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AMD Businesses Intel The Almighty Buck

Benchmarking Utility Shows AMD Ryzen Rapidly Stealing Market Share From Intel (hothardware.com) 119

Posted by msmash from the preliminary-data dept.
According to PassMark, which publishes a benchmarking utility called PerformanceTest, the launch of Ryzen chips has resulted in a surge in AMD's share of its CPUs being tested. From a report: In the first quarter of last year, just 20.1 percent of tests were performed on AMD hardware, versus 79.8 percent on Intel chips. The gap widen by the end of the year, with AMD accounting for 17.8 percent of all tests run through Passmark's software, with Intel jumping up to 82.2 percent. Fast forward to the quarter than just ended and things are looking a bit different. AMD's share has climbed to 26.2 percent, while Intel's has slipped to 73.7 percent. Obviously Intel is still dominating, but what this shows us is that AMD was able to take a nearly 10 percent chunk out what is probably the enthusiast market from Intel. The reason we believe this is largely relegated to the enthusiast market is because AMD's Ryzen architecture is brand new, and that would be the most logical explanation as to why its numbers have suddenly spiked at the expense of Intel.
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Benchmarking Utility Shows AMD Ryzen Rapidly Stealing Market Share From Intel More

Benchmarking Utility Shows AMD Ryzen Rapidly Stealing Market Share From Intel

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  • Selection Bias (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beelsebob ( 529313 ) on Monday July 10, 2017 @12:02PM (#54778967)

    Limiting your market share sampling to people who run benchmarks is certainly not the best way to figure out how many CPUs are being sold.

    That said, good on AMD for producing a chip that actually competes with Intel.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      It's probably a decent way to measure the enthusiast market though.

      I would assume an over representation of AMD though, as it's a new thing, so people may have a certain level of excitement to benchmark it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 )
      That depends if they are "limiting" the data or merely reporting on it. My sense is they are reporting on what they see. From the article itself: " "While not a definitive measure of market share, there is more than a decade's worth of data to comb through, which Passmark neatly assembled into a graph show how things have shaken out over the years. . . Granted, we're working with a limited data set here—the numbers represent data gathered from a single benchmark."
    • Well said.
      Also the enthusiast tag is probably not completely accurate. I would suggest mid-range enthusiasts. The high end is still clearly Intel only territory. That might change in the next two quarters, but since they didn't report which processors were being tested, just that AMD's percentage rose, the article is mostly click bait. A hothardware special in other words.

    • As someone who would have put themselves in the "enthusiast" category, I can say that many (if not most) who've been around the block wouldn't use a benchmark utility in the first place.

      While synthetic benchmarks might give you a real general sense of performance they are at best poor, and at worst, terrible. I recall not only benchmark companies cheating, but in additional the graphic card companies cheating. Optimizing card performance for benchmarks rather than for real life situations.

      Anyway, as you sai

  • This benchmark utility not only shows how fast the new AMD processors are but it also steals market share from Intel?

    • Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Monday July 10, 2017 @12:27PM (#54779159) Homepage Journal

      Yes. On most benchmarks nowadays you can publicly post your results. Part of those results is the hardware and software configuration of your system. Its not rigorously statistical, but benchmark programs that publicly post results have long been used for mining data on OS, CPU, and and computer manufacturer marketshare trends.

      The fact that AMD is picking up marketshare so quickly isn't really surprising. Ever since the first Athlons beat the pants off of Intel, AMD has been the one the nerds root for. First of all Intel has a reputation for being microsoft-style predatory. Secondly, Athlon and then the AMD64 instruction set was innovative with an elegance that had a lot of nerd appeal. It looked for a while, though, that AMD weren't going to turn it around. I was worried they were destined to end up like Cyrix. I was excited to hear they had something in the pipeline that would make them competitive again, and even maybe market leaders. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would like to see AMD take off.

      • Wooosh...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The Ryzen parts have some really great features too. The Pro ones in particular support encrypted RAM, finally closing the cold boot security hole. Plenty of PCIe lanes too, and all for a fraction of the price of a similarly performing Intel part with fewer features.

      • Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Monday July 10, 2017 @01:26PM (#54779623)

        Intel has a reputation for being microsoft-style predatory

        Microsoft is amateurish in its predatory practices next to Intel.

        A hypothetical situation.
        A certain former PC powerhouse with a Q in their name had the fastest system bus architecture in the industry at the time. Chip company I requested access to the architecture so they could design their CPU's to take full advantage of the bus. Chip company I signed a NDA and all the legal mumbo jumbo about not stealing IP. Six months later Chip company I introduces system boards with the bus running on their own silicon. Company sues. Chip company I says OK since you are suing us we cannot sell chips to you directly. You will have to by them from a re-seller. Company knows this will bankrupt them in short order and agrees to license bus for free.

  • I'd be interested to know how much anticipation of Ryzen's release accounted for lower AMD numbers last year. Knowing a new chip was imminent, most builders would likely hold off on constructing new systems until the new chip came out and reviews/benchmarks were available (who wants to build a system *just before* a new "bigger and better" CPU comes out?). If you were running older AMD hardware, holding off for Ryzen, odds are benchmarks were run when they were built, so there'd be no need to run benchmar

    • Re:Other factors? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by yodleboy ( 982200 ) on Monday July 10, 2017 @01:41PM (#54779779)
      I would guess that the impact was not that great. Given the state of AMD processors pre-Ryzen, I think any AMD fan that wanted one had had one for a long time. I think the larger impact was to Intel's sales. I know I was thinking about a new system late last year, and was looking at an i7. Then I remembered Ryzen and after catching up on the news it really made sense to wait. Especially since I could compare to Kaby Lake. Ryzen 5, 6 and 7 are out, and Intel has botched the i9/X release so thoroughly that it's clear they were somehow caught with their pants down and have nothing good on the near horizon. I suspect that many fence sitters like myself will pull the trigger on a Ryzen system.

      • Never underestimate Intel. They could easily rush production on the next generation or a process bump or something else by throwing a lot of money at it. With the AMD64 / Pentium D stuff where Intel was caught flat footed with nothing they had a better chip in 2 years. I suspect Intel has been sandbagging performance waiting to see what AMD could do and they could already have something sampling that will be better.

        Either was it's good for the consumer because competition from AMD always drives down prices.

  • I like AMD (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I like AMD. It is the best. I think that everyone should use AMD.

  • Maybe.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Monday July 10, 2017 @12:14PM (#54779051)

    Maybe people tend to run benchmarks on their brand-new hardware, and not the hardware that they've been using for a while?

    Just a thought.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Desler ( 1608317 )

      Pfft, that's logical thinking and doesn't support a clickbait headline.

    • Well the article isn't saying that people are "replacing" Intels with AMDs. What it is saying is looking at benchmarking numbers, more people are benchmarking AMDs than in previous years. If we go with your assertion then more brand-new hardware is using AMDs in past years. Thus AMD is gaining more marketshare.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jon3k ( 691256 )
        I think it's illustrating all the people who had been waiting for the Ryzen launch. There was significant pent up demand for AMD parts, but not for Intel. So I would have expected a huge surge in AMD sales. The question will be how well they do long term. I'm personally just waiting for the Threadripper announcement before I decide to upgrade to Ryzen or Threadripper.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Desler ( 1608317 )

        But that doesn't mean that AMD has more marketshare which is the ultimate claim being made in the headline. People may still be buying lots of already released Intel hardware and don't feel the need to rebenchmark it.

        • The headline says: "Benchmarking Utility Shows AMD Ryzen Rapidly Stealing Market Share From Intel". AMD is gaining more marketshare if AMD is in more new PCs It doesn't mean that X% of the total market is going to AMD. It implies that X% of new PCs are AMD compared to Y% in the last several years.

          People may still be buying lots of already released Intel hardware and don't feel the need to rebenchmark it.

          This is a possibility; however, it can also be true that people are buying existing AMD hardware and not benchmarking it either.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Desler ( 1608317 )

            It implies that X% of new PCs are AMD compared to Y% in the last several years.

            No, it only implies that a niche group of people heavily skewed by selection bias are benchmarling more AMD CPUs. It says absolutely zero about sales or stealing marketshare. This is as silly as the people who claim net stats about Linux marketshare are wrong until the numbers show negatively for Microsoft. At that point, the previously flawed methodology becomes infallible gospel.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
        Alternatively, people are more curious about how their new AMD processor is holding up, whereas Intel processors are a known quantity at this point, so new owners are less likely to try.

    • So people are buying new hardware and benchmarking it. Then we're seeing a ~10% increase in the purchase of new AMD systems. That's the point of the article.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Desler ( 1608317 )

        The headline says "stealing marketshare from Intel". The number of people bechmarking systems does not back up that wild claim.

        • It may be hyperbole, but if AMD is gaining market share at the expense of Intel, "stealing" is a word for it.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Desler ( 1608317 )

            Sure, but that's big IF without actual sales data.

            • As the article explains, the data is not a direct stand-in for sales data. But do to the breadth and volume of the set, it is a reasonable representation of popularity. If something is more popular, there's generally more of it.

    • Sure, and vendors tend to sell people brand-new hardware, and not the hardware that they already own and use. :)

    • Maybe people tend to run benchmarks on their brand-new hardware, and not the hardware that they've been using for a while? Just a thought.

      ....Which then implies that Ryzen has 26% of sales vs. Intel products. Derp.

    • Hence, implying AMD marketshare increased since they have a higher testing rate than before. You just said what the article fucking said.

  • What seems to be happening is AMD delivered a good processor with good performance..

    I built a machine with one this month for my kid. Very good performance for the power consumed if you ask me. You do have to throw expensive memory at them, but not THAT much more expensive...

    I'm guessing my experience is not unique and it's nice to know that I'm not alone. However, all this really says is that folks who are building performance systems and are interested enough in their system's performance to run a ben

  • Glad to see AMD recovering and delivering a chip that offers decent performance and value. We bought a lot of AMD back in the days when you could warm your lunch up on the Intel chips. But extrapolating the vanishingly small "enthusiast" market from benchmark data into a double digit market share change seems to be more than a little but of a stretch. Intel still holds a lot of the cards with the bulk of PCs being sold. It's good to have glimmers of real competition again, though -- in any given market, hav

  • I read that article a week ago (possibly not from slashdot, so at least it might not be a dupe) and its conclusion seemed preposterous to me. You see sometimes websites or services (e.g. Steam) making claims about "market' behavior by extrapolating their own user data, and to a point you can say that they might represent a limited market - e.g. Steam pretty much has the "gaming market". But a benchmark making claims about market share after the release OF A NEW CPU ARCHITECTURE???
    I want AMD to succeed, as w

  • Intel doubles down with VROC scam (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BenJeremy ( 181303 ) on Monday July 10, 2017 @01:04PM (#54779415)

    They forced board makers to rush out the X299 motherboards 2 months ahead of schedule... and after spending some time with one, I can say Intel has a problem on its hands.

    Intel promises no bottlenecks in their newest chipset for RAID performance - up to 20 drives, SSD or nvme, can be used. Performance has been measured at up to 16GB/s, which seems incredible... they also promise "RAID-0 for free"

    Why for free?

    Because the new X299 motherboards have a "VROC Upgrade Key" socket. Unless you pony up more cash to Intel, some of the RAID features only work with Intel storage (hence the "Optane-ready" logo on these motherboards). As for RAID-0, there is Free, and then there is "free" - On the board I had, the Gigabyte X299 Gaming 7, the third nvme slot could not be used to build a RAID-0 array at all without the key (or possibly an intel-branded nvme). Worse, the RAID-0 arrays would not be recognized by Windows as BOOTABLE, which is kind of the whole point. All this is "fine print" stuff, or buried in poorly written chinglish manuals.

    So, spend $400 on a new motherboard, $1000 on an intel 10-core CPU, and... no bootable RAID-0 array for you, because you didn't buy Intel Optane sticks. No technical reason for this, just a DRM key that enables artificially hobbled features on your system.

    Did I mention that the VROC key isn't even available yet? Not for ANY price.

    I can safely say my next system will NOT be an Intel system. Screw them and their "VROC" scam.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Xenolith0 ( 808358 )

      I didn't fully believe you, so I had to Google it. And omfg, duck that noise.

      That really turns me off of future Intel products.

      http://www.pcworld.com/article... [pcworld.com]

    • I think the premium is because Intel had to pour a lot of resources into working around Microsoft's broken operating system; Windows can't boot from storage volumes spanning multiple controllers. Probably a big effort to work around that mess. In comparison, Linux never had that problem, but if booting Windows from NVMe RAID is your goal, VROC looks like the only option from any vendor.

      • My Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 5 motherboard and two Plextor NVMe sticks begs to differ. It boots fine on Intel RAID, as have my last three builds prior with SSDs.

        When you spend $400 on a motherboard, and $1000 on an i9 CPU, there should be no excuse not to have the full capabilities enabled.

        It is greed, pure and simple, on Intel's part. If they want to maintain market share, this is NOT how you do it.

        • Ah, I should have stated.... my Z170X motherboard predates Intel's "VROC" nonsense. It also has bottlenecks and obviously, I don't have the same number of PCIe lanes as the i9-7900X on an X299 motherboard.

  • AMD is still on a downward [steampowered.com] trend on Steam, which you would think has a higher share of enthusiast CPUs than average. Of course those are accumulated figures, not new sales so changes will be smaller and depend on market share of retired processors but the rumors of AMDs recovery are a bit exaggerated. The Q2 guidance is 12% YoY growth but compared to their downhill slide they have a long climb back up to profitability.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by iCEBaLM ( 34905 )

      The Steam survey is not representative unfortunately. It keeps saying VR headset adoption has flatlined, when we know for certain it is going up. Two AMD Ryzen processors are in the top 5 sellers on Amazon right now. I know it's hard to get actual data without the companies releasing their sales figures, but Ryzen really is converting more people to AMD.

    • I have multiple AMD PCs on steam. But I don't submit to the Hardware Survey they ask for. None of their business what I use. I also don't buy whats popular, I value price to performance. Although I am a computer hardware nerd, I still have to mind price... So I can buy more hardware.

      • Uh, it IS their business to know. They plan and allocate resources based on this information.

        • Resources like what? More ads for games I don't want to play? There is no reason at all for them to know what hardware is inside of my computers. That's like saying that the government should know what time of day I take a shit so they can "allocate resources based on this information"

  • It sounds like a good chip; does AMD still have a heat-intolerance problem? Dunno if that's ancient history now, but as my systems end up running in rather warm environments, Intel's downstepping (rather than frying) when over-warm was really a fantastic feature.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hydrian ( 183536 )

      No. The Rysen chips are running cooler than their similar Intel counterparts. Also there TDPs are better too. The days of the FX's heating a room are over.

      • I still have an FX8320 and it idles around 25C. Under full load I've seen it spike up to about 60C, but that's not the norm. This is with the stock cooler that came in the box. I run Funtoo Linux with CPU frequency scaling on, so I suspect that helps quite a bit.

        I built this system in early 2013. Only paid around $550 CAD for the CPU, motherboard, and 32GB of DDR3 RAM.

        Still runs great. If I were to upgrade today, I'd go for a Ryzen 1700. According to Passmark it would nearly double my performance, and halve

  • Steam hardware shows a slight uptick in... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...6 and 8 core processors. Since previously those would be limited to Intel Extreme or Xeon CPUs, a number of people are likely buying Ryzen R5 and R7 processors.

    Dell, HP, and other manufacturers prefer to ship with integrated GPUs and AMD's APU hasn't launched yet. The trick here is that customers who buy a Dell might not even care what processor they get.

    On the other other hand, I assume AMD is going to aggressively undercut Intel in laptop processors, so they'll probably gain market share there.

  • It's long overdue, and I will admit I'm enjoying seeing Intel scramble after years of incremental improvements. I saw just the other day that Dell is now selling Ryzen equipped Inspiron gaming PC's. Looks like all Ryzen 7 at the moment, but it's a good sign that they didn't just restrict Ryzen to the Alienware line. Will be curious to see if they add SKUs with Ryzen 5 and 6 processors later. Prices are reasonable too.

    When I get around to it, I'll get or build a Ryzen 7 box. While it's not the 'fastest

  • Because of all the garbage gaming news, I had forgotten AMD even made CPUs! Typically most of what you see is about their GPUs since they bought out ATI. I would love to get off of Intel and back onto AMD, particularly with the management engine and other binary-only spyware Intel likes to sneak on to their products. I remember fondly my allegiance to them and the K7 CPU! inventing the amd64 wasn't half-bad either. I just wish they would have kept ATI separate so that I could tell the difference.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by epyT-R ( 613989 )

      Ryzen has a management engine too. If you want chips without them, you're stuck on old hardware.

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