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Comment by axlee | Hacker News Reader

*among people using benchmark software.

There is definitely a selection bias at play here: your run-of-the-mill personal computer owner does not even know what a benchmark is. Interesting (but not surprising) trend among enthusiasts though.

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Early adopter usage is definitely a valuable indicator though.

Is it though? There is historical data for that, and even when AMD was crushing Intel for years on all benchmarks including price/performance and early adopter usage, Intel ultimately ended up with a larger market share. Prescott was a (litteral) hot mess and the Athlon 64 3xxx series was amazing, but it did not take long until things came back to normal with the introduction of the Core series. I expect the same to happen here. AMD is great at slipping through the cracks between Intel's CPU generations, but it cannot seem to be able to become a market leader.

This is not performance data, this is market share data.

This is precisely my point: there were numerous moments in the past when AMD was trailing closely Intel among enthusiasts because of a superior product, but ultimately it never led to AMD overtaking Intel in the overall consumer market: Intel has always been able to catch up within a generation. I see no reason why this time would be different. And thus, the enthusiast market has little to no bearing on the overall market share.

The overall consumer market is decided by what OEMs ship in their laptops and desktops. Normal people cares about Intel and AMD as much as they care about the brand of the gasoline in their car, possibly less. Convince Dell & Co to buy from AMD and AMD is going to have the upper hand in consumer market.

Dell & Co do buy from AMD, so I think it's not quite that. Admittedly right now their laptop search tool indicates that they sell 130 models with Intel processors, while AMD is relegated to the 15" Inspirons and Alienware laptops. But still. It seems like maybe there's got to be some more subtle reason why you're not seeing them in the Chromebooks or XPS 13s than just that they're devoted to one manufacturer and shutting the other one out.

I think availability and price are the most important factors for the consumer market. If AMD can deliver a lot of chips with lower prices and same performance they might take a larger part of the market.

AMD = TSMC process

There is a huge difference this time: Intel no longer has a process lead and is actually now far behind the best fab (TSMC). Intel was able to come back last time because of Core + best fab in the industry. Without that advantage this time, it will be much more difficult for them.

They also used shady practices like paying OEMs to not use AMD CPUs. They were heavily fined for this. If they try to do it again, the government will likely give a greater punishment this time since they would be repeating the same crime. Especially now with the anti-trust friendly sentiments within the government.

UserBenchmark, at least in recent years, has skewed any subjective content toward Nvidia/Intel ex core count comparisons. This site is solid.

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