Intel didn't beat AMD back in the day because they had a better processor. Intel relied on anti-competitive practices to lock AMD out of the desktop and server markets. They were successfully sued by AMD but the damage was done. Then Intel sat on it's laurels and quit innovating, slowly doling out incremental improvements through their 'tick-tock' release cycle. Intel dug their own hole and I have no sympathy for Intel while AMD buries them in it.
Everyone should remember how Intel anti competitive behaviors had almost killed AMD. And it took a long time for AMD to recover after Intel was forced to stop doing that. But today, AMD is the innovative one and Intel forced to run to try to catch up. Still, a few other CPU manufacturers died on the way.
And the crazy thing is that, at an earlier time, a lot of idiots had supported Intel saying that their bad behavior was in the interest of consumers, and that it is thanks to that that they were able to provide innovation to the market...
AMD blew Intel out of the water in every possible way, except sales. They had trouble selling chips to mainstream OEMs because the OEMs had questionably-legal deals with Intel that penalized them for buying processors from anyone else. In some cases AMD literally couldn't give them away. And in the long run that killed them - without the income they simply couldn't keep up.
AMD's execution being bad has been provably Intel's fault at times; Intel has been proven to use anti-competetive contracts in the past with their customers (HP, Dell, etc), i.e. limit good CPU prices/discounts unless customers limit their use of AMD.
And that's the consequence of giving the market leader a decade and a half head start. No one and I mean no one was preventing AMD or Intel from building a competitive hardware and software ecosystem other than themselves.
People really overstate Intel's woes. They got stuck on 14nm for ages, but were for all that time still the market leader. AMD has never comprehensively challenged them; only one segment at time is an AMD product better.
Intel probably wouldn't have been able to sustain the DNA required to also be successful in that market, and they would have had severe antitrust problems. AMD would have had the same first problem (but probably worse since they've historically had much poorer management), and would have likely lost a lot of their business selling to other PC manufacturers they'd now be directly competing with.
AMD wasn't able to match Intel's volume because Intel engaged in outright bribery of PC and server vendors on a impressively massive scale (they literally paid out hundreds of millions per year — and that's just to one vendor — as an incentive not to buy AMD). Other factors obviously didn't help, but this was clearly a huge one.
Given they've been slapped down for this, I wonder if they'll try it again. If they don't, AMD could have an easier go this time round.
Or maybe if Intel wasn't a monopoly AMD could've solved the heat issues better and faster. It's hard to play fair and win when the other one is cheating.
Somehow I can't feel sorry for Intel, because they put themselves in that position - in fact - they even prepared the ground to be in that position, so wasn't just "luck", was a strategy.
Anti competitive practices that put AMD on a tight spot, that could have rolled over at any time.
Milking their comfortable position with high margin products, due to a choked out competitor and marketing deals.
AMD did things the right way competing for performance without sacrificing security. What's happening right now are the consequences of Intel's actions.
There was a gap of about 3-5 years where AMD had the performance-per-clock lead over Intel, I don't think that time was the issue here. As another posted alluded to - Intel was engaging in some dodgy dealings.
Intel were top dog for several years, and were able to continue making huge profits while only making small, incremental improvements.
End users lamented the lack of real improvements, but Intel continued to sit on their laurels because it was the easy thing to do - they simply didn't need to do anything drastic. Which it pretty sad - with different leadership with technical vision, who knows where computing power would be today? But that's business...
Intel took it too far though, and didn't seem to see AMD catching them up in their rearview mirror. IMO it serves them right, and I'm so happy there is a underdog challenger that is outpacing them in so many areas. The desktop I bought last year has an AMD processor - the first in my household in many years, but hopefully not the last.
reply