Intel is still top dog: ships 3x more CPUs than AMD and Apple combined

[ahartmetz]

Almost nobody in their right mind (except gamers) would buy an Intel CPU - when people do, it's usually because system vendors only offer or strongly favor Intel coughDellcough.

Intel CPUs are slightly faster with a small number of threads, which is mostly useful for games. Intel desktop mainboards also seem to be less fiddly to set up. Intel CPUs are slower in heavy multi-core loads and much less power efficient than AMD, especially when both are power limited. AMD CPUs have a very flat power-performance curve, Intel not so much.

[duffyjp]

I built a 7700X system as an upgrade to my previous i9-9900K system. Performance and efficiency wise it's fantastic, but I've had TONS of problems. Memory unable to run at its rated speed, GPU not initializing at boot, glacially slow boot times even with MCR enabled, janky BIOS releases...

My old-old system is a Haswell Xeon E3 in a Dell and that sucker can boot from power button to the Windows 11 login screen before the monitor even wakes up on the Ryzen.

I really, really hope Intel can release something competitive with AMD in the efficiency space. I feel guilty using more electricity than absolutely necessary, but I also don't want to spend my evenings troubleshooting.

[nromiun]

AMD desktop chiplet CPUs draw almost 3x power compared to Intel at idle. It makes a huge difference in overall power consumption. Of course they are much more efficient in the top end, but my PC is not running full load most of the time, so I don't see that efficiency.

Of course their monolithic CPUs are much better (just look at the APU in the Steam Deck), but you can't buy them directly. They are either an APU or only available in laptops.

So, I stick to Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU for the power efficiency. I can't even switch to AMD GPUs because they are bad even at top end.

[sevagh]

The world is full people who say things like "I used an AMD video card or CPU once in 1967 and it had driver problems, never again."

[NekkoDroid]

> Almost nobody in their right mind (except gamers) would buy an Intel CPU

I recently was at a computer shop (looking for keyboard repair) and someone brought in their PC because it kept freezing, ended up they are getting a new PC and even when the salesperson recommended an AMD based PC the guy said that he didn't want to because he didn't have good experiences with AMD. Mind you that PC had an Intel 6000 series CPU in it, so best case that experience likely is 10+ years ago.

I kinda died inside while standing there.

[drcongo]

I only came to the comments to see if my instinct (which matches your first sentence) was corroborated. I no longer do anything that particularly requires a cutting edge CPU, I've an M1 Pro MBP and an M2 Mac Studio and they're so far beyond fast enough for me. I've been toying with building a linux box for home but if I do it'll definitely be ARM - fast enough, low power, low heat - perfect.

[YegoBear]

Meh, I recently built 7700X and 13700K towers. Both with premium ASUS motherboards. The Intel one was faster, the CPU was cheaper when I bought it, it booted insanely fast compared to the AMD system and it accepted the overclocked RAM without fuss or tinkering. On top of that it ran cooler (even though it uses more wattage at load) and had true Thunderbolt (rather than USB4) out of the box. It’s also well known that AMD systems use much more power at idle.

[ambichook]

a gamer would wind up with worse power efficiency from an intel CPU because of how much wattage they draw under load, there's a reason i'm on ryzen and not core atm

[neogodless]

Their momentum and influence on OEMs is massive.

While I'm not a mainstream user, and it's hard to wrap my head around choosing a hot, power hungry Intel chip over something from Apple or AMD, just walk into any store (or go to an online store) that sells laptops. 90% of your options will be powered by Intel. Most consumers are going to buy what's readily available. Most businesses (corporate, maybe not "tech") will continue to buy what they always have.

[baq]

They're selling everything they make anyway. There isn't enough fabs on Earth to saturate demand.

[lxn]

I'm not fond of Intel, but I recently bought a laptop with an Intel CPU. I'm stuck with them for a few more years. My PC is already AMD-based, and I loved the new mobile CPUs from AMD, but they are either hardly available or in undesired packages (bulky gaming laptops).

I assume that they have great deals with laptop manufacturers. You can't find a Dell XPS with a Ryzen, for example. Ultrabooks are mainly Intel-based. The Framework laptop is not available everywhere yet.

It's the same frustration I had many years ago when I had to choose between a diesel car in stock and waiting 8 months or more for a gas one.

[sevagh]

I got a nice Thinkpad T14 Gen 4 recently with a 7840U, if you like Lenovo Thinkpads. I've used many Intel ones before and I like them all equally.

[diggan]

Isn't AMD used by basically all consoles now, both CPU and GPU? The article doesn't even mention consoles which I guess make sense because it's "PC" gamer, but still.

[boesboes]

Stats they looked at are for desktop & laptops, so consoles are not considered. Neither are servers, which I suspect is mostly Intel too still. They also haven't looked at tablets, so all those M2's in iPads are not counted. Not sure if that is significant.

[lxgr]

The Switch uses Nvidia, but no console since (I believe) the original Xbox has used Intel, yes.

[JohnBooty]

PCs still outsell consoles by a large margin.

If ChatGPT and some rudimentary Googling can be trusted, Sony has sold a total of 50 million PS5 consoles so far in three years.

For comparison, about 240 million PCs are sold per year.

[TradingPlaces]

If we don't count the CPU people use the most, in their pocket computers, AKA smartphones, Intel leads by a wide margin. Otherwise, they are in 4th place.

[warrenm]

Apparently they're not counting any of the mobile CPUs in their numbers ... because there is no way in the last quarter Apple "only" shipped 6 million iPhones

And Samsung sure shipped more than that

[neogodless]

This is what the PC Gamer article says:

> global PC shipments

> desktop and laptop CPUs

[librasteve]

I recall watching Dave House, Intel VP, present the i486 at a CHIPS(?) conference in San Jose(?) in about 1988. He stood up, looked at his watch and said will folks it's about 11am and Intel has made more i486 this morning than all the RISC chips vendors (MIPS, SPARC, POWER, etc) have ever shipped.

Or was it the ill-fated i860?

Anyway the point is that all you have to do is not manage Intel like a penny pinching accountant and it will remain #1 just because it has more money to plough back into (process) R&D.

Sadly (for Intel) this is what they did for a couple of decades and only Joe Biden can save their bacon.

[brcmthrowaway]

Intel is back baby