Why still so much Intel?

[jens]

I don't get it - at the moment, Intel is clearly inferior and also significantly more expensive. So why is still the vast majority of computer models (both desktop and laptop) that are currently available Intel-based?

Is it because that's what most people want, simply because they are badly informed? Or do the vendors have some kind of deal with Intel? Is Intel in some way scheming in the background to enforce its market-leading position? Or do the vendors get a hefty discount?

[cron]

In one word, availability.

There's a great drought of chips right now, with almost everything impossible to get hold of. The Ryzen-7-down situation is starting to improve, but it's still tough to get hold of a Ryzen 9 and you'll be paying well over the odds for all of them. TSMC are responsible for most cutting edge manufacturing right now, including Ryzen, and they say there could be problems keeping up with orders for anything up to another year.

Intel manufacture their chips in-house on the other hand, and have largely been able to keep everything in stock at RRP.

[chk071]

I wouldn't buy AMD. Simply because of worse experience I made with them, compared to Intel/Nvidia (e.g., ATI/AMD's graphics card used to be horrible, 15 years back, when I still bought them). If anything, it strikes me as strange that people have such a short term memory.

In the price region I buy, there's not much of a difference between AMD and Intel anyway.

[FapFilter]

Interesting. I'm surely out of touch, as usually, when i was still interested in specs (which has been until 2010 or so) Intel has pretty much always delivered the best performing x86 technology, but for a cost. AMD, Cyrix, etc. could only compete via lower prices, but also lower specs.
Only exception i remember has been briefly when AMD released it's 386 @40Mhz which in fact, was slightly ahead of Intel's chips at that time for a few months.

[jens]

No, AMD are clearly ahead of the game now... especially in the mobile segment Intel simply can't compete at all with AMD.

[jens]

In one word, availability.

There's a great drought of chips right now, with almost everything impossible to get hold of. The Ryzen-7-down situation is starting to improve, but it's still tough to get hold of a Ryzen 9 and you'll be paying well over the odds for all of them. TSMC are responsible for most cutting edge manufacturing right now, including Ryzen, and they say there could be problems keeping up with orders for anything up to another year.

Intel manufacture their chips in-house on the other hand, and have largely been able to keep everything in stock at RRP.

I see, that is a good point.

[zerocrossing]

I just upgraded to a new build and I’d have gladly gone for an AMD processor... if they were compatible with my UAD Apollo. Word from UAD is they’re not and that’s confirmed by many posts, so that’s that. I’ve got a grand into the interface and at least a grand in software. I’m fully committed, so until UAD writes a driver for AMD processors, I’m stuck with Intel. That said, the machine I just built is a screamer and plenty fast enough for me.

[Downangle]

I like it when they fight. I bought an AMD Athlon back when that was a thing because I was angry with Intel's performance. Intel later responded with the Core2Duo which gave them an upper hand for a very long time. Both processors made me very happy when I purchased them.

[jens]

I just upgraded to a new build and I’d have gladly gone for an AMD processor... if they were compatible with my UAD Apollo. Word from UAD is they’re not and that’s confirmed by many posts, so that’s that. I’ve got a grand into the interface and at least a grand in software. I’m fully committed, so until UAD writes a driver for AMD processors, I’m stuck with Intel. That said, the machine I just built is a screamer and plenty fast enough for me.

Ah, that's strange - but actually it seems to be quite a bit different:

Customer Support has received reports from users experiencing compatibility issues with UAD-2 QUAD, DUO, and SOLO PCIe cards on systems utilizing Ryzen CPUs.
[...]
Please note that we have not received any reports of compatibility issues between Ryzen CPUs and UAD-2 OCTO PCIe cards, or any other UAD / Apollo devices

https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articl ... patibility

So the problem seems to be limited to certain PCIe cards.

[Passing Bye]

Think big amount of audio people are uninformed and don't buy new machines quite often, when they do they would mostly pick one from the shelves or inform themselves about their options 3 days before the purchase, than rush in and buy whatever they have at disposal.

Luckily for them we have Pictus on this forum, who do extensive research and goes extra mile to help them find the best thing for their needs, much better info than asking sells guy at the store.

Speaking from personal experience, buying Mac is mostly straightforward thing, but PC on other hand, I had two friends building my last and current PC, one is total computer nerd and other is gamer/musician/nerd who was constantly buying and upgrading his machine, so I got two amazing guys building me best bang for the buck PC for audio, without them, I would be screwed... over time I got interested in all that and barely scratched the surface, just because I want to at least know what I want so somebody can help me further, so I keep myself informed all the time, follow news and trends, always rebuilding my next build, so when the time comes, I could buy the best thing I could afford.

[chk071]

I like it when they fight. I bought an AMD Athlon back when that was a thing because I was angry with Intel's performance. Intel later responded with the Core2Duo which gave them an upper hand for a very long time. Both processors made me very happy when I purchased them.

To be fair, both the AMD CPU's I had were running pretty well as well (Athlon XP+ 2000 and Althon 64 X2 5200+). The graphics cards I had (ATI 7500 and 9500 Pro) had driver issues (the 9500 Pro didn't even accept any factory driver by ATI, so I had to install some third party custom drivers to keep it up to date).

Anyway. Both my computers are running Intel, and I bought 2 other Intel laptops which some relatives use, and there's absolutely zero problem on them, so, I really wouldn't know why to switch. Plus, I don't believe in hypes, and, AMD is one big fat hype these days. David vs. Goliath stuff. I'm always doubtful and sceptical when that happens.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

There are things not worth knowing about. If my Macs run Reason without annoying me with CPU stress, the rest is a black box, which I'd rather not open. I just bought an additional mac just because I could get it cheap. Mac pro i7 3,1 ghz, 16 gb Ram compared to my Mac Air i5 1,8 ghz, 8 gb Ram. Lovely mac but completely unnecessary, since I haven't runned out of power yet on the Air. PC specs get so theoretical to me now a days, once they really meant worlds of difference.

[Passing Bye]

To answer original topic, think this is natural change of market share and we will see bigger leaps in coming years, right now biggest laptop vendors like HP and Lenovo have whole AMD Ryzen lineups and AMD made biggest impact with their mobile 4000 series and on the desktop side with Zen3 5000 series, that's where they took the lead and outperformed Intel, it's still fresh and vendors need time to react, Apple making their own affordable performant chips will push things along too, interesting times.

[Googly Smythe]

This may or may not be of interest.
AMD vs Intel 2021: Who Makes the Best CPUs

(https://www.tomshardware.com/features/amd-vs-intel-cpus)

High End CPUs - Intel vs AMD

(https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html)

[echosystm]

There used to be a saying, among IT folks, "no one ever got fired for buying IBM".

Replace "IBM" with "Intel" and you have your answer.

The type of people who appreciate AMD are a very small minority of the market.