Intel vs. AMD: The battle for mobile computing

Just as with McDonalds vs. Burger King or Boeing vs. Airbus, the battle for top dog in the PC microprocessor world rages on as upstart AMD takes on the establishment in Intel. The two have been battling in the marketplace and in the courts since they ended their partnership on IBM processors in the mid-1980s. Representing pretty much 100% of the microprocessor market between them…is it any surprise that the fate of these two are tied so tightly together? Indeed, Intel itself has had a love-hate following that is the hardware equivalent of the controversial Microsoft. Why? As the 15th world's most powerful brand (source: Millward Brown Optimor), Intel's position is frequently seen as the dominant player at the heart of the PC. Indeed AMD CEO Hector Ruiz exploits these strong feelings every chance he can and has pulled no punches in calling Intel's power illegal and monopolistic. The courts have largely ruled otherwise. But perhaps Ruiz has a point about the value of competition? AMD/Intel hyper-competition has carried over into extremely innovative product design at the two companies. Indeed, the two companies have propelled processor design forward allowing for others in the industry to develop more and more powerful applications. But these two protagonists are not that different. Like sports teams playing to not lose in an overtime match, the two companies have mirrored each other on features, benefits and largely on the technology to achieve them. Indeed just a look at both companies' notebook solutions…AMD's Turion 64 X2 and Intel's Core 2 Duo processor…one finds more high level similarities than differences. Both processors use the same core technologies dual core and L2 caching as their development paths have mirrored one another. With such product similarities, you'd expect their competitiveness to extend to distribution…and it does. Serious brand-name PC makers are also fans of both processor lineups. HP Compaq adds AMD's Turion processor to its powerful 6515b lineup (for example HP Compaq 6515b KA445UT Business ) …while the Toshiba Portege R500-S5004and the Sony VAIO VGN-CR490EBNhave chosen the Intel Core 2 Duo. Websites and retailers continue to play both sides. In fact with just under 20% of US notebook sales (source: IDC), AMD still garners a disproportional amount of representation at retail and on the internet. Indeed, a trip through a self-help jungle of a Best Buy in Southern California by CNet showed that exactly half of the company's PC notebooks have AMD chips. So that's all good and fine, but who actually makes the fastest processor…AMD or Intel? Frankly, it's not an easy question to answer as in part, the answer depends on when you're asking it. That's because technology products like these have a pronounced lifecycle and newly released, more advanced products will give its side a leg up. Indeed, that's the way the last year unfolded. AMD saw its fortunes improve substantially in the summer of 2007 just after the launch of its Turion chip. Driven by this introduction and continued market demand for Microsoft's low power XP platform, AMD gained market share from Intel. Even an updated premium Duo 2 chipset by Intel did little to slow AMD's gains. But after six months in the market and by the fall of 2007, Microsoft Vista started to drive demand for more expensive systems. That meant a surge for upscale Intel processors. Much of the market share gains AMD had wrestled away…were lost back to Intel over the winter of 2007/2008. Actual performance in the form of processor speed has also been hard to nail down. For starters, both companies' chipset nomenclature remains difficult to decipher. There has been no easy to understand replacement for the misleading gigahertz rating. Second, direct comparisons have been hard to come by. Historically, AMD has not been shy about asking Intel to performance duels, yet these sanctioned challenges have not occurred. So what about 3rd party standardized performance tests? Well I hate to say it…only several extensive studies have been carried out, but each has then been subsequently discredited. Typically these studies have been poorly conducted using different PC platforms and thereby limiting any apples-to-apples comparison. Likewise, there haven't been calls from AMD for speed comparisons for some times…which leads one to believe that AMD doesn't have the confidence in head-to-head tests that it once did. This wouldn't be too surprising as AMD is frequently priced slightly lower than Intel. This is a natural market position for the #2 player in a technology category…a performance-value position. Meanwhile, Intel's CEO Paul Otellini says that Intel plans to 'walk away' from low end mobile computing market due to a lack of profitability. Intel has that luxury. So where does all this shake out for someone looking to upgrade her or his PC? In 2008, we would recommend going with Intel if you are a serious power user. Several application areas where there could be a difference would be intensive graphics, heavy multimedia or top end gaming. On the other hand, the processors perform pretty much the same for all other applications. Our experience is that both processors will operate typical current and future software…including Microsoft Vista…very well. Regardless of which way you go, the continuation of the battle between Intel and AMD makes all of us consumers winners.