Intel Vs AMD in 2020: New Wave Of Competition Among Chip Makers

Fondly known as team blue (Intel) and team red (AMD), there has never been this close of a tussle between these brands. Both brands have launched some amazing products and solutions to maintain and improve their market share in 2020.

2020 is the year of a global pandemic that forced many of us to work from home. To do so, one needs a computer or a laptop, and most computers in the world are powered by either an Intel/AMD CPU. In 2020, these brands have launched some of their best products of this decade, which took the computing game to the next level.

AMD Came Out With Big Guns

AMD has been rocking the market for the last couple of years, and this year was no different. The brand, which was once known for CPUs that tend to overheat is known know for producing processors that offer best-performance-per-watt, that too with highly competitive pricing.

2020 is a big year for AMD, as the brand has been talk-of-the-town not just for CPUs, but for GPUs as well. In fact, the latest generation of gaming consoles from Sony and Microsoft are also powered by AMD APUs (CPU + GPU). Both the Sony PS5 and the Xbox Series S/X are powered by AMD APUs.

Earlier this year, AMD made headlines by launching high-performance Ryzen 4000 series mobile CPUs, which outperformed 10th Gen Intel mobile CPUs in terms of performance and energy efficiency. Laptops like the Asus ROG G14 powered by the Ryzen 9 4800HS offered a great amount of performance and battery efficiency.

Not just the high-performance 35/45W CPUs, AMD also launched 15W Ryzen 4000 series CPUs for thin and light laptops with integrated graphics, which also outperformed Intel's 10th Gen CPUs. Then by the end of 2020, the company announced Zen3 powered Ryzen CPUs, which happened to be some of the fastest mainstream CPUs along with 6000 series Radeon GPUs.

When it comes to GPUs, AMD was slightly behind when compared to the likes of NVIDIA. Even this changed in 2020, with GPUs like Radeon 6800 XT, the company went head-to-head with the NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU and came out as a clear winner.

Intel Changed Directions Too

Intel is known to offer higher-clock speed CPUs when compared to the competition, with best-in-the-industry single-core performance. The brand did launch 10th Gen CPUs with up to 5.3GHz clock speed. However, most of these CPUs were based on 14nm architecture, which meant they aren't as efficient as AMD's counterpart.

The brand also launched 10th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs based on 10nm FinFET tech with improved efficiency without affecting the overall performance. By the end of 2020, Intel showcased the much hyper 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPUs, which took graphics performance on a thin-and-light laptop to the next level.

11th Gen Rocket Lake CPUs can be considered as the flagship product from the company, which is said to change the thin-and-light laptop game forever. With 11th Gen, Intel was able to take on AMD by offering best-in-class performance (25W) with both CPU and GPU.

There Is A New Competitor In The Market

Apple has a seven percent PC market share, which is actually huge, as the rest of the market is occupied by numerous amount of companies. This year, Apple went against the wind and launched ARM architecture powered Macs which outperformed the competitions.

This move from Apple is a huge blow for both Intel and AMD, as Apple used to incorporate Intel CPUs and AMD GPUs on their laptops and desktops. So, team red and team blue definitely lost one of the main customers.

Challenging Times Ahead

With all this competition, a customer comes out as a clear winner. The more the competition, these brands work hard to produce the best-possible tech at competitive pricing. AMD is continuing its winning streak, whereas Intel just showed us that it is still in the game and has not given up.

This tussle between team red and team blue will definitely give us some amazing products in the coming days. As an enthusiast and a consumer, I am waiting to check out the next wave of products from some of the biggest silicon brands in the world.