They don't prompt anything, margins don't have intelligence or motivation. And they don't "prompt", they are an excuse. It would be nicer if you could either provide the news as they are OR question the viewpoint a bit. Intel is a corporation which doing stuff for money and that's all. Like the others. Even the technology is secondary.
prompt transitive verb 1 : to move to action : incite 2 : to assist (one acting or reciting) by suggesting or saying the next words of something forgotten or imperfectly learned : cue 3 : to serve as the inciting cause of <evidence prompting an investigation>
Merriam-Webster
You are wrong and a nitpicker. This is a common figure of speech and you're bashing the author over using it.
Lower margins DID prompt the adjustments exactly because Intel is a corporation which is doing stuff for money (duh!). There is no viewpoint to question here. Maybe you'd have liked reading some rambling about evil corporations in the article, is that it?
As replied above. The figures of speech used somehow don't shed light on any political matter. You can analyze it, or you can think that this is the nature and big truth or something like that.
You know public corporations are legally bound to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, right? If you expect other behavior, they have to stay or go private, much like Dell recently did.
> The Client Computing group is the largest part of Intel on a revenue basis, and is the one that is feeling the pressure of the declining PC market the most.
Well, maybe Intel will start making Atom-based "Core i3 and Core i5" next - you know, to "increase profits". Or maybe a single-core Core i7. Because why the hell not? They've already sh*t all over their Celeron and Pentium brands with the switch to Atom, and have already started making dual-core Core i7s. So nothing will shock me anymore.
If that mattered that much, AMD would've done better with its APUs in the market. Ironically, AMD's APUs have MUCH better single-thread performance than Intel's Celerons and Pentiums now at the same price points.
I was trying to be sarcastic in subtle way. Many users, my self included, would prefer 8 core socket 1151 chip without graphics, but there isn't offering for that. Even if its around same die area. Intel could make 7 core variant which allows 1 defective core to be disabled to improve yields.
GPU die area is cheaper than CPU die area. Binning defects for smaller cores saves money in a similar way that smaller chips more than proportionally cost less than bigger chips (you don't have to throw away as much of the wafer due to defects).
So those who earned $2B are firing 11% of those whose work earned them that pile of money in the hopes they can make even more money.And they probably sleep like babies, greedy selfish babies...
And meanwhile a lot of those workers voted for liberal Democrats in government who introduced legislation (ACA) which increased Intel's healthcare burden on each worker by about 25%. You don't have a job anymore, but hey, you have free healthcare. I am sure it was a worthwhile tradeoff.
Intel seems to continue struggling with the declining PC market with all kinds of tactics, but if you ask me they are also helping the problem at he same time. Because AMD hasn't been competitive, Intel has decided to slow down CPU performance advancements so that they can sell CPUs with smaller dies for more money. However this also means CPUs aren't getting much more powerful, which makes consumers wonder why they need to upgrade their machine to a CPU that's only 20% more powerful.
20% is very generous number. Even 10% is a generous number.
See, now if stuff slowed down this much for CPUs, why not have Intel focus on other technologies that people really care about, like battery life for example? If they were able to get 10% better battery life year after year, without affecting performance, you might get a lot more buyers.
What's crazy to me is the company everyone used to call the 900lb gorilla of the silicon world, and still is, watched mobile explode for an entire decade now, and still only made minor inroads towards entering the market. The Atoms they produce for phones are just-ok competitors to ARM SoCs of a few years ago.
I think ultramobile spaces are where their x86 decode + ucode ROM die area and power draw start to really show up and hurt them. On huge cores they were trivial, on tiny cores they take quite a lot of the floorplan.
ARM is having that exact same problem now as its instruction set expands. It's hilarious to see people still claiming ARM is more efficient (and thus a great candidate for the server world), but not realize that efficiency comes at a huge cost to performance, and ARM is still leagues behind.
What are you talking about? In servers what matters is money/performance/Watt.
ARM crushes its direct competition in that (Atoms). Atoms tend to cost twice as much for the same price, and barely have almost equal performance while being 2 node-generations ahead.
Put a let's say $50 ARM server chip against a $50 Atom server chip, both on 14nm FinFET, and let's see which comes out ahead. (hint: it's not going to be Intel).
Efficiency doesn't cost performance, it's a measurement of performance to power. Efficiency can allow one to perform better with less power. Consider the move from Kepler to Maxwell. Maxwell uses less power and performs better, with no node shrink. It's just a matter of a better processor design. Whether or not ARM can compete with Intel in that department, well that's a different story.
Perhaps you can demonstrate the proof of this. ARM took 64 bit as a chance to do a clean design with ARMv8, and they still limit instructions to 32 bits.
This comes worlds apart from the x86 approach of gluing both together.
The proof is kind of in the pudding with phone Atoms performance compared to high end ARM, even comparing costs and power draws.
The Zenfone 2 was the last Intel powered mainstream smartphone, carrying a chip that was announced in 2014, the atom z3580.
You cannot tell me that chip is inferior to an ARM chip apart from meaningless and idiotic geekbench Antutu numbers. Real life performance of the ZF2 is pretty much flawless. The g6430 GPU is adequately powerful and comes close to the 805's adreno 420, which was brilliant for a 300 dollar phone.
Try browsing on chrome on a ZF2 and compare it to your S7s and G5s of the world , you'll notice the difference.
Remember this chip can run a full blown desktop Windows smoothly, that's how powerful it is. I am not getting into the beaten to death ARM vs X86 debate, but the general computing capabilities of this chip is ahead of most ARM competitors.
This is no fault of Intel -- it's the result of fumbles by the bigger fish just up the food chain; the folks in Redmond. Four tiresome years of tiles, with the hope that the world would somehow think Microsoft's tablet was useful. I find both releases downright confusing. Total wreck of an operating system. The latest atrocity was to limit Windows 7 to run only on older hardware. Of course Intel can't sell new Skylake chips if Microsoft's only useful OS is cripped to only run on Broadwell and older.
Let's hope that Apple's new product line gains some popularity, enough to let Intel recover a little from Ballmer's completely botched ideas.
Or maybe the problem is that Intel tries that to sell Core M "tablet chips" for $200 a piece, making it a HUGE part of the tablet's BOM (iPhones and iPads have a TOTAL BOM of LESS than $200, for instance).
You can run win 10 on skylake. Can u not read? Do you not understand words? Please try and keep up. Also, any such decision (which there was not) would be an MS decision. Not Intel. Wow, the stupid is strong in this one.
To be fair, you still _can_ install Windows 7 on Skylake chipset computers. You just won't get a few extra optimizations and features that are unique to Windows 10 (DirectX12, etc).
I wouldn't say that's Intel's fault, but both Intel and Microsoft's for strongarming individuals to upgrade processors and upgrade OSes simulataneously.
Yes, McAfee is an Intel owned company, but there other security based things that Intel does besides McAfee, such as "True Key".
But yes, I would agree that while security is an important part of computing, Intel is better off letting third parties handle developments in that area.
I think this in anticipation and not a reaction. If it was ever a reaction to something, it could mean, they are expecting less competition from AMD than ever before and have to cut the people working in the CPU business.
I do hope do they drastically better and as soon as possible in mobile considering Apple's chips performed so well than I expected.
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40 Comments
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junky77 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
"Lower Margins Prompt Workforce Adjustments"They don't prompt anything, margins don't have intelligence or motivation. And they don't "prompt", they are an excuse.
It would be nicer if you could either provide the news as they are OR question the viewpoint a bit. Intel is a corporation which doing stuff for money and that's all. Like the others. Even the technology is secondary.
Murloc - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
prompttransitive verb
1
: to move to action : incite
2
: to assist (one acting or reciting) by suggesting or saying the next words of something forgotten or imperfectly learned : cue
3
: to serve as the inciting cause of <evidence prompting an investigation>
Merriam-Webster
You are wrong and a nitpicker.
This is a common figure of speech and you're bashing the author over using it.
Lower margins DID prompt the adjustments exactly because Intel is a corporation which is doing stuff for money (duh!).
There is no viewpoint to question here.
Maybe you'd have liked reading some rambling about evil corporations in the article, is that it?
junky77 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
1. There is a reason for choosing specific "figure of speech". There is more to words, language and media then the dictionary2. No viewpoint to question? are you sure?
3. No, I didn't expect. Except, I would like to see some questioning, yes, and some thinking about such matters.
4. Not related to "evil corporations".
madwolfa - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Yeesh, it's just a figure of speech.junky77 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
As replied above. The figures of speech used somehow don't shed light on any political matter. You can analyze it, or you can think that this is the nature and big truth or something like that.stadisticado - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
You know public corporations are legally bound to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, right? If you expect other behavior, they have to stay or go private, much like Dell recently did.Spunjji - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Wroooong. This gets trotted out a lot and it isn't true.http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/wh...
Krysto - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
> The Client Computing group is the largest part of Intel on a revenue basis, and is the one that is feeling the pressure of the declining PC market the most.Well, maybe Intel will start making Atom-based "Core i3 and Core i5" next - you know, to "increase profits". Or maybe a single-core Core i7. Because why the hell not? They've already sh*t all over their Celeron and Pentium brands with the switch to Atom, and have already started making dual-core Core i7s. So nothing will shock me anymore.
Anato - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
On the bright side, GPU occupies more die area than CPU core(s), so you pay and get same amount of die than before.Krysto - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
If that mattered that much, AMD would've done better with its APUs in the market. Ironically, AMD's APUs have MUCH better single-thread performance than Intel's Celerons and Pentiums now at the same price points.Anato - Thursday, April 21, 2016 - link
I was trying to be sarcastic in subtle way. Many users, my self included, would prefer 8 core socket 1151 chip without graphics, but there isn't offering for that. Even if its around same die area. Intel could make 7 core variant which allows 1 defective core to be disabled to improve yields.willis936 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
GPU die area is cheaper than CPU die area. Binning defects for smaller cores saves money in a similar way that smaller chips more than proportionally cost less than bigger chips (you don't have to throw away as much of the wafer due to defects).Donkey2008 - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
"...and have already started making dual-core Core i7s"Umm, I have a Dell Latitude laptop circa 2011 with a dual-core i7 (2620M). Your rant is all gibberish and nonsensical IMO.
ManuelDiego - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
So those who earned $2B are firing 11% of those whose work earned them that pile of money in the hopes they can make even more money.And they probably sleep like babies, greedy selfish babies...AnnonymousCoward - Sunday, April 24, 2016 - link
Those who chose to work were compensated as promised.You're foolish to think running a successful business equates to being selfish.
Donkey2008 - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
And meanwhile a lot of those workers voted for liberal Democrats in government who introduced legislation (ACA) which increased Intel's healthcare burden on each worker by about 25%. You don't have a job anymore, but hey, you have free healthcare. I am sure it was a worthwhile tradeoff.misaki - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Only the paranoid survive.Dr. Swag - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Intel seems to continue struggling with the declining PC market with all kinds of tactics, but if you ask me they are also helping the problem at he same time. Because AMD hasn't been competitive, Intel has decided to slow down CPU performance advancements so that they can sell CPUs with smaller dies for more money. However this also means CPUs aren't getting much more powerful, which makes consumers wonder why they need to upgrade their machine to a CPU that's only 20% more powerful.JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
20% is very generous number. Even 10% is a generous number.See, now if stuff slowed down this much for CPUs, why not have Intel focus on other technologies that people really care about, like battery life for example? If they were able to get 10% better battery life year after year, without affecting performance, you might get a lot more buyers.
JKflipflop98 - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
If you honestly think this is true, then you're completely ignorant of how the industry functions. Intel hasn't slowed down a single bit.Donkey2008 - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
Agreed.tipoo - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
What's crazy to me is the company everyone used to call the 900lb gorilla of the silicon world, and still is, watched mobile explode for an entire decade now, and still only made minor inroads towards entering the market. The Atoms they produce for phones are just-ok competitors to ARM SoCs of a few years ago.
I think ultramobile spaces are where their x86 decode + ucode ROM die area and power draw start to really show up and hurt them. On huge cores they were trivial, on tiny cores they take quite a lot of the floorplan.
http://regmedia.co.uk/2012/08/29/amd_jaguar_core_f...
patrickjp93 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
ARM is having that exact same problem now as its instruction set expands. It's hilarious to see people still claiming ARM is more efficient (and thus a great candidate for the server world), but not realize that efficiency comes at a huge cost to performance, and ARM is still leagues behind.Krysto - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
> and ARM is still leagues behind.What are you talking about? In servers what matters is money/performance/Watt.
ARM crushes its direct competition in that (Atoms). Atoms tend to cost twice as much for the same price, and barely have almost equal performance while being 2 node-generations ahead.
Put a let's say $50 ARM server chip against a $50 Atom server chip, both on 14nm FinFET, and let's see which comes out ahead. (hint: it's not going to be Intel).
jwcalla - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Efficiency doesn't cost performance, it's a measurement of performance to power. Efficiency can allow one to perform better with less power. Consider the move from Kepler to Maxwell. Maxwell uses less power and performs better, with no node shrink. It's just a matter of a better processor design. Whether or not ARM can compete with Intel in that department, well that's a different story.tipoo - Thursday, April 21, 2016 - link
Perhaps you can demonstrate the proof of this. ARM took 64 bit as a chance to do a clean design with ARMv8, and they still limit instructions to 32 bits.This comes worlds apart from the x86 approach of gluing both together.
The proof is kind of in the pudding with phone Atoms performance compared to high end ARM, even comparing costs and power draws.
LiverpoolFC5903 - Thursday, April 21, 2016 - link
The Zenfone 2 was the last Intel powered mainstream smartphone, carrying a chip that was announced in 2014, the atom z3580.You cannot tell me that chip is inferior to an ARM chip apart from meaningless and idiotic geekbench Antutu numbers. Real life performance of the ZF2 is pretty much flawless. The g6430 GPU is adequately powerful and comes close to the 805's adreno 420, which was brilliant for a 300 dollar phone.
Try browsing on chrome on a ZF2 and compare it to your S7s and G5s of the world , you'll notice the difference.
Remember this chip can run a full blown desktop Windows smoothly, that's how powerful it is. I am not getting into the beaten to death ARM vs X86 debate, but the general computing capabilities of this chip is ahead of most ARM competitors.
LorinT - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
This is no fault of Intel -- it's the result of fumbles by the bigger fish just up the food chain; the folks in Redmond. Four tiresome years of tiles, with the hope that the world would somehow think Microsoft's tablet was useful. I find both releases downright confusing. Total wreck of an operating system. The latest atrocity was to limit Windows 7 to run only on older hardware. Of course Intel can't sell new Skylake chips if Microsoft's only useful OS is cripped to only run on Broadwell and older.Let's hope that Apple's new product line gains some popularity, enough to let Intel recover a little from Ballmer's completely botched ideas.
Krysto - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Or maybe the problem is that Intel tries that to sell Core M "tablet chips" for $200 a piece, making it a HUGE part of the tablet's BOM (iPhones and iPads have a TOTAL BOM of LESS than $200, for instance).doggface - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
You can run win 10 on skylake. Can u not read? Do you not understand words? Please try and keep up. Also, any such decision (which there was not) would be an MS decision. Not Intel. Wow, the stupid is strong in this one.doggface - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Correction : I meant *Win 7 not 10.Donkey2008 - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
I was about to say how ironic it was that you accused someone else of being stupid.JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
To be fair, you still _can_ install Windows 7 on Skylake chipset computers. You just won't get a few extra optimizations and features that are unique to Windows 10 (DirectX12, etc).I wouldn't say that's Intel's fault, but both Intel and Microsoft's for strongarming individuals to upgrade processors and upgrade OSes simulataneously.
Donkey2008 - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
"...for strong arming individuals to upgrade processors and upgrade OSs simultaneously."Although that strategy has worked pretty well for Apple in the mobile space.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, April 27, 2016 - link
"The latest atrocity was to limit Windows 7 to run only on older hardware."That has since been changed.
Samus - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
I can't believe Intel Security is profitable. Isn't that essentially McAfee?JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Yes, McAfee is an Intel owned company, but there other security based things that Intel does besides McAfee, such as "True Key".But yes, I would agree that while security is an important part of computing, Intel is better off letting third parties handle developments in that area.
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - link
Seems to me that they are just looking to get some cheap H1B visa labor.Donkey2008 - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
Spot on.zodiacfml - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
I think this in anticipation and not a reaction. If it was ever a reaction to something, it could mean, they are expecting less competition from AMD than ever before and have to cut the people working in the CPU business.I do hope do they drastically better and as soon as possible in mobile considering Apple's chips performed so well than I expected.