author: Arkadiusz Dziermanski
Is Intel Afraid of AMD?
Intel internal materials leaked to Reddit. They show that the processor manufacturer takes the threat from competitive AMD very seriously. The company's employees themselves spoke out on this matter.
Table of Contents
- Is Intel Afraid of AMD?
- Are Intel processors better than AMD?
- Intel Core or AMD Ryzen? The choice is not simple
Are Intel processors better than AMD?
Price is not everything
There is just one "but"... Intel's paramount principle seems to be the assumption that its processors are more than just a piece of silicon mounted on the motherboard. The company has something AMD doesn't. That thing is the supply base. Although AMD can release powerful and refined hardware, Intel is able to better them with software, and on top of that, it offers not only processors, but also Optane memory, Wi-Fi solutions, Thunderbolt ports, games... and it has a legion of programmers.
Our company's 15,000 software developers. That number is more than all of AMD's employees – Intel memo says
All these aspects render the end product – along with peripherals and the corresponding software – able to provide Intel users with a much better overall experience (at least theoretically).
According to Intel, the extra pay covers compatibility with other solutions available on the market, developer experience, and security, i.e. the broadly understood user experience that represents a great added value. This is especially important for corporate customers, who are a key source of income for Intel. In their case, security and additional software is vital. Especially since the cost of a software license often depends on the number of processor cores. Which, in the case of AMD, translates into higher prices.
Intel is a premium brand. At times, and on some workloads, we might dip below on performance, like the second half of this year. At other times, and on other workloads, we are 3x or more the performance. Our pricing will continue to reflect the value we deliver to our customers.
Hardware's not everything – the example that perfectly illustrates this is... Sony on the smartphone market. Who is the largest manufacturer of cameras for mobile devices? Sony. Whose cameras are used by almost all major smartphone manufacturers? Sony’s. What smartphones make the best photos on the market? Definitely not Sony’s. Although the Japanese create the best cameras on the market, they can't afford also creating software that will be able to use their capabilities in their own devices.
Numerology, or creative benchmarking
Comparisons, bars, boards, and charts... this is often the proving ground for hardware manufacturers, the arena on which they meet their opposition face-to-face. Things are no different in the case of Intel and AMD. In what respects do these companies like to compare each other and what are they most afraid of?
Intel is confident in the field of video game performance; the 9th generation processors fare a lot better than the Ryzen. But if we consider desktop applications that stress multiple cores, AMD will usually come out on top.
What benchmarks to use? This is one of the eternal questions of the market. AMD always boasts of the results achieved in Cinebench, which promotes multiple cores and processor threads. Similarly, Intel prefers comparisons in the field of utility applications, where it customarily fares better. Things are similar in server solutions. Despite the upcoming competition from AMD Rome processors, Intel believes that better cache and smaller memory delays will allow Xeon processors to overcome the opponent.
