How Chip Giant AMD Finally Caught Intel

[Purgatory]

How Chip Giant AMD Finally Caught Intel​

Chapters:
1:51 Making chips
4:01 Going fabless
5:37 Catching Intel
8:17 Geopolitics and PC slump
10:51 Diversification

Chip giant Advanced Micro Devices made history this year when it surpassed Intel by market cap for the first time ever. Intel has long held the lead in the market for computer processors, but AMD’s been on the rise since it acquired adaptive chip company Xilinx in February for $49 billion. Now, AMD chips are in two Tesla models, NASA’s Mars Perseverance land rover, 5G cell towers and the world’s fastest supercomputer. CNBC sat down with CEO Lisa Su to hear about AMD’s remarkable comeback, huge bets on new types of chips in the face of a PC slump, new restrictions on exports to China, and shifting industry trends.

Produced by: Katie Tarasov
Edited by: Dain Evans
Additional Camera: Andrew Evers, Lucas Mulliki, Jeniece Pettitt, Maarten van Rouveroy
Supervising Producer: Jeniece Pettitt
Graphics by: Mallory Brangan, Christina Locopo

 

[Hagar]

And consumers like me who have had an AMD desktop since 1993.

Not the same one mind.

 

[humbug]

For reference at the time of writing this Intel's market cap currently stands at $125 Billion, AMD's currently stands at $142 Billion.

 

[jigger]

For reference at the time of writing this Intel's market cap currently stands at $125 Billion, AMD's currently stands at $142 Billion.

Madness, although I think both firms are currently under valued. AMD has huge potential for growth.

 

[humbug]

Madness, although I think both firms are currently under valued. AMD has huge potential for growth.

Yeah

Intel has been on a constant downward trend for as long as AMD have been recovering, but during AMD's recovery they have been up and down, they are currently down, they peaked at almost $200 Billion but didn't quite round that number.

While on the face of it this might seem utterly mad given Intel's market share, it actually isn't, AMD's gross margins are over 50%, that's healthy, Intel's at a bit over 30%, that's not healthy at all, AMD was going bust with margins like that.

Intel as a business right now are not making any money, on top that they have spent that giant cash stash they used to boast about trying to hold not just AMD but also ARM down, and now its all gone, its AMD now with the big cash stash.

 

[Jamin280672]

Its quite surprising really, because its not really mentioned in the video the path of what happened, AMD took the lead with the first x64 Athlon CPU's which were amazing chips, they had a exposed core with no IHS and ran super cool, I think intel had Prescot which were super toasters.

The last AMD chip I had before Ryzen was an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and then Intel came through with the Core series of chips, everything pretty much went downhill for AMD after that, Intel were full steam ahead with Core based chips whilst AMD were struggling along with things like Bulldozer and Phenom which nearly sent them bust.

AMD then hired Jim Keller, locked him away in a room and told him theres no limit on budget, use whatever money you want, and he basically designed the Zen core, which was make or break for AMD, thank god it was make, if it was break we would only have Intel left to do whatever they want with the market and charge whatever they want.

 

[humbug]

Its quite surprising really, because its not really mentioned in the video the path of what happened, AMD took the lead with the first x64 Athlon CPU's which were amazing chips, they had a exposed core with no IHS and ran super cool, I think intel had Prescot which were super toasters.

The last AMD chip I had before Ryzen was an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and then Intel came through with the Core series of chips, everything pretty much went downhill for AMD after that, Intel were full steam ahead with Core based chips whilst AMD were struggling along with things like Bulldozer and Phenom which nearly sent them bust.

AMD then hired Jim Keller, locked him away in a room and told him theres no limit on budget, use whatever money you want, and he basically designed the Zen core, which was make or break for AMD, thank god it was make, if it was break we would only have Intel left to do whatever they want with the market and charge whatever they want.

Prescott was what made me try out these other CPU's from these AMD people, moved from a Pentium III to a Skt 478 Pentium 4 HT 3.2Ghz to an Athlon 3800+because i didn't like it

Now i don't know if that CPU was just so brilliantly good or the Pentium 4 so bad, but night and day didn't does not cover it when describing the difference. the desktop was very much smoother, snappier, it ran very much cooler, the CPU felt like it was very chill and comfortable, compared to the P4 which always felt like it was on the brink of having a stroke it was so highly strung.

Beautiful CPU.

 

[DavidTJ]

It's really good for AMD but I think also for us as customers. When I last built a gaming rig the i7920 or the I5 were pretty much the only high end choices. Now Amd and Intel have some really competitive options at different price points. Though I am a bit concerned why motherboard pricing is so very high

 

[Gerard]

I missed out on the xp series of AMD, had a Pentium 4 northwood then presHOT at the time running at 4.2ghz! That was cooled by a corsair hydrocool which was corsairs very clunky first offering into the watercooling business, though it worked pretty well.

 

[jigger]

It would be interesting to know how close AMD are to matching Intels and Nvidia’s R&D budgets.