AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 chips are making things even worse for Intel

AMD wasn’t going to make everyone happy with the Zen 5 launch. A lot was riding on these new processors but the company scored some winners with the AMD Ryzen 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X. They’re not the fastest chips in their families, at least compared to Intel, but they’re incredibly efficient and priced well. Intel has been combatting falling market share, a drop in company value, and its processors bricking themselves. To say the 2020s haven’t been kind to Intel thus far would be an understatement and things look like they’ll worsen before we see any positive news.

AMD Zen 5 CPUs are much more efficient

Intel doesn’t have any answers … yet

We’ve played around with the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X and were impressed. AMD prioritizes efficiency with this generation, bringing down the TDPs of its “X” processors that were usually pushed harder than non-X chips. The two AM5 processors we’ve reviewed so far have a TDP of just 65W and draw at most 88W from the socket. This leaves headroom for overclocking on the system end, but it also allows AMD to showcase efficient processors without sacrificing performance. Even though these chips draw less power than previous-gen CPUs, they’re faster.

Intel is technically ahead in most tests. The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X won’t beat an Intel Core i5-14600K, neither with the Ryzen 7 9700X be able to take on the Core i7-14700K, but AMD’s new Zen 5 chips will suck far less electricity and produce less heat. No additional cores have been added to any of the AMD Ryzen 9000 series chips, so AMD had to rely on architectural and manufacturing improvements. The company delivered on what it set out to achieve, but even if you don’t find them good enough to upgrade from a previous generation, you’re still less likely to move to an Intel platform.

Then there’s the whole issue of stability. Intel hasn’t had it easy with the 13th and 14th generations of Core processors. They get seriously hot under high loads and draw considerable amounts of power. They’re still good chips with plenty of performance and high clock speeds without overclocking, but some microcode was causing an algorithm to incorrectly request the CPU to be at voltages outside of designed limits. This can cause irreparable damage to the component, which is why Intel has worked on getting BIOS updates out through motherboard partners and extended warranties.

AMD’s own charts aren’t any better with a considerable drop in value over the past month, but it has started to recover ahead of this launch and I expect it will continue if Intel can’t put some fires out. Slashing staff numbers (by more than 17,000!) and the dividend doesn’t help matters either. Share value isn’t everything, especially to anyone who doesn’t own a slice of Intel, but it does show market sentiment regarding the brand. At the time of writing, Intel sits at just north of $20 per share, whereas its direct rival is at $136.

Intel’s next-gen desktop CPUs are coming

But will they be enough to stop the bleeding?

Two chip families are coming out of Intel this year. First is Lunar Lake for mobile and the second is Arrow Lake for desktop. Lunar Lake will be outsourced entirely to TSMC, the manufacturer making AMD’s processors. Arrow Lake, Intel’s 15th Gen Core desktop series is still looking to use Intel 20A. This would be a strong move by Intel as it would be equivalent to a comparable 2nm fabrication process on TSMC or Samsung. Depending on how the processors will perform is another question we look to answer with direct comparisons to AMD.

Intel still has the performance lead by bolting one way more cores and threads than most people require, but it needs to catch up everywhere else.

Related

Intel is an entirely different company to the powerhouse it once was a decade ago

An industry leader and the best CPU for consumers, what changed?

Intel isn’t the same chip-making powerhouse it once was. The company still dominates the CPU market, but it’s not a comfortable lead and one that continues to shrink as AMD keeps pumping out better value and more efficient processors. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently took to X to post prayers amidst a tumbling stock price, the cancellation of dividends, and mass layoffs. Prayers may be answered and Intel’s upcoming process nodes and architecture developments may turn things around, but things aren’t looking too good right now.

Intel has an uphill battle on its hands, but I hope they overcome everything that has been thrown their way this year. 2024 continues to look a little bleak but 2025 would be an entirely new calendar to launch products and reinject some much-needed excitement into the CPU space. AMD is sailing high but we’ve seen both companies get complacent with a comfortable lead.