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https://www.anandtech.com/show/15747/in ... ng-quarter

In previous quarters their margins dipped below 60 percent, which seemed to be evidence that AMD was affecting them. But now, they're back up above 60 percent margins.

I have to say I'm pretty surprised. I would have thought that AMD would have high enough Epyc sales by now that it could be seen in Intel's numbers. Is there a technological reason that people are still preferring Intel over AMD, or is this market inertia (for example, are there not enough vendors selling Epic-Based servers, not enough models, etc?) ?

As the article notes, they likely had a one-time bump in sales due to companies re-tooling their IT infrastructure to support more remote workers because of COVID-19.

You've also got the laggards who are just now finishing their upgrades to new hardware with Windows 10 and getting off of old Windows 7 systems.

Poor AMD. They will need to keep up their stellar performance for a few more years to win mindshare back from Intel.

Remember, too, that laptops account for a stupidly high percentage of business sales, and AMD's dominating Ryzen 4000 mobile APUs just appeared at the end of the 1st quarter.

Igor_Kavinski wrote:

Poor AMD. They will need to keep up their stellar performance for a few more years to win mindshare back from Intel.

They spent years in the wilderness because they screwed up. You don't convince an entire industry to change direction overnight.

Intel already screwed-up royalty as of late with whole Meltdown/Spectre issues. The damage is beginning to sink in.

Krogoth wrote:

Intel already screwed-up royalty as of late with whole Meltdown/Spectre issues. The damage is beginning to sink in.

Yes, but they are entrenched enough that AMD will need to continue to execute flawlessly, and Intel will need to continue to stumble, if AMD is to take a dominant position. The odds are not high that both of those things will happen long term. Intel also has a broader product portfolio than AMD (their product line also includes FPGAs, SSDs, wired and wireless networking).

Maybe if Waco convinced his bosses to go AMD exclusive...

Igor_Kavinski wrote:

Maybe if Waco convinced his bosses to go AMD exclusive...

HPC's a bit niche. But yeah, AMD has been getting some design wins there lately. Cray is using Epyc CPUs these days.

just brew it! wrote:

Krogoth wrote:

Intel already screwed-up royalty as of late with whole Meltdown/Spectre issues. The damage is beginning to sink in.

Yes, but they are entrenched enough that AMD will need to continue to execute flawlessly, and Intel will need to continue to stumble, if AMD is to take a dominant position. The odds are not high that both of those things will happen long term. Intel also has a broader product portfolio than AMD (their product line also includes FPGAs, SSDs, wired and wireless networking).

IMO, Intel's saving grace in the SMB/Enterprise space is probably be their solid-state media. Ironically, driving AMD CPUs and platforms (loaded with I/O bandwidth) even if they can't take advantage of Optane (Unless Intel decides to cross-license it, hell would be close to absolute zero).

Krogoth wrote:

Intel already screwed-up royalty as of late with whole Meltdown/Spectre issues. The damage is beginning to sink in.

Thing is, if that were true you would expect Data Center to be down. Instead it's up by 43%.

As much as internet commenters want to believe side channel vulns are going to be the end of the hegemony, so far the revenue numbers aren't showing it.

K-L-Waster wrote:

Krogoth wrote:

Intel already screwed-up royalty as of late with whole Meltdown/Spectre issues. The damage is beginning to sink in.

Thing is, if that were true you would expect Data Center to be down. Instead it's up by 43%.

As much as internet commenters want to believe side channel vulns are going to be the end of the hegemony, so far the revenue numbers aren't showing it.

That's what I'm wondering about -- why is datacenter up 43%? Does datacenter love optane + AVX512? What else, technologically speaking, does Intel have going for them?

blastdoor wrote:

That's what I'm wondering about -- why is datacenter up 43%? Does datacenter love optane + AVX512? What else, technologically speaking, does Intel have going for them?

Data center admins/decison makers who don't want to get fired for skipping Intel and going with AMD because they are not sure if AMD is as good as Intel in the enterprise space. I tried to get our servers to be Opteron based back in 2015. My arguments fell on deaf ears. The hardware vendor we normally dealt with made us go with Dell VRTX servers and he probably made enough that the very next month, he took his whole family for a trip to Europe. I kid you not. My managing director wished him well Some people have a natural talent for sucking you dry while still earning your heartfelt gratitude.

TBF 2015 was a terrible time to switch to Opteron. Bulldozer and its derivatives were on their last legs, and they weren't particularly competitive even when they were new several years prior. Your managing director made the right call there.

blastdoor wrote:

K-L-Waster wrote:

Krogoth wrote:

Intel already screwed-up royalty as of late with whole Meltdown/Spectre issues. The damage is beginning to sink in.

Thing is, if that were true you would expect Data Center to be down. Instead it's up by 43%.

As much as internet commenters want to believe side channel vulns are going to be the end of the hegemony, so far the revenue numbers aren't showing it.

That's what I'm wondering about -- why is datacenter up 43%? Does datacenter love optane + AVX512? What else, technologically speaking, does Intel have going for them?

I'm going to guess the hurdles involved in getting AMD approved for use are harder to get over than simply ordering enough extra CPUs to cover the losses from mitigations.

In order for AMD to make inroads, first they have to convince the technical people in IT, then they have to convince the pointy-haired-bosses in IT, then they have to convince the bosses two levels up who don't even know how to spell CPU, and then they have to convince the accountants and the lawyers.

K-L-Waster wrote:

blastdoor wrote:

K-L-Waster wrote:

Thing is, if that were true you would expect Data Center to be down. Instead it's up by 43%.

As much as internet commenters want to believe side channel vulns are going to be the end of the hegemony, so far the revenue numbers aren't showing it.

That's what I'm wondering about -- why is datacenter up 43%? Does datacenter love optane + AVX512? What else, technologically speaking, does Intel have going for them?

I'm going to guess the hurdles involved in getting AMD approved for use are harder to get over than simply ordering enough extra CPUs to cover the losses from mitigations.

In order for AMD to make inroads, first they have to convince the technical people in IT, then they have to convince the pointy-haired-bosses in IT, then they have to convince the bosses two levels up who don't even know how to spell CPU, and then they have to convince the accountants and the lawyers.

Good points. It puts in mind the success RIM had after the iPhone was introduced. For a while, you'd have thought RIM had nothing to worry about. Then one day the bottom dropped out.