AMD's Desktop PC Market Share Skyrockets Amid Intel's Raptor Lake CPU Crashing Scandal

An anonymous reader shares a report: AMD has gained a substantial 5.7 percentage points of share of the desktop x86 CPU market in the third quarter compared to Q2, the largest quarterly share gain since we began tracking the market share reports in 2016. It also represents an incredible ten percentage point improvement over the prior year. AMD also raked in a strong increase in revenue share, jumping 8.5 percentage points over the prior quarter, indicating that it is selling a strong mix of higher-end CPU models.

During the quarter, AMD launched its new Ryzen 9000-series family of processors amid a scandal related to stability issues with Intel's Raptor Lake chips, which generated a flood of negative press for the company over the course of several months, and inventory adjustments for one of Intel's customers. AMD now commands 28.7% of the desktop processor market. AMD also continued to gain share in the laptop and server markets, though its gains on the desktop side of the business were the most impressive, according to Mercury Research.

Boeing & Intel should merge

[Tablizer]

it would simplify the bankruptcy paperwork.

Bucking Feancounters!

Re:

[Z00L00K]

The bankruptcy vultures would get very fat.

Are we sure that Intel has solved their issues?

[Z00L00K]

It's still a bit unclear if the latest patches have actually solved the issues that Intel have had with their processors.

Re: Are we sure that Intel has solved their issues

[drinkypoo]

Let's say for a second that they have, they finally figured out they were the problem and solved it with a microcode update that stopped the chip from using too much power and cooking itself.

They still aren't replacing affected models except if they fail during warranty, so they have destroyed their used value. And you can't count on the existing chips not to have degraded sufficiently that they will fail shortly out of warranty, so now people who bought two generations of Intel CPU not only can't trust their own PC, but they also can't feel smug about it so they won't be going free advertising for Intel at least until they replace it.

When you add to that the fact that AMD now has the fastest CPU in every class... Investors have to be wondering whether they need to pull out now before it gets worse.

Re:

[samwichse]

Oh no, but poor grandma! https://www.reddit.com/r/walls... [reddit.com]

Re:

[alvinrod]

There were some reports of a manufacturing defect causing oxidation in the CPUs. I didn't follow that too closely, but that wouldn't be fixable. Also any hardware degradation caused by running at excessive voltages would also be permanent. A patch might be able to to keep the CPU from running at settings that would cause further problems, but the hardware is already permanently crippled at that point.

They're not pushing their newest CPUs anywhere near as hard so it shouldn't be an issue going forward.

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

Indeed. Intel claimed those SKUs were from 2023 and earlier, and that CPUs bought in the last year (or so) are unaffected. That being said, they aren't interested in giving anyone a list of serial numbers for the affected lots.

Explanation

[JBMcB]

Their full explanation on what was happening sounds legitimate. Basically an algorithm was dumping too much voltage to idled CPU cores in very specific scenarios. The explanation in latest microcode fix sounds plausible that it would prevent this from happening in the future. Any chips fried from this happening already aren't repairable, though, Intel will replace them under warranty that they just extended for another year.

Re:Explanation

[tlhIngan]

Modern processors are highly complex beasts. So complex, you cannot boot them alone. You may have heard of Intel Management Engine, and AMD has an equivalent. This is a management CPU, a lightwieght processor. This processor boots up and manages the main processor - particularly in things like power management and frequency scaling.

There are parameters burned into every processor that identify it - what each core's max speed is, various power modes and even the "golden core" - the one processor core that performs the best, so for single threaded loads, that core can be boosted beyond normal.

Some of those details are made available to the OS, but often the management CPU is responsible for the moment-by-moment operations - setting the requested voltages and currents as needed and configuring the CPU clock speeds to match the workloads. This is done by a separate processor because of the difficulty in having the main processor request voltage and frequency changes (it needs to execute code in order to do this, and whilst doing so, it's having its clock speed and voltages change which means if something goes wrong, it can hang if the power glitches at the wrong moment). The management CPU can easily make sure these transitions happen during safe moments in each core.

Microcode generally refers to a ROM coded section of the instruction decoder, however in a modern processor, that's just a minor bit - there's also the very low level firmware the management CPU runs to manage the processor complex. Basically another layer of firmware.

It's turtles all the way down, and even your processor is controlled by software. By the time the processor gets around to executing code at FFFF:0000, tons of other code has already been running.

This operating code is lower level than the IME firmware that runs things like vPro and such - which are applications running on the IME under an operating system. The "NSA" special CPUs simply have an IME that does nothing other than CPU management.

stay out of the Raptor pit and don't over power th

[Joe_Dragon]

stay out of the Raptor pit and don't over power the fence.

That big pump breaker takes an lot of work to reset.

Re:

[Luckyo]

My understanding is that they haven't, and extended RMA policy for affected CPUs remains in place. If you start getting "vram errors" and other similar documented symptoms of cooked CPU, it may be time to RMA it.

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

No, we aren't.

AMD and power consumtion

[Teun]

It's several years I haven't looked at an AMD powered computer but in the day they had a reputation of not being energy efficient, sure a thing when you mainly run a laptop, how is that energy efficiency this days?

Re:

[qbast]

Zen 5: pretty damn good.

Re:AMD and power consumtion

[Z00L00K]

AMD seems to be fine on energy efficiency too: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/p... [cpubenchmark.net]

Re:AMD and power consumtion

[Narcocide]

Basically, the truth is that the recent era of Intel chips that were known for being so much more efficient than the corresponding AMD offerings only managed to accomplish that by fudging benchmarks and sabotaging the their official compiler used for all Windows software - a fact they were sued for in court and lost, twice. Despite this, Intel fanboys have been loyally astroturfing over those facts for decades, so it hasn't been common knowledge amongst consumers. For Linux users, who by and large never used Intel's compiler in the first place, this truth has been apparent all along though. As Linux gained ground in the gaming arena, Intel was pressured to show real results, and the outcome is this; they can't compete with AMD on fair terms without a bunch of illegal monopoly-supporting misinformation and criminal activity backing it up, and when they tried they just fry their own chips. Make no mistake about it, something running that fast is gonna generate heat and guzzle electricity. Those are the laws of physics.

Re:

[samwichse]

I dunno, I've been an AMD fan for a while, but there was a good long period (the Bulldozer/Piledriver era) when Intel had finally fully ditched NetBurst for the Core 2 and on that AMD was power hungry for the performance compared with Intel. Especially for laptops.

But Ryzen/Epyc changed all that.

I've never personally owned an Intel machine. I've had an AM386, a Cyrix Winchip (don't judge, it was so CHEAP), a K6-3, slot-A Athlon (750!), socket A Duron, then a Thunderbird (which I chipped :-/ and replaced wit

Re:

[Teun]

Thanks to all the interesting and insightful answers.

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[phantomfive]

I didn't know there were Intel fanboys, at least not among the demographic who understands what a kilobyte is. People who just want "Intel Inside" exist.

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[_merlin]

AMD CPUs are currently more energy efficient than Intel CPUs. Intel has been slipping badly across the board - efficiency has dropped for the last few generations.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The situation was less of a blowout on the laptop side; but perhaps more of a dramatic shift in that AMD had been relegated to the trash tier on the laptop side for ages; used to be that of course if you wanted something that wasn't the 2-inch thick consumer tier monster from best buy that meant something intel; then hey, look at that, T-series thinkpads come in AMD now; then when the T490 and 495 were replaced they were just the "T14" with intel and AMD variants. Intel still had thunderbolt, if you cared;

Re:

[Guspaz]

The thunderbolt situation is beginning to change due to USB4 just being Thunderbolt 3 in disguise, and AMD now supporting USB4.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It can definitely sometimes still be an issue with devices that either have some odd quirks or where the vendor is really serious about it not being a supported configuration unless it's Thunderbolt(tm)(r) rather than that other kind of PCIe tunneling using a USB-C AUX mode; but that's definitely a niche case. Especially when you get outside of devices that are basically sold to mac users but you can try plugging one into a PC if you must.

It also doesn't hurt that the general quality of USB-C docks and d

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

AMD hasn't had problems like that since the FX CPUs from a decade ago.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

AMD became more power efficient than Intel with their first Athlon processors. Then they lost the crown in there for a while, until Ryzen really. Around the same time the first Ryzen chips came out, Intel had problems with meeting their process targets and they started having to pump the power in order to get the performance. I have only just upgraded to Zen 3, which is about where AMD conclusively had better ops per watt; My new CPU has the same 65W TDP as my old Zen+ unit (I went from 1600AF to 5600X) and

Maybe

[zkiwi34]

Intel should fix their processors, and offer replacements and installation for free. Nah, that's crazy talk.

Now hire the Jim Keller of GPUs...

[Zolmarchus]

Good news. I guess having Jim Keller design your architecture really helps. Yes, the same guy who helped Apple with their ARM designs, and then Tesla with theirs. Now if only there was a GPU "Jim Keller" that could hop from company to company and ignite such developments to challenge Nvidia, that would be just great for everybody.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

Raja Koduri [wikipedia.org] /s

Ahhh, the laws of the current economic reality

[MpVpRb]

Investors demand endless growth.
Once great companies always degrade when they get too big.
Once great independent companies degrade when they are acquired.
The degradation continues until failure.
New companies rise to take their place, but they are bound by the same insane logic.

Start small, get good, get great, keep trying to grow beyond what's reasonable, rot, decay, bankruptcy, rinse, repeat

The system is broken

Re:

[timeOday]

Eventual decline isn't particularly because of the expectation of growth. Stagnant, ossified enterprises of fixed size, such as the power company, aren't any better.

It's true that nothing lasts forever. Not plants, animals, or businesses. A young and hungry upstart simply cannot maintain that mentality forever once it is stable and successful. Even the people who join a startup are not the people who seek employment at big, stable companies where you can just turn the crank and get a steady paycheck.

Re:

[Luckyo]

Biology demands endless growth. It's how all species interact with reality. We grow until we hit natural limits, go over them, and then starve until we're under the limit. It's normal cycle of life.

Humans differ in the fact that we adapt the environment to us, rather than adapt to environment, and technological revolution unlocked near infinite adaptation. And with it, near infinite growth.

To be fair

[Luckyo]

To be fair, 9000 series has been a massive disappointment on desktop. Basically same performance as previous generation, but less power consumed. It's a data center CPU, that got also adopted for desktop because something had to be adopted for desktop.

The only good processor from that entire line so far has been the 3D cache 9800X3D. And that one rides on the fact that they actually designed that one from ground up as a 3d cache CPU with cache at the bottom and cores on top, rather than bolt cache on top of