Relevant quote:
"AMD said its upcoming Zen x86 core fits into a 10 percent smaller die area than Intel’s currently shipping second-generation 14nm processor. Analysts and even Intel engineers in the session said the Zen core is clearly competitive though many confidential variables will determine whether the die advantage translates into lower cost for AMD."
We need to compare apples to apples. AMD's Zen chips have no IGP, while most Intel chips are shipping with an Intel GPU.
If you look at an Intel die shot, about half of the area is taken by the GPU. [0]
Since the current batch of Zen SKUs lacks any IGP, I'd be worried if they weren't able to come up with a die that's smaller than Intel's with an IGP...
[0] https://www.techpowerup.com/215333/intel-skylake-die-layout-...
Thanks, this wasn't obvious from the linked article.
* Cloud computing has an absurd market cap.[1]
* Ryzen has some features that specifically target cloud computing:
* * More PCIe lanes than a Xeon. These are basically useless for desktop/gaming (as SLI doesn't scale beyond 2 cards). This shines for cloud computing because you can fit more GPUs in a blade. There's also ML to consider.
* * Virtualization security features. The chip can automatically encrypt pages, mitigating some of the virtualization attacks that we have seen recently.
* * More compute per watt. Cost is nice to have (which Ryzen has), but cooling is one of the main concerns when selecting chips for high density.
Intel's brand power is a waste of time and money to compete with. Unless AMD can sort something out with Apple (for example), Intel are going to continue dominating the desktop market - irrespective of which chip is actually superior. It's incredibly likely that only enthusiasts would buy a Ryzen - who AMD has catered for with XFR. Essentially, ignoring IGP is likely a strategic decision because it's irrelevant for the markets that AMD can easily attack.
[1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2015/06/18/byron-deet...
Guess you weren't around in the days of Quad VooDoo 2 GPU rigs. They most certainly did scale. nVidia and AMD's implementation? Nope. They screwed the pooch with that one and will never recover until they learn that the older way was indeed better.
[1]: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/diamond-monster-3d-ii,52...
And if your dataset or code is GPU-capable, then no, SLI is quite useful here.
"Only matters for gaming" Yea, as if there weren't a bunch of other datasets that could utilize matrix acceleration.
Sounds totally irrelevant.
Here's what this means. Intel has about 10% advantage in process technology. Yet despite that, AMD's chip is still 10% smaller than Intel's chip. That gives AMD an effective 20% architectural advantage over Intel for similar performance. This is why Intel is now scrambling to "streamline" its architecture as soon as possible (but won't be able to do it for the next 3 years or so).
A smaller, more "efficient" chip (in terms of performance/die area) means AMD can sell it significantly cheaper and still make as much profit as Intel does on that chip. But from the looks of it, AMD is going to price its equivalent chips at around half or less of Intel's chips, which will make AMD chips a complete no-brainer.
Add to this the fact that Intel will begin to make Xeons rather than its mainstream chips on new process nodes, at first, which means a delay of 6-12 months for the mainstream chips using Intel's latest process technology, and AMD looks to have a tremendous opportunity to steal a ton of market share from Intel over the next few years.
No, the conclusion you should be drawing is "AMD is using ~20% less transistors per core. What did AMD not implement that Intel did and how badly does that hurt Ryzen's performance?"
It is probably a good call on AMD part though, as applications that are sensitive to AVX performance are still rare and if they can get a cheaper core which is faster on integer loads it is a good tradeoff.
The key is the "similar performance" part.
Intel can just as well sacrifice 10% of their die too and get the same, or better, performance as AMD.
Does it make sense? No. Does it make AMD's chip in any way better? Only if it's smaller AND faster / more efficient (which it is not). And even if it was, it would only matter if AMD could sustain it -- which it hasn't proven it can.
Besides that, a smaller area is also good for yield (% of chips that test out OK out of all fab'ed, in case random defects occur in any of the many processing steps.)