For years, Advanced Micro Devices produced computer processors at lower prices than those offered by the big names in the field. However, Intel's chips are used in about 90% of computers and Nvidia sells two out of three graphics chips. Since the CEO, Lisa Su, took control of the company in 2014, she has been trying to change this situation.
Su, who has ordered a restructuring of the Silicon Valley company's chip structure, announced her latest products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. She gave details about the Ryzen chip, AMD's third-generation chip that will compete with Intel in the desktop space. The announcement of her latest graphics chip sparked a spat with Nvidia 's CEO .
AMD's Ryzen chips are expected to be released in the second or third quarter. The chips are assembled from modular silicon plates, also known as chiplets. These chips will also be the first to incorporate the latest PCIe standard.
The personal computer market has not seen significant growth in a long time. According to International Data Corporation, total sales recorded a 0.7% increase in the first three quarters of the previous year, compared to the same period in 2017, not including devices with detachable keyboards such as the Microsoft Surface. This even affected Intel, which was forced to add $1.5 billion in capital expenditures last year to increase production at its factories.
AMD has high hopes to benefit from Intel's problems. For years, Intel has delayed the creation of a 10-nanometer chip. Last year, AMD shifted the production of its latest chips to TSMC, after its manufacturer, Globalfoundries, was forced to halt the development of the 7-nanometer.
Gregory Bryant, a senior Intel, reiterated at the Consumer Electronics Show what the company has been saying for months: 10-nanometer chips will ship to manufacturers before the end of the year. That product line, called Ice Lake, will feature cores based on the new Sunny Cove architecture and the latest integrated graphics. The chips will also feature the latest Thunderbolt and Wi-Fi standards.
Intel also introduced the first chip based on Foveros technology, which allows memory, logic, and other chiplets to be stacked on top of each other, instead of having to share the same motherboard. The chip, called Lakefield, is smaller and more efficient than a motherboard, although it is not as small and efficient as a traditional chip-based system. By using Lakefield, Intel's customers can have thinner computers with longer battery life.
Intel also adds products to its latest Core microprocessor lineup. Before the end of the month, Intel plans to introduce several new products in categories ranging from the budget Core i3 to the high-end Core i9. The Silicon Valley company also announced that its latest H-series products, for tablets and laptops, will be available in the second quarter of the year.
AMD plans to compete with its rivals with its Ryzen Mobile product line, which is also aimed at laptops that require long battery life. The chips combine AMD's Radeon graphics with Ryzen processors. Last week, the company also introduced the A-series chips designed for cheaper Chromebook computers.
AMD is trying to claim a larger share of the graphics chips market. The latest Radeon VII is the first 7‑nanometer graphics chip from the company, with second‑generation Vega architecture. The combination, Su said, results in 29 percent higher performance in the gaming sector and in customers' ability to do professional video editing and other applications, and 36% more speed compared to the top model currently released.
Patrick Moorhead, chief analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, said that the chip meets consumer demands both in the creative sector and in the gaming sector. However, he noted that the $699 chip costs almost three times more than the price of the current high‑end graphics card, which costs $249. The company also announced that its graphics chips will be used for Google's Project Stream.
However, others, including Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, dismissed AMD's announcement. He said that the chip was not designed to handle artificial intelligence and ray-tracing technology – which are used to add more realistic lighting effects to computer graphics – as effectively as Nvidia.
The company gives it the ability of ray-tracing technology in real time to more consumers. The latest graphics chip from Nvidia, the GeForce RTX 2060, will be sold at a price of $349, when it starts shipping next month. The chip is based on Nvidia's Turing architecture, which has double the performance of the Pascal of the latest generation. The chip is designed to replace the company's GTX 1060, its most popular graphics product, according to Huang.
Nvidia started releasing other chips based on the Turing architecture last year to boost its gaming sector, which accounts for more than 50% of its annual revenue. Customers have to pay much more for the RTX 2080 and RTX 2070, which are sold at $799 and $599 respectively. The GeForce RTX chips will be installed in 40 laptop models before the end of the month, Huang said.
Intel is also trying to break into the graphics chip market, which allows higher performance than the integrated graphics in Intel's current chips. Last year, the company hired Raja Krodui, the former graphics creator at AMD. It plans to release the first graphics chip aimed at gaming and a wide range of other applications by 2020.
