Intel vs. AMD

When I first got into computers, I dedicated a lot of bandwidth to knowing the different types of processors. 386, 386SX, 486DX, 486DX/2, yadda yadda, those were the days. It was complicated, but there was a logic to it. At some point, Intel decided they were going to really max out the ROI on the Pentium brand name, and while the past decade has seen amazing advances in processing power, things aren't as clear as they were when the name of the chip was a direct, technical indication of its family and characteristics.

This makes sense- processors became marketing tools, and hence needed marketable names. I stopped paying attention to the processor details at some point, and when I switched over to the Mac, I focused what little energy I had for such details on the PowerPC side of things.

All of this is just an attempt to set the stage for this article on drunkenblog, which is a really nice distillation of the state of the processor world on the x86 side of things. The article is ostensibly speculation about why Apple decided to partner with Intel over AMD, but it's much more than that.

My limited understanding of the x86 world had led me to believe that Intel had lost its position as chief innovator and was rapidly losing ground to AMD- very much like how Boeing has lost ground to Airbus. My takeaway from this article, however, is that while AMD has out-engineered Intel in some respects, it's not necessarily in a position conducive to growth.

Intel's in a much better position than I had thought.