> Is it too good to be true?
It might just not last long enough. Athlon64/X2 also totally destroyed Intel but Core architecture arrived before AMD was able to grab more market share.
It might just not last long enough. Athlon64/X2 also totally destroyed Intel but Core architecture arrived before AMD was able to grab more market share.
One of those offers costed them $1.25B more than they expected but was totally worth it.
For example, Intel gets a lot of money but also "gives" a lot of money in the form of "incentives" / tip / kickbacks to a lot of hardware manufacturers and the usual palm grease to an army of managers, execs, tech "journalists", governments, etc.
To be noted, they also have been competent enough making chips most of the time.
That's hard to do when your R&D budget is shattered. Intel was fined for far less money than they caused damage to AMD.
What Intel needs to be careful about is while they fend off AMDs attacks in desktop/server also need to keep an eye on ARM coming after them on mobile. How long until Linux based Chromebooks come with Qualcomm CPUs like 7cx become standard? The chips are better than Intels low TDP offerings so long as they don't have to emulate x86_64. They could spend all their money on a phyrric victory crushing AMD only to lose a different market.
It's a tough job being king with upstarts always after your neck.
Nowaday computing culture has shifted, new brands, new idioms and devices .. intel is a beast for those in the knowings of silicon processors but for the market .. a lot less than before (samsung, apple, exist now )
That is not 100% accurate. First being Athlon 64 didn't destroy Intel. It was good, but businesses were still buying Intel for stability reason. AMD's chipset at the time, were no where as good as Intel, especially in the I/O speed. The WinTel Alliance meant all the software, from library to compiler were optimise for Intel.
Now the market is multiple times bigger, we have many Open Sources alternatives, like LLVM and GCC, the Web Stack are mainly open sources meant optimisation is a lot easier. I/O and Chipset are no longer a problem due to maturing IP selection from Multiple vendors. No longer will AMD has to do it all by themselves. The magic of Licensing IP and Pure Play Foundry. And Nadella Microsoft is an entirely different Microsoft than 20 years ago.
Finally it wasn't necessary the Core architecture that killed AMD, AMD went downhill with Bulldozer design and lots of execution problem. Basically they have their own moment of Pentium 4, except when Intel had the resources for a backup plan ( Core ) and able to sustain losses while they figure it out, AMD had nothing. It took them nearly 15 years to get out of it.