I know the direct impact is to Intel but think AMD just can’t catch a break. They finally have something going against Intel and now Apple and Microsoft will eat its lunch.
> Microsoft’s efforts are more likely to result in a server chip than one for its Surface devices
In my opinion, the majority of people have too much faith in their ability to predict the future.
I was terrible at predicting the real world performance of the Apple Silicon M1. It is, in fact, much better than I expected. On the other hand, Microsoft has thus far only had slightly modified AMD chips in their Surface Laptop, and poor performing ARM-designed Qualcomm chips in their Surface Pro X. Maybe I'll be bad at predicting the future, but I do not expect excellent performance out of Microsoft's Surface chips in the next 365 days. Probably longer.
In the meantime, more Windows computers will be sold than MacOS, and they will have mostly Intel chips, but an increasingly large number of AMD chips.
AMD has survived with less diverse revenue streams and much worse product portfolios. I'm optimistic for how they'll do over the next several years.
> I was terrible at predicting the real world performance of the Apple Silicon M1. It is, in fact, much better than I expected.
I expected what came out in the end. Apple would never put up the amount of money and the promise to ditch Intel if they were not absolutely certain that they could actually beat Intel performance-wise and have a working Rosetta to keep "old" software running.
The writing was on the wall for a long time, iPhone and iPad processor power has been taking decent shots at moderately powerful PC hardware for years now - the key thing why Apple didn't do it two years ago was software support and developer tooling, they wanted to avoid cloning the Windows RT fiasco which fizzled out because no one had working software and there was no translation layer.
Anybody remember the Zune? How different is Microsoft nowadays to make this actually work?
Most of their hardware products (not all... but most) end up being good, but not earth-shatteringly so, and either keep kind of moving on without taking any crowns (like Xbox), or slowly wither and die (Zune, Windows Phone).
Surface seems to be a good Halo product (not the game, ha!) so far, but I see very few Surfaces in the wild compared to any other laptop/tablet/desktops (mostly HP, some Dell, etc.).
After M1, I am definitely holding out for Mac Pro rather than going the AMD route. I am sure there will be a ton of professionals thinking the same. While I’ve always cheered for AMD as a company, I think Apple will gain substantial market share in the next decade. And AMD just doesn’t have the resources to fight that wave.
They aren't going to have their lunch eaten. Apple doesn't have nearly the volume to make a meaningful impact, neither does Microsoft. Neither of them make up a substantial segment of cpu sales.
It does put healthy pressure on them, but I think AMD is fine for the near future, they're also working on ARM chips as well.
neogodless|5 years ago
In my opinion, the majority of people have too much faith in their ability to predict the future.
I was terrible at predicting the real world performance of the Apple Silicon M1. It is, in fact, much better than I expected. On the other hand, Microsoft has thus far only had slightly modified AMD chips in their Surface Laptop, and poor performing ARM-designed Qualcomm chips in their Surface Pro X. Maybe I'll be bad at predicting the future, but I do not expect excellent performance out of Microsoft's Surface chips in the next 365 days. Probably longer.
In the meantime, more Windows computers will be sold than MacOS, and they will have mostly Intel chips, but an increasingly large number of AMD chips.
AMD has survived with less diverse revenue streams and much worse product portfolios. I'm optimistic for how they'll do over the next several years.
mschuster91|5 years ago
I expected what came out in the end. Apple would never put up the amount of money and the promise to ditch Intel if they were not absolutely certain that they could actually beat Intel performance-wise and have a working Rosetta to keep "old" software running.
The writing was on the wall for a long time, iPhone and iPad processor power has been taking decent shots at moderately powerful PC hardware for years now - the key thing why Apple didn't do it two years ago was software support and developer tooling, they wanted to avoid cloning the Windows RT fiasco which fizzled out because no one had working software and there was no translation layer.
geerlingguy|5 years ago
Most of their hardware products (not all... but most) end up being good, but not earth-shatteringly so, and either keep kind of moving on without taking any crowns (like Xbox), or slowly wither and die (Zune, Windows Phone).
Surface seems to be a good Halo product (not the game, ha!) so far, but I see very few Surfaces in the wild compared to any other laptop/tablet/desktops (mostly HP, some Dell, etc.).
ehejsbbejsk|5 years ago
cogman10|5 years ago
ganoushoreilly|5 years ago
It does put healthy pressure on them, but I think AMD is fine for the near future, they're also working on ARM chips as well.
valuearb|5 years ago
mr_toad|5 years ago