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[EricHiggin]

Pemalite said:

EricHiggin said:

Ya but apparently it's the extra cores that Intel are now adding to match AMD, that's mostly causing the shortage problem. More cores means less dies per wafer. Intel really didn't plan for higher core 14nm parts, which is why they are so behind and investing so much in 14nm now to try and relieve that problem asap. They were hoping either 10nm was in full swing by now, or that they could continue to creep on with mainly 2-4 core chips on 14nm until 10nm was finally ready. Ryzen with it's higher core count and overall performance was unanticipated and has lead to Intel scrambling. When your as large as Intel though, you can't just turn the ship on a dime, so while that freighter is changing course, they are losing a lot of time while the AMD yacht is full steam ahead to the destination.

I also read AMD might expand the CCX's eventually. There is also infinity fabric, in which AMD could potentially just drop two dies on an MCM, and so they could attain 12 or 16 core versions that way as well without messing with the CCX's. 

It's also because Intel has stagnated at 14nm for so long... That product lines that would have been on an older or newer fabrication process are all on 14nm (I.E. Chipsets and Servers)  which is causing contention.

For example... Intel usually builds it's motherboard chipsets on a node or two behind the desktop CPU's... But the H310 chipset actually caught up to the CPU nodes.
So Intel revised the chipset with the H310C and built it at 22nm instead to help alleviate supply constraints at 14nm.

Didn't know Intel had basically everything relying on 14nm. If they are purposely using 22nm to allow for as many CPU's as possible, it seems unlikely they would expand beyond 8 cores when they get 10nm yields high enough for the first couple of years, while they then move as much to 10nm and 14nm as possible. This should allow AMD breathing room to remain at 8 cores as well if they wish, or could certainly use it to their advantage by adding a few more cores since Intel would most likely end up a year or two behind again. At this point in time, if AMD can still remain substantially cheaper at 7nm 8 core, it should be enough to hold off Intel at 10nm 8 core, even if those Intel chips still perform slightly better. As long as AMD doesn't drag 8 core out too long, and keep at least a year ahead of Intel with upping the core count, they should be ok.

I wonder what's going to happen when Intel introduces their GPU's around 2020? 14nm GPU's?