Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

When AMD introduced its third-generation Zen 2 Ryzen processor earlier this year, Intel had to sweat. Its competitors developed an entirely new architecture that increased clock speed, core count, and instructions per clock, and guaranteed performance that was even comparable to Intel's CPU.

AMD's mainstream 12-core and 16-core Ryzen 9 3900x and 3950X CPUs then appeared, doubling the number of threads competing with the i9-9900 series chips. This threatens not only Intel's gaming market, but also its workstation space. To compete, Intel was forced to launch the Cascade Lake i9- 10980X for $999, half the price of the previous 9980XE model. Unfortunately for Intel, despite the $750 price tag, the 3950X was able to keep pace with the i9- 10980X in most tests.

AMD's latest 32-core 3970X and 24-core 3960X Threadripper processors are now receiving reviews, which is bad news for Intel. These HEDT chips outperform Intel's latest i9- 10980X CPU in video and 3D rendering. In addition, they even eliminated many Xeon processors from Intel high-end workstations. AMD hasn't released the 64-core Threadripper 3990X yet.

Intel is still leading in gaming, but that's about it. Is the market safe given AMD's progress and the recent Zen 3 launch? Let's discuss the state of this competition and how Intel will respond.

sharp increase

AMD has continued to evolve since it introduced Zen architecture three years ago. At the time, Intel's $1100 8-core i7-6900 seemed to have all the cores you needed. AMD, however, changed its target and launched the 8-core Ryzen 7 1800 at a much lower price of $499. Then there's the $999 Threadripper 1950X, which sells for no less than 16 cores.

Intel released the 18-core i9-7980XE, but for $1999, twice its price. Yes, it has a clear speed advantage over the Threadripper 1950X, but AMD has begun to close the CPU gap for multithreaded workstations, which is a critical and very profitable market for Intel.

With its Zen 1(second generation) Ryzen and Threadripper CPUs, AMD quickly changed the rules of the game again. At $1799, the 32-core Threadripper 2990X is almost as good as Intel's best workstation chips when they first launched, including the 28-core Xeon W-3175X, which costs $3000.

A few months later, Intel introduced the i9-9980XE for $2000. Compared to AMD's Threadripper or Ryzen 7 chips, its clock speed-sensitive tasks (such as Adobe Creative Suite and games) are still better choices, thanks to its stronger single-core performance and better memory architecture. However, due to the large number of cores, the 2990WX can retain its multithreaded rendering capabilities, leading the way in tile-based rendering schemes such as Blender.

AMD has every reason to feel confident when it launches the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X for $750. Some considerable improvements in architecture and clock speed make performance significantly better than the Core i9-9980XE, but at a price that is nearly one-third that of the Core I9-9980XE. In response, Intel introduced the 18-core Core i9-10980XE and halved the price to 1000.-- The dollar is impossible without competition, but it is far from enough.

AMD again answered the question for the 24-core and 32-core Threadripper 3960X and 3970X CPUs, priced at $1399 and $1999, respectively. These chips are considered competitive over the i9- 10980XE on clock speed-sensitive tasks, but easily top the list in rendering performance for multithreaded workstations, albeit at a significantly higher price.

In a short period of time, AMD has developed from 8 cores to 32 cores and from 14 nm to 7 nm. At the same time, AMD made significant architectural improvements to reduce IPC or instruction intervals per clock. It also improves the manufacturing techniques for "chiplets," a very efficient way to build multicore CPUs. At the same time, Intel continues to use cutting-edge 14nm technology in key gaming and workstation components and strives to remain competitive in the multicore space.

AMD took over the workstation.

AMD's new Threadripper chip poses a huge problem for Intel. Yes, they are more expensive than the consumer-oriented Core i9-10980XE, but Intel is now unrivalled in the HEDT market. The closest chip it has is the 28-core Xeon W-3275M, but its price has almost quadrupled to $7453. (Last year, the $3000 28-core W-3175X chip was the 3970X chip, which lagged far behind AMD's performance.)

Another big advantage AMD has is its new TRX40 platform for its latest HEDT chip. While it doesn't allow you to put new Threadripper chips into old Zen 1 motherboards, the new architecture has some big advantages for creators. It focuses on PCIe 4.0 support, which provides higher SSD speeds for 4K and 8K video editors. The new motherboard also has more PCIe slots, ECC memory (256GB) and USB 3.0 terminals.

Mouth.

In terms of performance, the Threadripper 3960X and 3970X chips beat the Core I.

9-10980XE Benchmarks in every workstation, even in single-threaded mode. Therefore, despite the higher chip price, the rendering performance per dollar is much higher.

When the Threadripper 3990X comes out in 2020, the equation may shift in the direction of AMD because the chip's single-core cost should be lower. This will help 3D animation and post-production facilities reduce costs as they will be able to get more rendering performance from a single workstation or render node.

Intel continues to win in gaming and mainstream computing (currently)

Intel's main gaming CPUs, such as the i9- 9900K and i9- 9900KS, outperform AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X by a considerable margin and cost less to boot. However, the consumer-oriented Ryzen 3600 and 3700 cost less than 9900K and are considered better than Intel's i7 and i5 products.

Almost every ideal high-end laptop comes with an Intel Core i9 or i7 chip and NVIDIA GTX or RTX graphics card. Why is that? Although AMD has closed the gap with its predecessor, Intel still has an advantage in overall clock speed. AMD, meanwhile, seems determined to make its chips attractive to both workstation and gaming users, offering a higher thread count than three comparable game-oriented chips such as the 3700. (Also, game performance is much more GPU dependent than CPU dependent, so nuances in CPU performance don't matter.)

When it comes to laptops, Intel leads the way with its massive eighth, ninth and tenth generation CPUS, all with built-in GPUs. A manufacturer switching from Intel to AMD takes a lot of work-you can't just replace CPUs because chipsets and other motherboard architectures need to change with them. Advanced IO like Thunderbolt is also a major differentiator for Intel. USB4 changes that. Unable to truly compete, AMD appears to be avoiding high-performance segments. Its laptop chips are second only to Intel in performance per watt, and there are few AMD CPUs with integrated graphics. However, with its Zen 3 7 nm + architecture, this could change. The AMD meltdown part doesn't seem too annoying either, if you will.

Intel also owns the mainstream laptop market, especially in the 15 to 25 watt CPU space, where you can find machines like the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Similarly, AMD will struggle to compete with the large number of parts Intel has on its eighth, ninth and tenth generation mobile platforms. Cracking the laptop market seems more like a matter of will than a lack of AMD's technical prowess. For now, it looks like it might be better to focus on higher-margin, higher-end segments.

what will happen

When Intel finally releases a full-fledged 10-nanometer gaming chip, it will undoubtedly change its relationship with AMD. From what we've seen so far, they'll provide a modest performance boost of about 10 percent while consuming less power.

That's enough to keep it ahead of the mainstream market, which is already dominant, and possibly even stay ahead of the game space (depending on what AMD does). What about the workstation? At this point, unless Intel can really deliver incredible results, it seems impossible to beat AMD in all the important per-dollar performance categories.

AMD, meanwhile, says its Zen 3 process is ready and will appear first on its Epyc server CPUs. It promises a "completely new" architecture based on manufacturing processes above 7 nanometers. This improves performance by about 15 percent and reduces power consumption accordingly. AMD will continue to increase core count, memory bandwidth and I / O connectivity.

Interestingly, AMD promises to continue its current " tick-tock" design cycle. This means that it will shrink the chip size in the " tick" cycle while changing the architecture on the " tock." Intel abandoned that strategy a few years ago and adopted a three-step approach instead.

wrap it up

None of this is good for Intel. Even if the 10-nanometer Ice Lake delivers the expected performance boost when it hits the market next year, the chip giant will soon enjoy it until AMD's Zen 3 4000 series chips arrive.

Because AMD is now leading the way in HEDT workstation performance, it could compete severely with its competitors in this high-margin segment. Intel still leads in gaming, but AMD is also at risk if it steps in where its competitors are three steps away.

As someone who is both gaming and video editing, if I were in the processor market, I would be more interested in AMD than Intel. AMD feels like the future of high-end desktop computers in my opinion, with more interesting, advanced technology. Intel, meanwhile, is struggling to roll out its existing products, let alone develop new ones. It does need to do something to shake it up or it will soon find itself in an unfamiliar position: second place.

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