Intel not worried about disruption from AMD Zen CPU, promises higher IPC

Posted on Thursday, December 08 2016 @ 13:40 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
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Morgan Stanley chip analyst Joseph Moore had a meeting with Murthy Renduchintala, the head of Intel's client computing and IoT group. Barron's provides some coverage and notes Intel isn't expecting significant disruption from AMD's new Zen architecture.

Renduchintala says Intel expect to achieve substantial performance gains with the adoption of the 10nm process, while acknowledging it were mainly thin and light notebook that benefited from the 14nm process. There's been a lot of disappointment among enthusiasts about the lack of progress in desktop chips, so it's nice to see Renduchintala promising that Intel will deliver significantly higher performance in both the desktop and server markets. This will be achieved via higher IPC as well as gains in other key metrics:
Among the positive influences of Renduchintala is how he’s helping drive greater power efficiency in Intel’s “14-nanometer” process technology:

While Intel still hasn’t released many details yet on 10 nm, Murthy did say that 10 nm would substantially enhance performance along multiple axes. There will be better power efficiency for thin and light notebooks, which we think was the primary benefit of a 14 nm process defined during a period where the company was under siege from other form factors. But there will be a significant focus also on higher performance microprocessors for desktops and servers, both from higher instructions per clock but also in other key metrics. Our faith in 10 nm raising the bar for enthusiast PCs is why we see the threat presented by AMD’s Zen as being fairly manageable, with only short term disruption in 2017.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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