This year will be some fight in the notebook market with intel’s Alder Lake CPUs.
The gist of the firm’s analysis of the notebook market, which was flagged by Wccftech, is that Intel is in a very strong position with its all-new Alder Lake chips. As we noted in our reporting a week ago, Intel’s flagship mobile CPU recently launched to overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was widely declared the fastest mobile chip available, beating not only AMD’s best offerings but also Apple’s new M1 Max as well. Keybanc says the feedback it’s received from ODMs (companies that design and build laptops) is that the performance of Alder Lake has been much better than expected, which it characterizes as more than 50 percent more powerful than Intel’s prior generation, Tiger Lake.
Data center AMD remains on top (This thread’s focus is on datacenter. Read the first few posts for reason)
On the server and datacenter end of things, the situation is basically the opposite of notebooks, as AMD has a strong headwind with its Epyc parts compared to Intel’s Xeon chips. Keybanc says based on feedback from the server supply chain, it predicts very strong growth in 2022, with AMD anticipated to capture up to 20 percent of the market, compared to the 11-12 percent it has currently. One of the reasons for AMD’s expected success is the anticipated delay of Intel’s next-generation Xeon chips, code-named Sapphire Rapids. This is the company’s first server CPU built on its Intel 7 process, which is the same 10nm node it is currently using for Alder Lake. Keybanc says it originally figured Intel would launch its new chips in Q2 of 2022, but it believe it will be pushed back at least to Q3,
WOW! 3090Ti that NVDA showcased in CES 2022 is priced at 4000$. And there is rumor about it will never come to market. Very likely it is culled.
The graphics card market is going to feel the heat this year from all three players this year it appears. Intel/AMD/NVDA.
NVDA is very likely out of low/mid end laptop graphics this year due to AMD 6nm effeciency (As long as AMD ships).
Summary: There are Three exciting things happening this year (Edited)
Intel in PC CPU (Alder Lake) market and their ARC GPUs
AMD in low/mid end laptop market + zen 4 dominance later. - AMD effeciency - this is boring but can take over the market.
NVDA hopper for compute
Update:
After Apple plonked two chips in package and called it ultra. Now it is NVDA’s turn with ARM. But this one is for datacenter market and is called super chip. Compares it to last gen AMD EPYC server processors.
This can give ARM some significant boost since it does not have to rely on Ampere graviton for making inroads into datacenter market.
ARM is listing in sometime this year or early next year.
Let me remind again that this thread’s major focus is datacenter which is the cash cow and is like the world cup ( ) for CPU/GPU companies.
One good thing we see - visibility into AMD datacenter is going to get better now. I have lamented how we do not get to see AMD datacenter revenues separately. But that is going to change next quarter.
Chief Financial Officer Devinder Kumar said that beginning in the second quarter, the chip maker will delineate sales specifically from the division that has boosted its stock in recent years.
AMD QoQ Revenue Trend for Semi Custom + DataCenter 22Q1 also includes xilinx datacenter revenue. Margins hit due to aquisition cost. WIthout including them → it is > 50% (as seen from non GAAP)
21Q2 → 21Q3 → 21Q4 → 22Q1
3.8B$ → 4.3B$ → 4.8B$ → 5.9B$
Note: This is not just datacenter. Q2, we should know the actual number for Datacenter and compare 1:1 with Intel.
AMD
This year, They are showcasing efficiency and still matching competition performance. Lower power for
same/better perf. In Datacenter, EPYC is the winner even now. Guiding gross margin above 50%.
From Q1 earnigs release page:
For the full year 2022, AMD now expects revenue to be approximately $26.3 billion, an increase of approximately 60% over 2021, up from prior guidance of approximately 31%, driven by the addition of Xilinx and higher server and semi-custom revenue. AMD expects non-GAAP gross margin to be approximately 54% for 2022, up from prior guidance of approximately 51%.
Intel
Desktop CPU they have caught up but TDP number are not that clear. Close competition with AMD.
They have mentioned 2024 is when they will catch up with TSMC node/AMD. Still long time.
Yet another GPU try. They have been pushing Alchemist dates. Now it is Q3. We need to see how it goes.
Disclosure: I am heavily biased towards AMD - I hold AMD RSUs.
AMD is gaining ground at the largest buyers of computer processors, owners of the giant data centers that are the backbone of the internet. Some 48% of all new processors installed in these data centers were bought from AMD in March, according to Jefferies & Co. analyst Mark Lipacis.
One can see from the market share gains numbers that small market share gains for AMD converts to big revenue change since the market itself is huge compared to its current share.
It is also a virtuous cycle → In semiconductor industry, validation of processors matters a lot. Validation is the make or break deal. Still, validation runs for years since stability is premium. As AMD gains more market share, existing customers are validating AMD’s products (since they are using them without any issues). This makes it easy for more customers to make the jump from intel. Stability is the word : no better way to prove it than gaining and retaining market share.
In client computing, market share was split 82/18 between Intel and AMD, with Intel losing three points, resulting in a 13% decline in revenue for Intel and a 22% revenue gain for AMD, Caso wrote, “highlighting our view that even modest share gains can drive outsized revenue growth for AMD.”
In data-center sales, comparing “the entire datacenter businesses at each company,” Caso said AMD gained two points, more than doubling revenue and giving it 18% market share, as Intel’s data-center revenue improved 22% despite the two-point loss.
I do not see an earnings based reason for downgrades from analysts. Downgrades are all based on current overall market trend.
Another massive tailwind is from enterprise servers market. It could be happening now. In new cloud installations, AMD is already the leader. Enterprise is also shifting. Enterprise customers do not change their platform for decades (as explained @ Semiconductor world - CPU/GPU Wars - #33 by kenshin ). It is not easy to get them to switch from intel.
GPU space
NVDA earnings have come. Minor negative guidance. That is all. AMD is knocking on the door in the compute datacenter space where NVDA is the market leader at ~80%. The results will take longer to unveil.
Computex
At the computex, NVDA revealed nothing about its upcoming lovelace GPUs. AMD revealed what is coming but kept a lid on what it can do (performance). This is unlike previous years where AMD was quiet open.
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Intel is yet to get their hyped ARC GPUs.
Overall NVDA and AMD continue to deliver on what they promised.
Intel is still trying to get its high end GPU out (From Q2 it is now expected to launch Q4). Continues to compete with AMD in CPU space. while lagging behind its competitor AMD in TDP due to its node disadvantage compared to TSMC.
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For those technically in the know-how, it is quiet amazing how monolithic design (NVDA & INTEL) is still keeping up with multichip (AMD)
One small personal banter → NVDA is great at marketting (know how to lie and retain mind share). Last year, They mentioned 3080 2x perf over 2080 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series | Official Launch Event [4K] - YouTube ). But the actual performance was 69% (Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Review | TechSpot) better than 2080. NVDA wants to keep the mindshare come what may. They also did 3090Ti to ‘retain’ the performance crown by beating competition by 6% at 450W!!!. They are the kings of marketing. While Lisa Su and team have not been playing this game. Nothing takes away their advantage in datacenter with CUDA though. Just giving perspective on how these companies do business/marketing.
@kenshin Whats your opinion about ARM processor in laptop segment? I see it as a major headwind for both intel & AMD (x86 architecture).
Arm should increase the battery backup of laptops to almost a day at almost same performance ( Apple already demonstrated it ) & QCOM trying hard to win windows laptop segment with the NUVIA based processors coming by end of 2022 (mediatek too has ambition for laptop segment )
Hi @arunjacob , It may not be explicitly clear from the title of this thread but it was always meant to be about the datacenter. I track everything with a view on datacenter. Even for AMD, the expectation was that the desktop CPU perf in 2020 should translate to datacenter market share (which is happening).
I have explained this earlier too on why I have not posted much about ARM. I do follow but it has not really made its mark like the others. I am also optimistic about ARM’s future. Semiconductor world - CPU/GPU Wars - #68 by kenshin
Arm is only now at 4% market share in datacenter (grown considerably from zero!). Not a lot comes out about what is in the background. Example: Though Apple uses ARM ISA, you will hardly see people mention the same. Heck even ARM does not mention it is ARM ISA underneath. We really do not know how much of this translates to actually dollars to ARM. Apple has shown ARM can compete in performance in laptops. Fugaku500 supercomputer proved it long before Mac did (we covered it in this thread Feeling a little proud).
Regarding battery performance, x86 is also not sitting and watching. New AMD ryzen6000 efficiency is currently is the best perf/tdp. Though arm is making incursions and is considered to show major promise, it will be a battle with a timeline not yet visible (inflection point). Yes, many big cos are trying out ARM cpus. But they are also in RISC-V consortium. The timeline we are looking at even RISC-V needs to be considered as a competition. As far ARM future is concerned, it is all opinions and conjectures. I prefer to wait and watch.
MI200/250 is confirming entry in AI cloud. This is NVDA territory. Not just knocking on the door but made its entry. Note: nvidia CUDA has a chokehold in this space. AMD is not really known for their software ecosystem. They are spending on software though.(ROCm/HIP)
— Frontier supercomputer, powered by AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct Accelerators, achieves number one spots on Top500, Green500 and HPL-AI performance lists, an industry first —
— AMD powers five of the top ten most powerful and eight of the top ten most efficient supercomputers in the world —
Raimondo also told CNN she felt the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage could likely continue until 2024.
“There is one solution (to the semiconductor chip shortage)”, she added. “Congress needs to act and pass the Chips Bill. I don’t know why they are delaying.”
) for CPU/GPU companies.
Feeling a little proud).