News Bill Gates says Intel has lost its way, hints that 'brave' Pat Gelsinger exited too soon

[DS426]

I too am still optimistic about Intel. I just saw KitGuru's rereview of Arrow Lake and the small gain in efficiency over Raptor Lake is pretty striking considering 7nm DUV vs N3B EUV. 18A could be a leap in efficiency that will be somewhat masked by Intel's insistence on the highest possible clocks no matter how far outside the efficiency range they go.

Yes, you do seem to be very optimistic about Intel. 😛

Intel can afford to dial back the voltage and core clock curves when they don't need the peak performance to compete with AMD; therefore, yes -- when enough efficiency is gained in the architecture and the node, there's enough IPC gained to reign in Intel's thirsty CPUs problem.

Personally, I think 18A will be technically great but may still suffer on the margins front from relatively high defect rates compared to TSMC and perhaps Samsung. If Intel can sufficiently clean that up as 18A ramps, *AND* pivot toward 14A on schedule and with sufficient defect rates as well, Intel will be back in the running. Lastly, a lot of it could even depend on who they hire as the next CEO; this person requires an interesting balance of technical aptitude and business savvy.