Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on February 2, 2013 7:50 pm wrote:
>
> Yes. I had two points a) the high margins Intel makes in the x86 business are
> not just a result of technical superiority, but also IP-restricted competition
> b) in the ARM-based SoC market Intel would not just have one plausible competitor,
> but several, and being "head and shoulders" above all of them would be much
> harder than beating AMD - it would be rare for all to screw up at the same time.

Well, the IP restrictions may have played a part in keeping others from entering x86 in the past but that's the past (read below).


> > And when they get that combination right, their products are damn better than the competition.
>
> Yes. But the example of AMD shows that a competitor even with far fewer resources
> and inferior manufacturing can produce better products from time to time
> (K8, Bobcat) by good design. Add more competitors, and the times when you beat
> everybody will not be so common.

Comparing current Intel and ARM players with Intel and AMD in the time of K8 is missing the point.
At the time, AMD was an integrated operation like Intel. They were smaller, with less resources and typically with a process disadvantage, but still an integrated operation with all that comes with it: lots of full-custom design and careful optimization between process, circuit and micro-arch.

And, even though they've changed, I bet their chips still have more of it than any ARM SoC.


Atom vs Bobcat isn't really that Atom is a bad design, it's just there's no market for it as it is: too big for smartphones, too slow for PCs.
But it's actually achieves nice performance within it's power envelope.