Someone's been just about to beat Intel at the high-performance CPU game, any day now, for a couple of decades. The AIM (Apple/IBM/Motorola) alliance was very fond of hockeystick graphs showing their planned crushing of other CPUs (shown as a flatter line, usually coyly labeled 'CISC'), for instance, back in the early 90s.
It's not an impossible thing but given the track record of such claims and predictions, the only comment they should elicit is 'Shut up and show me the silicon'
If you throw enough "This time it is different" on the web a person may guess one.
When i shop for a new desktop I feel I am essentially paying intel tax. Since AMD begun to play catch up the intel desktop product line moved from providing value for the customer to extracting consumer surplus more efficiently. I would be surprised if this is not the case in the server market.
The lack of VT-d on K processors and the totally locked other CPUs are a good example. Nobody likes being milked which can create some desire to diversify from intel even if the savings are not enormous.
Are yoy saying Dell won't buy Intel because Intel is evil? Recently China started to wind down its anti-Intel stance in pqrt due to a new supercomputer deal.
Dell don't buy intel. They resell intel so it is all the same for them.
They will gladly resell whatever someone decides to buy. But every time there is a new chip on the market the big cloud operators and big end clients for intel chips take calculators and begin to evaluate very carefully.
Also intel are not evil. They just milk their customers.
Numerous examples exist of firms beating Intel at creating high-performance CPU's. Nobody can best them at business though. Otellini spent just enough on R&D to keep Intel caught up with its competitors. It will be interesting to see what they do without him.
It's not an impossible thing but given the track record of such claims and predictions, the only comment they should elicit is 'Shut up and show me the silicon'