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Benchmarking Utility Shows AMD Ryzen Rapidly Stealing Market Share From Intel (hothardware.com)
According to PassMark, which publishes a benchmarking utility called PerformanceTest, the launch of Ryzen chips has resulted in a surge in AMD's share of its CPUs being tested. From a report: In the first quarter of last year, just 20.1 percent of tests were performed on AMD hardware, versus 79.8 percent on Intel chips. The gap widen by the end of the year, with AMD accounting for 17.8 percent of all tests run through Passmark's software, with Intel jumping up to 82.2 percent. Fast forward to the quarter than just ended and things are looking a bit different. AMD's share has climbed to 26.2 percent, while Intel's has slipped to 73.7 percent. Obviously Intel is still dominating, but what this shows us is that AMD was able to take a nearly 10 percent chunk out what is probably the enthusiast market from Intel. The reason we believe this is largely relegated to the enthusiast market is because AMD's Ryzen architecture is brand new, and that would be the most logical explanation as to why its numbers have suddenly spiked at the expense of Intel.
Yes. On most benchmarks nowadays you can publicly post your results. Part of those results is the hardware and software configuration of your system. Its not rigorously statistical, but benchmark programs that publicly post results have long been used for mining data on OS, CPU, and and computer manufacturer marketshare trends.
The fact that AMD is picking up marketshare so quickly isn't really surprising. Ever since the first Athlons beat the pants off of Intel, AMD has been the one the nerds root for. First of all Intel has a reputation for being microsoft-style predatory. Secondly, Athlon and then the AMD64 instruction set was innovative with an elegance that had a lot of nerd appeal. It looked for a while, though, that AMD weren't going to turn it around. I was worried they were destined to end up like Cyrix. I was excited to hear they had something in the pipeline that would make them competitive again, and even maybe market leaders. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would like to see AMD take off.
They forced board makers to rush out the X299 motherboards 2 months ahead of schedule... and after spending some time with one, I can say Intel has a problem on its hands.
Intel promises no bottlenecks in their newest chipset for RAID performance - up to 20 drives, SSD or nvme, can be used. Performance has been measured at up to 16GB/s, which seems incredible... they also promise "RAID-0 for free"
Why for free?
Because the new X299 motherboards have a "VROC Upgrade Key" socket. Unless you pony up more cash to Intel, some of the RAID features only work with Intel storage (hence the "Optane-ready" logo on these motherboards). As for RAID-0, there is Free, and then there is "free" - On the board I had, the Gigabyte X299 Gaming 7, the third nvme slot could not be used to build a RAID-0 array at all without the key (or possibly an intel-branded nvme). Worse, the RAID-0 arrays would not be recognized by Windows as BOOTABLE, which is kind of the whole point. All this is "fine print" stuff, or buried in poorly written chinglish manuals.
So, spend $400 on a new motherboard, $1000 on an intel 10-core CPU, and... no bootable RAID-0 array for you, because you didn't buy Intel Optane sticks. No technical reason for this, just a DRM key that enables artificially hobbled features on your system.
Did I mention that the VROC key isn't even available yet? Not for ANY price.
I can safely say my next system will NOT be an Intel system. Screw them and their "VROC" scam.
Intel has a reputation for being microsoft-style predatory
Microsoft is amateurish in its predatory practices next to Intel.
A hypothetical situation.
A certain former PC powerhouse with a Q in their name had the fastest system bus architecture in the industry at the time. Chip company I requested access to the architecture so they could design their CPU's to take full advantage of the bus. Chip company I signed a NDA and all the legal mumbo jumbo about not stealing IP. Six months later Chip company I introduces system boards with the bus running on their own silicon. Company sues. Chip company I says OK since you are suing us we cannot sell chips to you directly. You will have to by them from a re-seller. Company knows this will bankrupt them in short order and agrees to license bus for free.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K