Also their network cards no longer work properly which is deeply aggravating as that used to be something I could rely on, just bought some realtek ones to work around the intel ones falling over.
We must live in different universes, then.
Intel's 140V competes with and often outperforms AMD's 890M, at around half the power consumption.[1]
Intel's B580 competes with AMD's RX 7600 and NVIDIA's RTX 4060, at a fraction of the price of the 4060.[2]
They're not doing so well with desktop and laptop CPUs, although their Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake CPUs are still decent performers within their segments. The upcoming Panther Lake architecture is promising to improve this.
If these are not the signs of competitive products, and that they're far from "circling the drain", then I don't know what is.
FWIW, I'm not familiar with the health of their business, and what it takes to produce these products. But from a consumer's standpoint, Intel hasn't been this strong since... the early 00s?
[1]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Radeon-890M-vs-Arc-140V_12524_...
[2]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Arc-B580-Benchmarks-and-...
The GPUs might be competitive on price, but that's about it. It's pretty much a hardware open beta.
Like I said, Intel may not be market leader in some segments, but they certainly have very competitive products. The fact they've managed to penetrate the dGPU duopoly, while also making huge strides with their iGPUs, is remarkable on its own. They're not leaders on desktops and servers, but still have respectable offerings there.
None of this points to a company that's struggling, but to a healthy market where the consumer benefits. News of two rivals collaborating like this is not positive for consumers.
>a company that's struggling, but to a healthy market where the consumer benefits
I would argue that the market is only marginally healthier than, say, 2018. Intel is absolutely struggling. The 13th and 14th generation were marred by degradation issues and the 15th generation is just "eh", with no real reason to pick it over Zen. The tables have simply flipped compared to seven years ago; AMD at least is not forcing consumers to change motherboards every two years.
And Intel doesn't even seem to care too much that they're losing relevance. One thing they could do is enable ECC on consumer chips like AMD did for the entire Ryzen lineup, but instead they prefer to keep their shitty market segmentation. Granted, I don't think it would move too many units, but it would at least be a sign of good will to enthusiasts.