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INTEL NEWS

By Will Fastie

Intel made some impressive announcements, but Qualcomm may get all the good press.

You know we’ve been following developments in silicon carefully over the past couple of years. Our focus has been largely on Apple because of its bold initiatives with its M-series of chips.

That coverage has not been to tout Apple, although it’s abundantly clear that the company’s products, especially Macintosh, have shown market share improvements. Our purpose has been to underscore what we perceived as a lag in Intel’s ongoing development. Windows users don’t gain anything from Apple’s proprietary silicon, but they lose something if Intel can’t keep up.

What we have not done particularly well is track Intel’s progress in catching up. I have watched each generation since 11, albeit casually; I did not find anything worth writing about. With 14, however, I’m moderately impressed with Intel’s progress.

Within days of Intel’s recent announcements, Qualcomm threw quite a wrench into the works. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Intel’s announcement was for the “enthusiast” versions of the chips, primarily desktop systems for gamers, creators, and those in need of workstations. Intel introduced six chips in all, but in pairs. All six are K models, which means over-clocking is possible. But three of the models have the additional designation F, which means they do not include on-board graphics processing units (GPUs). Figure 1 shows the three K models; the GPU features below the double line are not present in the KF models. Otherwise, the specifications for each chip are identical.

Figure 1. Basic specifications for Intel’s new S-Series 14th Gen processors

As you can see, these chips have high core counts, high thread counts, and high core frequencies. The chips also have quite good base frequencies. Cores are divided between performance cores (which support hyper-threading) and efficiency cores (which do not). All are based on the Raptor Lake architecture and use Intel’s 7nm manufacturing process. All support a huge amount of RAM.

Intel made a special effort to point out that these processors are compatible with the existing 600- and 700-series chipsets. This means a simplified design process for motherboard manufacturers. It’s not uncommon for chipsets to support multiple generations of processors, but it is a bit unusual for a new processor to support two past generations. It’s more typical for a new processor to support the current chipset generation and the next one. Be that as it may, the new motherboards I checked that used one of these processors were all based on 700-series chipsets.

Another indicator of the high-end nature of these chips is the absence of an i3 version. As for pricing, a compatible motherboard and the i5-14600K costs approximately $560, about $100 more than I paid for my i5-11600K-based system two years ago. That processor has six cores and 12 threads; this new i5-14600K adds eight efficient cores. Pricing seems reasonable.

Intel touts the family as having turbo clock rates of up to 6GHz. That’s not shown in Figure 1 because it applies only to the i9-14900K/KF chips and only when a special version of Turbo-Boost is enabled. It’s better for comparison purposes if the clock rates shown are used. There are also some features missing from Figure 1 because Intel was ambiguous about them. For example, the initial press release mentioned Wi-Fi 7 and Thunderbolt 5, but three days after the announcement the language was adjusted to indicate that both were “coming soon.”

These processors require a lot of power, especially when running in turbo mode. That’s important to keep in mind because this is just the opening salvo for 14th Gen. We will undoubtedly see mobile processors in the not-to-distant future.

It’s gotten to the point that if MacDonald’s introduces a new burger, there will be some sort of reference to AI in the press release. Intel is no exception to this rule, mentioning its efforts on the AI side in almost every press release. This is understandable; AMD beat Intel to the punch with the hardware acceleration needed by AI and Intel is trying to catch up.

The key takeaway is this, from the AI PC Acceleration Program press release:

Intel’s AI PC Acceleration Program will enable artificial intelligence (AI) on more than 100 million PCs through 2025, propelled by the upcoming launch of Intel® Core™ Ultra processors on Dec. 14.

The Ultra line of processors was announced this past June and I mentioned it in Intel Rebrands in the June 19 issue. At the time, Intel said Ultra would appear in 2H23; we now know it really meant two weeks before the end of 2023. What we did not know four months ago was that Ultra would be the line of chips associated with Intel’s AI initiatives. We still don’t know much, but check out Intel’s AI-related material listed in the “Intel Resources” list below.

The most significant part of the quote above is “100 million PCs.” Intel isn’t talking about servers here. It’s talking about desktop (client) computing. Intel is saying that roughly seven percent of desktop PCs will be able to do heavy AI lifting two years from now. It that comes to pass, it will be a major milestone in the history of personal computing.

Although the news above is moderately exciting, the financial results are in for Intel’s latest quarter. As they have for quite some time, they do not appear stellar at first glance.

Revenue for the quarter was $14.2 billion, down 8% over the quarter one year ago (Y/Y). Net income was $300 million, down 71% Y/Y. Long-term debt increased from $37.7 to $46.6 billion, or 24%. On the asset side of the balance sheet, property, plant, and equipment rose from $80.9 to $93.4 billion. This makes sense because Intel has been investing heavily in new manufacturing facilities (fabs) and equipment at multiple locations around the world.

Whether these investments will pay off in the long run is yet to be seen. Intel lagged in fabrication for a number of years and is, in effect, investing now when it should have been investing all along. But in spite of these difficulties, Intel remains in a dominant position with respect to desktop and server silicon and has demonstrated that it can deliver economies and performance in the laptop sector.

The videos above are on the Intel Technology YouTube channel.

I’d like to give a little shout-out to Intel PR, which responded promptly and clearly to my requests for additional information. I appreciate the efforts of any company’s PR team, but Intel got back to me almost instantly, a refreshing difference.

This came out of the blue, a complete surprise. Qualcomm, long a leader in processors for smartphones, announced its entry into the PC market with its Snapdragon X Elite processor. Here are the major bullet points from its October 24 press note, Qualcomm Unleashes Snapdragon X Elite: The AI Super-Charged Platform to Revolutionize the PC:

Further details are contained in Qualcomm’s data sheet.

Oryon is a custom ARM chip, precisely like Apple’s M-series chips. Many of the claims about Snapdragon X Elite are made in comparison to Apple. But that’s not because Qualcomm is hopeful of having Apple adopt its chips — it’s because folks like me are comparing Intel chips to Apple silicon. In other words, Qualcomm is gunning for a share of the Windows PC market. It might actually succeed because the company is now in a position to provide early samples to PC manufacturers, who can decide if those chips are desirable in their designs. With Qualcomm saying directly that we will see such PCs in the middle of next year, the company has clearly landed some sales.

Will this affect the Windows PC market? Apple is taking some market from Windows, but so far it’s on the margin, a few percentage points. Apple is mostly interested in making its entire product line vertically integrated so it controls the entire ecosystem. Qualcomm, on the other hand, can shoot for a share of the general PC market, made up mostly of Windows PCs.

That’s no threat to Microsoft; it will sell Windows either way. But for Intel, it’s a bigger threat than Apple silicon.

The contents of this article are not to be construed as investment advice. Will Fastie is not a financial analyst and no longer holds SEC licenses. Please consult your personal broker or financial consultant for guidance.

Join the conversation! Your questions, comments, and feedback about this topic are always welcome in our forums!

Will Fastie is editor in chief of the AskWoody Plus Newsletter.

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