The central theses
- At the peak of its career in 2014, Intel had the best CPU with cheaper competition from AMD, but now Intel is battling falling stock prices in 2024.
- AMD's 3D V-Cache benefits gamers, whereas Intel's CPUs struggle with stability issues and high power consumption and are therefore criticized for their price-performance ratio.
- Despite the current challenges, Intel is aiming for an exciting future with Lunar Lake and potential 20A production to make an industry-leading comeback.
The year is 2014. Intel has just announced its Devil's Canyon CPUs as a refresh of its Haswell architecture. The best CPU on the market is the Intel Core i7-4790K, and the best AMD has to offer is the AMD FX-8350. AMD is still far behind what Intel has to offer, but AMD also offers a much cheaper CPU with comparable multi-threaded performance.
For years, Intel was able to maintain its market dominance, but 2014 was arguably the year the company reached its peak, at least in terms of market share. Intel still followed its “tick-tock” strategy, where a “tick” meant a downsizing of the manufacturing process and other improvements, while a “tock” meant the introduction of a new microarchitecture. Intel later changed this.
Fast forward to 2024: Intel is in dire straits. The company's CEO recently (and oddly) posted prayers on X while the stock price is falling, dividends are being canceled, and mass layoffs are taking place. Intel is in an almost unrecognizable state, but how did we get here?
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Intel's current status in 2024
Falling stock prices and failed CPUs
Intel has really been struggling lately, but the last year has arguably been the worst for the company. While its commitment to its plan to achieve process parity in the near future is exemplary, things aren't going much better for Intel at the moment. The 14th generation CPUs were praised for their low power consumption, but things have gotten even worse with massive stability issues plaguing the Core i9 series in particular. And it turns out the same issues are affecting the 13th generation as well.
To illustrate how bad things are going for Intel right now, even without stability issues, peak powers well over 300W can be achieved. You'll see significantly lower peaks than the equivalent AMD models, although Intel has multi-threading efficiency on its side with reduced power limits. However, AMD has managed to gain considerable traction among gamers with its 3D V-Cache, which offers significant performance benefits and reduced 1% lows in many titles.
Things get even worse for Intel when it comes to the price/performance ratio of its CPUs. AMD continues to support its AM4 platform with new versions to this day, and AM4 was introduced in September 2016. With an Intel CPU, you usually get two generations at once. the mostcertainly not nearly as long as the seven-plus years AMD offers consumers. While AM5 offers a number of benefits (new technologies like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0), consumers are more price-conscious than ever. This means upgrading your motherboard is a lot less common, and can be significantly more cost-effective.
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Intel's future looks uncertain
Things could get better
Intel is currently in a difficult situation, but things could 2025. The company says Lunar Lake will “bust the myth” that Arm is more efficient than x86, which is a bold claim in itself. In addition, Lunar Lake appears to be outsourced entirely to TSMC, while Arrow Lake, Intel's 15th generation, is set to be produced on Intel 20A. This would be equivalent to a comparable 2nm manufacturing process at TSMC or Samsung.
In the case of Intel 20A, not only Arrow Lake is being introduced, but also the company's PowerVia and RIbbonFET, where RibbonFET is simply another name (assigned by Intel) for a Gate All Around Field-Effect Transistor, or GAAFET. TSMC is moving to GAAFET for its 2nm N2 node, while Samsung is moving to it with its 3nm 3GAE process node.
What makes PowerVia unique is that it allows for rear-side power delivery throughout the chip, separating and optimizing signal and power wires. Front-side power delivery, the current industry standard, has a lot of potential for bottlenecks due to space and can also cause issues such as power integrity and signal interference. PowerVia separates signal and power lines, which theoretically results in better power delivery.
If Intel 20A performs as well as it looks, and RibbonFET and PowerVia are as industry-leading as they appear, Intel could make an incredible comeback. As it stands now, however, the company's market position is unrecognizable from a decade ago. Intel still has a significant market share, but it is slowly declining, and with AMD cementing its lead over Intel in most workloads while maintaining a lower price and lower power consumption, the CPU race has never been more exciting.
We're excited to see if Intel can backtrack, as this is not only good for Intel, but also for consumers. I hope the company's claims about Lunar Lake are true, and with Arrow Lake potentially shaking up the industry if it launches successfully, the CPU world may be in for something exciting.
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