Intel CEO Gelsinger Says AMD Is "In the Rear-View Mirror" After Alder Lake

Pat Gelsinger New Year message
(Image credit: Intel, Pat Gelsinger)

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has now presided over Intel for 11 months, and during that time, it has become clear that he has a penchant for speaking his mind even when it isn't always the most prudent course of action (like his recent war of words with Intel's own partner, TSMC). To celebrate his almost full year's tenure and tie it in with New Year celebrations, Gelsinger produced an informative video for his LinkedIn followers. However, he also took the opportunity to say that AMD is now firmly behind Intel in the consumer market and "in the rearview mirror." As you can see in the video below, that's also how Gelsinger expects the technology race to continue to play out under his leadership. 

To begin his talk of 11 months and 11 standout things looking back at 2021 and forward to 2022, Gelsinger briefly outlined the situation as he sees it now. The Intel CEO says his new leadership has inspired a torrid pace of transformation and change at Intel, and at the same time, the outside world is busy adjusting to new habits in work and life. Gelsinger's positive messages continue, sharing his philosophy of how everyone can work towards their goals.

During his discussion around the sixth category, Gelsinger is more than forthright in suggesting AMD will play second fiddle in the x86 processor business from now on (2:40 in the above video):

"Alder Lake. All of a sudden...Boom! We are back in the game," exclaims the impish tech CEO. "AMD in the rearview mirror in clients [consumer market]," he adds, "and never again will they be in the windshield; we are just leading the market."

These statements obviously refer to Alder Lake's solid performance and performance-per-dollar (particularly in the newly-announced models) in desktop PCs that have given Intel the lead in the CPU Benchmark Hierarchy and our list of Best CPUs for gaming. However, we haven't yet seen the impact of Alder Lake in the laptop market, which comprises a far larger share of the market than desktop PCs. We obviously won't have to wait long to see how that pans out — Alder Lake-powered laptops start shipping next month.

Gelsinger moves on to assert that Intel is uniquely well-positioned to capture the next phase of compute workload demand, which he reckons will be at the network edge - providing AI, low latency, and the best security. This vision might tie in with his expectations of people finding new and better ways to connect with others across the internet/metaverse. This area and VR have been tipped to explode for quite some time now.

(Image credit: Intel)

Gelsinger's speech also highlights his long-term objectives, like the goal of launching five nodes across a four-year roadmap. Gelsinger mentions that progress is on track for the Intel 7, Intel 4, Intel 3, Intel 20A, and Intel 18A nodes, with the latter scheduled for an "early 2025" debut.

Gelsinger signed off his seasonal message to his Intel colleagues by saying he will be the best he can be for all the 100,000-strong Intel employees, promising that he is still as fired up about the potential of Intel as when he joined the firm many years ago — and when he rejoined 11 months ago.

Intel is surely energized in the face of its recent win in the desktop PC space, but many more challenges loom in the AMD vs Intel battle across laptops and the server market, not to mention that AMD has its Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 chips coming for desktop PCs later this year. Given Gelsinger's penchant for inflammatory rhetoric, we're sure to see plenty of fireworks over the year to come as Intel strives to retake the lead over its bitter rival. 

Mark Tyson
Freelance News Writer

Mark Tyson is a Freelance News Writer at Tom's Hardware US. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • logainofhades
    Getting cocky, already, after just finally beating a product that has been out for over a year? Looks like Intel's pre ryzen arrogance is alive and well, in 2022, thinking this is the same pathetic AMD that gave us Faildozer. Lisa Su has done a phenomenal job bringing back some much needed competition. I am glad Intel finally took back the crown, as that will push AMD to get better as well. Such competition benefits us all with faster and better hardware, regardless of which camp you prefer.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    logainofhades said:
    Lisa Su has done a phenomenal job bringing back some much needed competition.
    What role did she play in the development of any of their current products? Jim Keller was the lead architect for Zen, the product that basically brought AMD back from the dead. If anyone should get credit for AMD's revival, it's him. Coincidently, Jim Keller was also the lead architect for Golden Cove which is what powers Alder Lake. So, he woke up both companies.

    Intel's current roadmap has Raptor Lake later this year, and Meteor Lake on Intel 4 in Q2 of next year. If Intel can actually hit that schedule or at least get close, they may well put some distance between themselves and AMD. It took Intel 7 years to get from 14nm to 10nm. Now they are trying to go from 10nm to 7nm in 18 months? Let's hope they can, as we'll all win with that.
    Reply
  • VforV
    "Alder Lake. All of a sudden...Boom! We are back in the game," exclaims the impish tech CEO.
    Impish indeed and cocky and too soon celebrating a short lived victory.

    We still have 5800X3D that might beat his winning AL, or at least tie it at a cheaper price, which will make it the better gaming CPU overall.

    And then comes Zen4.

    Intel is really that cocky that they forgot the spanking they just got a year ago and now they underestimate AMD again?! HAHA, yeah, I wanna see this play out for sure!

    The fact that Raptor Lake is gonna have such a big increase in cache size compared to AL, should tell everyone all that is needed to be told, that between the cocky statements and their lies "that AMD is behind now", they at Intel actually do fear AMD, they just don't want to admit it.

    Intel fanbois should thank AMD for Raptor Lake improvements, it's gonna be a much better CPU because of that.

    Zen4 vs Raptor Lake will be the battle of over 5Ghz and of (game) Caches. Fun times coming.
    Reply
  • Neilbob
    Gotta keep those delicate little shareholders reassured.
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    spongiemaster said:
    What role did she play in the development of any of their current products? Jim Keller was the lead architect for Zen, the product that basically brought AMD back from the dead. If anyone should get credit for AMD's revival, it's him. Coincidently, Jim Keller was also the lead architect for Golden Cove which is what powers Alder Lake. So, he woke up both companies.

    Intel's current roadmap has Raptor Lake later this year, and Meteor Lake on Intel 4 in Q2 of next year. If Intel can actually hit that schedule or at least get close, they may well put some distance between themselves and AMD. It took Intel 7 years to get from 14nm to 10nm. Now they are trying to go from 10nm to 7nm in 18 months? Let's hope they can, as we'll all win with that.

    She has righted a ship that was still not quite on course. AMD had done quite well under her leadership, with improvements to their chips, year over year. During that same period, all Intel did was add more cores, and increase clocks. I applaud Intel's current CEO for finally getting things back on track, at Intel, as well. Intel has done nothing but knee jerk reactions, to Ryzen, up until Alder Lake. They even regressed a bit with 11th vs 10th gen. Getting cocky, is not a wise move though. Confidence is good, but arrogance not so much. I believe we are set to see some great improvements, over the coming years, as there is a healthy competition between the two again. AMD has been just as guilty of such foolery, in the past, when they were providing a beat down, to Intel, prior to Core 2's launch.
    Reply
  • Geef
    The CEO forgot to talk about Intel's default process of sticking with a single type of chip and adding plus signs to the back of it.

    Now- Intel 7

    18 Mo- Intel 7+

    36 Mo- Intel 7++

    So on and so on...
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    Geef said:
    The CEO forgot to talk about Intel's default process of sticking with a single type of chip and adding plus signs to the back of it.

    Now- Intel 7

    18 Mo- Intel 7+

    36 Mo- Intel 7++

    So on and so on...

    I honestly do not believe that their new process will become another 14nm++++++ situation. Intel suffered from a lack of real leadership, prior to Gelsinger taking over. Now it appears they are back on track, and it took him less than a year to do it.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    I agree AMD is in the rear-view mirror.... or at least what's left of it

    Reply
  • VforV
    Pat and all the intel fanbois that support this kind of smug ignorant talking and underestimating AMD, do not realize they are setting up themselves not only for disappointment, but also for huge ridicule and mockery when intel fails to deliver on those words.

    If Raptor Lake does not let Zen4 in the dust, if they are even tied, all that Pat said here will bite him back and make him look like the laughingstock of tech CEOs. You can't make such affirmations publicly and not deliver in a major way, as big as those words are.

    So now they better beat Zen4, not by 5%, but by 20%! My popcorn is ready...
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    logainofhades said:
    She has righted a ship that was still not quite on course. AMD had done quite well under her leadership, with improvements to their chips, year over year.
    Even a great leader isn't going to convince customers to buy non-competitive products. Lisa Su ascended to CEO in q4 of 2014. AMD did not have a positive sales quarter until Q4 2017. That's 12 straight quarters of losing money under her leadership. What happened it 2017? 1st gen Ryzen was released early in the year. Took a couple of quarters for word to get out, and sales picked up and haven't slowed down since.

    Two critical things happened to turn AMD around. 1st was Zen, whose development began with the arrival of Jim Keller in 2012, more than 2 years before Su became CEO. It would really be a stretch to give Su any credit for Zen. Remember that Keller had worked on the K7 architecture and was lead architect for the K8 architecture, the previous high point for AMD's CPU's before Zen3. He is the one that deserves credit for the product that returned AMD to respectability. The 2nd thing that turned AMD around was Global Foundries quitting development of their 7nm process and allowing AMD out of their contracts with them and to sign on with TSMC. Moving to TSMC gave AMD access to a dependable release schedule of leading edge nodes that surpassed Intel's thanks to Apple's money and teamwork with TSMC. GF throwing in the towel had nothing to do with Lisa Su. AMD just got lucky. Without those two things, AMD does not turn this thing around, and Lisa Su had nothing to do with either of them.

    During that same period, all Intel did was add more cores, and increase clocks. I applaud Intel's current CEO for finally getting things back on track, at Intel, as well. Intel has done nothing but knee jerk reactions, to Ryzen, up until Alder Lake. They even regressed a bit with 11th vs 10th gen.
    Correct, Intel stagnated here which was to AMD's benefit and again had nothing to do with Lisa Su. Intel didn't stagnate by design, none of their roadmaps had 14nm lasting 7 years. Everything fell apart for Intel when they couldn't get 10nm working properly. You can't just take your brand new architecture designed for a new node and drop it on an old node and everything is good, so they applied band aids of more cores and increased clock speeds as long as they could. It took so long to get 10nm working, that they were eventually forced to spend 2.5 years backporting Sunny Cove to 14nm for Rocket Lake, and you pointed out how well that worked out. Probably why they didn't try earlier.

    Getting cocky, is not a wise move though. Confidence is good, but arrogance not so much. I believe we are set to see some great improvements, over the coming years, as there is a healthy competition between the two again. AMD has been just as guilty of such foolery, in the past, when they were providing a beat down, to Intel, prior to Core 2's launch.

    Breaking news: CEO paints unnaturally positive forecast for company. People on internet act like they've never seen this before or ever been on a team. Lose their minds.

    If his predictions turn out wrong, roast him them. At this point, who cares what he says.
    Reply