Intel CEO Bracing For EPYC Impact, Goal To Keep AMD Under 20% Market Share

[PaulAlcorn]

Intel's braces for AMD's impact in the server market with the goal to keep AMD's share under 20%.

Intel CEO Bracing For EPYC Impact, Goal To Keep AMD Under 20% Market Share : Read more

 

[fball922]

These are horrible optics for Intel. That the company that did some shady things to stop AMD's encroachment into the market in the Athlon64 days is saying it is "their job to stop AMD" when they won't have a response in the short term should raise some eyebrows.

 

[hellwig]

Yeah, it's not Intel's job to stop AMD from getting more than 20% market share. It's Intel's job to release a competitive product at a competitive price, and let the market decide.

The last time Intel saw AMD as a threat, did they increase the value of their offerings? Nope, they paid major OEMs to simply NOT sell AMD. AMD made $1.8billion when they agreed to drop the lawsuits last time. I imagine Intel won't get off so "easy" if they start doing that again.

 

[bennie101]

You know I am niether Intel or Amd but I do hope that AMD knocks the crap out of intel... Why all the shady stuff they have done to amd over the years and when amd wasnt a threat they charged what ever price they demanded for there cpus.. I paid twice the price for a I5 4690K then I did for a AMD 8320 AND you know there was a difference but not enough to charge twice the price... Even back in the old pentium days I paid 429 bucks for a pentium 166mhz with mmx ... Thank goodness AMD was around a bit later as I bought a k-6 and I dont think I ever spent over 100 bucks for it. Needless to say intel needs this they have bullied everyone for far too long so have MS and alot of other companys ..

 

[rantoc]

Competition is good for us, lower prices for better products. Not the old broken down where Intel was alone on the top - that resulted in higher prices for worse products (ipc since SB anyone?).

I hope AMD takes half the market-share so the two competes on product merits and price while the desktop/gpu reaps the benefits from the money earned.

Simply put we need AMD to compete with intel/nvidia to get better stuff for fair prices.

 

[george.fontano]

This is getting very exciting.

 

[jimmysmitty]

These are horrible optics for Intel. That the company that did some shady things to stop AMD's encroachment into the market in the Athlon64 days is saying it is "their job to stop AMD" when they won't have a response in the short term should raise some eyebrows.

It is their job though. Intels job is to sell the most they can and gain the most market share they can. It is also AMDs job to do the same. Of course with competitive products/platforms. The thing is that in servers there is more to it than just the CPU.

Yeah, it's not Intel's job to stop AMD from getting more than 20% market share. It's Intel's job to release a competitive product at a competitive price, and let the market decide.

The last time Intel saw AMD as a threat, did they increase the value of their offerings? Nope, they paid major OEMs to simply NOT sell AMD. AMD made $1.8billion when they agreed to drop the lawsuits last time. I imagine Intel won't get off so "easy" if they start doing that again.

They didn't "pay" OEMs. They offered discounted prices for Intel products with an exclusivity contract. Not actually illegal since plenty of companies partake in these practices (hence why McDonalds only sells Coke products and no Pepsi products).

The price paid was $1.25 Billion to settle the suits which is what any company would do instead of dragging them out for years costing more in legal fees and possibly higher settlement/fines.

I don't see Intel doing anything like before since they have been fined for it. To be fair AMD has not had a competitive server CPU for some time.

You know I am niether Intel or Amd but I do hope that AMD knocks the crap out of intel... Why all the shady stuff they have done to amd over the years and when amd wasnt a threat they charged what ever price they demanded for there cpus.. I paid twice the price for a I5 4690K then I did for a AMD 8320 AND you know there was a difference but not enough to charge twice the price... Even back in the old pentium days I paid 429 bucks for a pentium 166mhz with mmx ... Thank goodness AMD was around a bit later as I bought a k-6 and I dont think I ever spent over 100 bucks for it. Needless to say intel needs this they have bullied everyone for far too long so have MS and alot of other companys ..

Pricing is based on competition and demand. The i5s were around $280-$300 always and AMD had no stiff competition to cause Intel to back down. That's how it works with every product. Apple constantly charges more for inferior products because people blindly buy them. People pay $160 for Apples AirPods even though there are superior wireless (and vastly superior wired) headphones for that price range. People pay it because that's the demand.

That said, AMD is just as guilty of taking advantage of pricing when they can. When they had the better CPU in Athlon 64 they priced accordingly. They were not a budget chip and they shouldn't be if they can demand the price.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

They didn't "pay" OEMs. They offered discounted prices for Intel products with an exclusivity contract. Not actually illegal since plenty of companies partake in these practices (hence why McDonalds only sells Coke products and no Pepsi products).

Intel did pay OEMs for the exclusivity, unlike what happens at a soda fountain.

Article A

from at least 2003 to 2006 Dell received massive, undisclosed, end-of-quarter rebate payments from Intel in exchange for Dell's agreement not to ship any computers using microprocessors made by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The payments were allegedly never less than $100 million per quarter and, in at least one year, totaled about $1 billion.

Article B

In its original antitrust filing, AMD noted that it tried to give HP a million free processors at one point, only to be told that HP was so dependent on Intel rebates, it couldn’t afford to take them.

Article C

Intel also made direct payments to three manufacturers (HP, Acer, and Lenovo) to stop or delay the launch of specific products of its competitor, AMD, and to limit the sales channels available to AMD.

 

[deesider]

They didn't "pay" OEMs. They offered discounted prices for Intel products with an exclusivity contract. Not actually illegal since plenty of companies partake in these practices (hence why McDonalds only sells Coke products and no Pepsi products).

The price paid was $1.25 Billion to settle the suits which is what any company would do instead of dragging them out for years costing more in legal fees and possibly higher settlement/fines.

I don't see Intel doing anything like before since they have been fined for it. To be fair AMD has not had a competitive server CPU for some time.

Anti-competitive behaviour is illegal when one company has a dominant share of the market - since the power to control pricing can lead to eliminating all competition and establishing a monopoly. This is the main point of antitrust law.

- As you have already noted, they paid in case a trial resulted in a higher award, which would only occur if they were breaching the law. (Nobody pays over a billion dollars for lawyers)

They are also still appealing the $1.25 billion dollar antitrust fine that was issued by the EU eight years ago.

 

[akamateau]

AMD's recent runup and test of $16 is due to Intel's capitulation of server market share and the great unknown that the THATIC Joint Venture will have on AMD's bottom line.

Dhyana is coming and Chinese made servers will not just be sold in China!

 

[JamesSneed]

If AMD pulls of 7nm Zen 2 on the timelines they have publically shown Intel should be scared, very scared. This possibly will be the first time AMD is on a process advantage to Intel. I for one am pulling for AMD, not as some weird fan just so we can have another legitimate CPU player and to even out the landscape for better competition.

 

[Adam Shades]

Great news. Competition can only keep Intel "more honest" and the rest of us can finally stop getting so ripped off.
The buisness/server world must be twice as wrapped.

 

[AgentLozen]

This possibly will be the first time AMD is on a process advantage to Intel.

This is interesting because Intel fabs have always had a lead over their competition. Intel's technological edge came to a stand-still with 14nm. They've been tweaking the same production node for several years claiming that 10nm needs more time. What is so different about 10nm that Intel just can't seem to get there? TSMC (I think) is producing 12nm AMD chips and they have 7nm on the horizon. Samsung and Global Foundries are in a similar boat.

It seems like the high school's star athlete can't get over the wall, meanwhile the socially awkward, nerdy kids are blowing by him. Can anyone explain this?

 

[JamesSneed]

This possibly will be the first time AMD is on a process advantage to Intel.

This is interesting because Intel fabs have always had a lead over their competition. Intel's technological edge came to a stand-still with 14nm. They've been tweaking the same production node for several years claiming that 10nm needs more time. What is so different about 10nm that Intel just can't seem to get there? TSMC (I think) is producing 12nm AMD chips and they have 7nm on the horizon. Samsung and Global Foundries are in a similar boat.

It seems like the high school's star athlete can't get over the wall, meanwhile the socially awkward, nerdy kids are blowing by him. Can anyone explain this?

If I had to swag a guess I would say the 10nm process that Intel built isn't scaling up to high frequencies like there 14nm can. This is where GloFlo's buying out IBM's division that designed a process node around very high frequencies is going to shine. Just guessing of course but It seems to be the case if you look at how long 10nm is taking and what products Intel is able to produce on it so far.

 

[Groveling_Wyrm]

AMD pulled one off this time. Congrats to them.

However, if we take a look at history, we also know what Intel will soon be doing. Years ago, AMD got it right with the Athlon. Intel had to scramble.

When Intel got it together, their marketing department went nuts, their R&D went nuts, and AMD ended up with less than 10 percent of the market before they came up with something good again.

AMD isn't stupid either, now they are going for a broader market. Not just with PC CPU's, but now also server platforms. Good steps if they want to stay competitive. AMD still has obstacles in their way. Like....Intel.

Intel STILL has a massive R&D budget, that will top 15 BILLION...yes....with a B...in 2018 (Roughly 21x what AMD's total worth is). They also have a massive marketing team, that is VERY good at what they do. So, Intel has exactly the same playbook and resources to beat AMD back to almost extinction, as they did 15 years ago.

I would be willing to wager that you hear a lot more Intel commercials on tv in the next few years. Have you noticed that Intel commercials have almost gone silent in the last few years, compared to before?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

@Groveling_Wyrm

Much of Intel's market share retention when the original Athlon CPUs launched was due to Intel buying market share and using market dominance to bully OEMs into refusing to use AMD's CPUs, not earning it through any sort of competition. It took Intel a few years before they were back to competing based on the merit of their products. Intel also used scummy compiler tricks to artificially hamper performance of code running on non-Intel CPUs when compiled with their software.

I hope this isn't the Intel playbook you're referring to.

 

[JamesSneed]

AMD pulled one off this time. Congrats to them.

However, if we take a look at history, we also know what Intel will soon be doing. Years ago, AMD got it right with the Athlon. Intel had to scramble.

When Intel got it together, their marketing department went nuts, their R&D went nuts, and AMD ended up with less than 10 percent of the market before they came up with something good again.

AMD isn't stupid either, now they are going for a broader market. Not just with PC CPU's, but now also server platforms. Good steps if they want to stay competitive. AMD still has obstacles in their way. Like....Intel.

Intel STILL has a massive R&D budget, that will top 15 BILLION...yes....with a B...in 2018 (Roughly 21x what AMD's total worth is). They also have a massive marketing team, that is VERY good at what they do. So, Intel has exactly the same playbook and resources to beat AMD back to almost extinction, as they did 15 years ago.

I would be willing to wager that you hear a lot more Intel commercials on tv in the next few years. Have you noticed that Intel commercials have almost gone silent in the last few years, compared to before?

Everything you said is true but you did leave something out from the Athlon days. The last time this happened AMD couldn't even give CPU's to vendors. Recall they tried to give as in for free CPU's to HP but HP refused due to the contract with Intel. Intel was sending quarterly checks of 100's of millions to vendors for not selling AMD chips. This shouldn't happen again and the market is ripe for another CPU vendor in the server segment. Sure Intel is going to fight back but the days of AMD being shoved back to 10% market share is over.

A little guy can get one over Intel for a short while. Hopefully for AMD this lasts through all of 2019 once they have zen 2 out. I would love to see a CPU market share where AMD and Intel are close to even as this would be the most beneficial market for the consumer.

 

[Groveling_Wyrm]

AMD pulled one off this time. Congrats to them.

However, if we take a look at history, we also know what Intel will soon be doing. Years ago, AMD got it right with the Athlon. Intel had to scramble.

When Intel got it together, their marketing department went nuts, their R&D went nuts, and AMD ended up with less than 10 percent of the market before they came up with something good again.

AMD isn't stupid either, now they are going for a broader market. Not just with PC CPU's, but now also server platforms. Good steps if they want to stay competitive. AMD still has obstacles in their way. Like....Intel.

Intel STILL has a massive R&D budget, that will top 15 BILLION...yes....with a B...in 2018 (Roughly 21x what AMD's total worth is). They also have a massive marketing team, that is VERY good at what they do. So, Intel has exactly the same playbook and resources to beat AMD back to almost extinction, as they did 15 years ago.

I would be willing to wager that you hear a lot more Intel commercials on tv in the next few years. Have you noticed that Intel commercials have almost gone silent in the last few years, compared to before?

Everything you said is true but you did leave something out from the Athlon days. The last time this happened AMD couldn't even give CPU's to vendors. Recall they tried to give as in for free CPU's to HP but HP refused due to the contract with Intel. Intel was sending quarterly checks of 100's of millions to vendors for not selling AMD chips. This shouldn't happen again and the market is ripe for another CPU vendor in the server segment. Sure Intel is going to fight back but the days of AMD being shoved back to 10% market share is over.

A little guy can get one over Intel for a short while. Hopefully for AMD this lasts through all of 2019 once they have zen 2 out. I would love to see a CPU market share where AMD and Intel are close to even as this would be the most beneficial market for the consumer.

Another thing you might want to also consider. Intel has had years to plan for this eventuality. I don't expect them to repeat verbatim what they did last time, but a company that large has plans.

Another foreboding problem for AMD is more competition. AMD is pretty much the only competition that Intel has, currently. If another company enters the field, then there is less need for AMD. In this case, ARM IS entering the field. If Intel truly wants to hurt AMD, they could hurt AMD easily by flooding the market with their products for several years, at severely reduced prices, especially now that AMD is touting they have the better CPU (Which is legal). This would make it great for consumers, but bad for AMD. AMD would have to follow suit, lowering their prices, and it would drop any profits they make. AMD would then either have to cut back or go bankrupt. Again, it would be a case of AMD falling back below 10% marketshare, or worse. Intel would have competition from ARM, but AMD would be....not much to worry about.

Intel does realize that competition is good. Serious competition for them is....bad. They have the money to fix that problem.

In fact, I do predict, we will see Intel dropping prices to put more pressure on AMD. AMD is currently cash heavy, but for how long? They now have Intel and Nvidia pressing or soon to be pressing on them.

 

[Groveling_Wyrm]

@Groveling_Wyrm

Much of Intel's market share retention when the original Athlon CPUs launched was due to Intel buying market share and using market dominance to bully OEMs into refusing to use AMD's CPUs, not earning it through any sort of competition. It took Intel a few years before they were back to competing based on the merit of their products. Intel also used scummy compiler tricks to artificially hamper performance of code running on non-Intel CPUs when compiled with their software.

I hope this isn't the Intel playbook you're referring to.

I would hope it wouldn't be the same playbook, because the situation is also different. Intel now has a firm grip on the market. They have a large...very large...portion of the market, and not many people want to change from that. This benefits Intel. So, Intel doesn't have to do many marketshare modifications. Instead, they have to bide time.

Now, if Intel learned from AMD, they could follow the same suit that AMD has done. They could sell their "Inferior" products at a reduced, but competitive price, or just say heck with it, and flood the market so bad that AMD can't sell a product. Since Intel does have a better marketing department, they could easily drive AMD out of several markets, and hurting their bottom line. Call it role reversal until Intel gets it together and gets better products.

AMD currently has Zen and Vega. But development of further products requires money...massive money. And the more they research, the more expensive that research is. Then they also have to retool their fabs. Intel knows this, so if they provide pressure to keep AMD's profits down, then AMD won't have this money. Zen won't be around forever.

Intel has the money and can play the long cut-throat game. AMD can't do that for any length.

 

[wiyosaya]

Intel STILL has a massive R&D budget, that will top 15 BILLION...yes....with a B...in 2018 (Roughly 21x what AMD's total worth is). They also have a massive marketing team, that is VERY good at what they do. So, Intel has exactly the same playbook and resources to beat AMD back to almost extinction, as they did 15 years ago.

Research budget is not everything especially when Intel has been doing very little in terms of innovation in recent years even though they have had the budget to do otherwise.

Look how far AMD has come in the past couple years on a shoestring budget. Personally, I credit that to a fantastic management move - getting rid of technically clueless Rory Reed as CEO and hiring someone who has far more technical brain cells than Rory Reed can ever hope to have - Lisa Su.

Also, the infinity fabric interconnect was developed as an unfunded pet project of some AMD engineers.

I am not saying Intel is not at work right now trying to best AMD with some new CPU. Just that budget may not be as important as enthusiasm and technical leadership.

The main thing is that Intel cannot sit back and marvel at its self anymore. They have to innovate, and that is a good thing.

Besides, the unrealistic 28-core 5-GHz fiasco Intel just tried to pull makes me think that Intel is worried, and they should be since AMD has returned to the fight.

 

[akamateau]

Who here believes that Krazanich was fired for a past relationship with an Intel employee? Why was he being investigated?

It couldn't be that he dumped some stock and then announced a huge market share loss to Baba Yaga (AMD).