[SOLVED] Question: Can Alder Lake save Intel?

[Endre]

Hello guys!

I’m a PC enthusiast for quite some time.
Until mid-2019 I’ve been an Intel “fan-boy”.
But Intel started to lose their marketshare to AMD (and ARM).

The next great platform from Intel that should get us all excited is the Alder Lake CPUs, on 10nm, with PCIe 4.0 / 5.0, and DDR5.

What do you guys think?
Is Intel going to re-take their crown as the best CPU manufacturer in 2022, or is it too little, too late for them?

 

[drea.drechsler]

I'm going to say your premise is unfounded: Intel hardly needs 'saving'. Go check out it's financials: they're turning a nice profit every quarter and expanding into new markets even as they decide to exit others. The stock remains a worthy "blue-chip" addition to any well-rounded investment portfolio.

In so far as their CPU's go I think they're perfectly competitive as it is even with the embarrassment of 11th gen. AMD has a performance lead that's slim at best and only in certain areas. All that's really happening is Intel will lose some of their out-sized market share, but that's a very good thing for everybody in the end. I'm sure Intel has sufficient astute management that they'll be able to handle that necessary adjustments as AMD (and possibly Nvidia, it appears) gains share.

The worst thing they could do (for enthusiasts) is return to their old ways of anti-competitive business practices. The second-worst thing is try to make some kind of science-fiction leap into tomorrow-land to try and regain a performance margin on the order of what existed in 2015-2016 era. You have to hope for your competitor to make a mis-step for that sort of performance gap to open up, as it did with AMD's FX CPU's, and that's not in Intel's control.

And as far as Alder lake goes: it may be interesting and a definite improvement but AMD's got Zen 4 and a new socket coming too. Rumors are very good for a significant performance uplift against Zen 3 and one thing that's been apparent ever since Zen 1 is the leaks and claims coming out of Texas have not been all that far wrong. I expect competitiveness to continue and any performance lead to be minor at best. That's great for us all...and Intel still won't need saving either.

 

[Endre]

I'm going to say your premise is unfounded: Intel hardly needs 'saving'. Go check out it's financials: they're turning a nice profit every quarter and expanding into new markets even as they decide to exit others. The stock remains a worthy "blue-chip" addition to any well-rounded investment portfolio.

In so far as their CPU's go I think they're perfectly competitive as it is even with the embarrassment of 11th gen. AMD has a performance lead that's slim at best and only in certain areas. All that's really happening is Intel will lose some of their out-sized market share, but that's a very good thing for everybody in the end. I'm sure Intel has sufficient astute management that they'll be able to handle that necessary adjustments as AMD (and possibly Nvidia, it appears) gains share.

The worst thing they could do (for enthusiasts) is return to their old ways of anti-competitive business practices. The second-worst thing is try to make some kind of science-fiction leap into tomorrow-land to try and regain a performance margin on the order of what existed in 2015-2016 era. You have to hope for your competitor to make a mis-step for that sort of performance gap to open up, as it did with AMD's FX CPU's, and that's not in Intel's control.

And as far as Alder lake goes: it may be interesting and a definite improvement but AMD's got Zen 4 and a new socket coming too. Rumors are very good for a significant performance uplift against Zen 3 and one thing that's been apparent ever since Zen 1 is the leaks and claims coming out of Texas have not been all that far wrong. I expect competitiveness to continue and any performance lead to be minor at best. That's great for us all...and Intel still won't need saving either.

I think that Intel’s biggest issues are going to hit them hard in the future, in terms of their brand value.

In the past, the idea was that “if you don’t have enough money, buy AMD!”
But that paradigm is changing!
PC enthusiasts know that AMD is the better brand right now, but “average Joe” buyers might still not know it.

But if Intel continues to lose in front of AMD, they’ll be in hot water in the next years. Because everyone will be aware that Intel is no longer “the king” in the game!

Not to mention that Apple stopped working with Intel!

 

[drea.drechsler]

I think that Intel’s biggest issues are going to hit them hard in the future, in terms of their brand value.

In the past, the idea was that “if you don’t have enough money, buy AMD!”
But that paradigm is changing!
PC enthusiasts know that AMD is the better brand right now, but “average Joe” buyers might still not know it.

But if Intel continues to lose in front of AMD, they’ll be in hot water in the next years. Because everyone will be aware that Intel is no longer “the king” in the game!

Not to mention that Apple stopped working with Intel!

If we, just for the sake of discussion, accept that AMD can retain a performance crown with an Alder Lake/Zen 4 matchup I think they will still have bigger problems. That's because they simply can't make enough CPU's since they don't control their means of production. They're focused on gaining market share in servers and OEM's right now so the DIY/enthusiast is suffering with outrageously priced scalped CPU's. That's not good for us and can't be good for AMD in the long run.

It's also important to consider as Intel brings their GPU aspirations to fruition. They may start out with TSMC, but they have the expertise and wherewithal (ignoring whatever internal fights might inhibit that of course) to bring their own production capacity to bear. If they can produce GPU's at will while both AMD and Nvidia continue to leave markets under- (or un-) served then they'll swamp the market even if they're not the best simply because we can get them.

None of that means AMD...or Nvidia...will need 'saving' either. They could both continue profitably selling to servers, OEM's and miners, but what about us DIY/enthusiasts? are the rosy days of affordable GPU's and CPU's a thing of the past?

 

[LordVile]

Depends on how the market goes. The biggest concern for them is the scalability off Epyc on the enterprise side and the rise of ARM chips in that sector too. Those are deals worth tens to hundreds of millions that Intel needs to have a performance advantage in to regain status as the de facto supplier.