Could Intel vs AMD Become Newsworthy Again?

It’s never wise to bet against Intel in the x86 business – they’ve bounded out of apparently tight spots many times before.

But an article by EnerTuition points out how vulnerable Intel is to a challenge in x86.

An EnerTuition graphic states that $48 billion of Intel’s $59 billion revenues last year came from x86 in PCs and data centres and almost all the profits came from x86.

EnerTuition then goes on to point out that AMD’s x86 offering at 14nm is competitive with Intel’s in performance, has a smaller die size, that AMD can live with 40% margins while Intel needs 60% and that AMD will tape out CPUs on 7nm this year.

It also says that the top five PC OEMs will all have an AMD-based PC offering in Q2.

Well we’ve been here before. After AMD bought NexGen in the mid-90s it had a better x86 line-up than Intel’s but Intel still beat AMD in the market with a series of dirty tricks which were entertainingly spelt out in the EU’s 2009 anti-trust judgment against Intel.

Could Intel really have snoozed on the job to the extent it can’t compete with AMD in processor performance?

Does Intel really have nothing up its sleeve to combat this AMD resurgence?.

Who knows?

The good news is that Intel vs AMD in x86 is news once again.