning. Cutting pricing on a product-line that is in mid to late life-cycle is expected in most other businesses including technology.

There are other arguments wrt Intel not being fabless that I get but those are not the same thing.

[wmf]

No, Intel is not mid-cycle; they are still selling 2015 tech because they have failed to deliver on their roadmap for the last four years. In theory it's possible that they could have a great leap forward and catch up but it's more likely that it will take 3-4 more years to dig out of the hole.

[johnvanommen]

I agree with this. About eight years ago, when AMD premiered their "bulldozer" architecture, it was clear that even their best technology was years behind Intel.

Now the situation has flipped, and Intel is years behind.

[wickoff]

From my understanding the problem isn't with the architecture, but with manufacturing. AMD is about to release 7nm CPUs manufactured by TSMC, meanwhile Intel only recently sorted out its 10nm issues and 7nm is scheduled for 2021 if everything goes well.

[qzw]

IIRC, Intel’s 10nm is measured differently than TSMC’s 7nm, so they are actually more or less at the same node. By some measurements, Intel 10nm is actually smaller than TSMC 7nm. I think some significant part of AMD’s manufacturing advantage also comes down to the fact that their “chiplet” architecture is proving to be easier to scale than Intel’s less modular designs.

[pixelpoet]

Density is measured differently by different fabs, i.e. you can't do direct nm comparison, same as you can't do direct MHz comparison between different CPU vendors. Supposedly Intel 10nm and other 7nm are roughly on par.

My understanding is that Intel's manufacturing lead is basically gone now, and with Zen 2 so too will their uarch lead (IPC, AVX throughput, ...) disappear.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> AMD is about to release 7nm CPUs manufactured by TSMC, meanwhile Intel only recently sorted out its 10nm issues

You can tell who the AMD fanboys are because they keep repeating this line even though it gets pointed out every time that the different fabs measure density differently and that Intel's 10 nm process is on par with TSMC's 7 nm.