Skip to main content

Intel CEO: Alder Lake has left AMD in the rearview mirror

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger believes the chip giant has regained its leading position in the CPU market, with the executive referring to AMD as a competitor “in the rearview mirror.”

Gelsinger made the remark during a video where he reflects on his time at the company since being made CEO in January 2021.

Intel Alder Lake pin layout.

He states that AMD, which made the ongoing battle between Team Blue and Team Red extremely competitive during 2021, is currently trailing Intel in regard to the consumer market. Gelsinger also firmly states that AMD will never regain its industry-leading position again.

“Alder Lake. All of a sudden … Boom! We are back in the game,” Gelsinger said, as spotted by Tom’s Hardware. “AMD in the rearview mirror in clients [consumer market], and never again will they be in the windshield; we are just leading the market.”

Alder Lake did indeed propel Intel back into the conversation again as a force to be reckoned with. The 12th-generation processors immediately became some of the best gaming CPUs on the market upon its October launch last year.

Alder Lake silicon utilizes a hybrid architecture that makes use of both Golden Cove high-performance cores and Gracemont power-efficient cores. The technology has allowed Alder Lake chips to outperform the very best in terms of technical performance. For example, the Intel Core i7-12800H CPU outperformed Apple’s impressive M1 Max in a benchmark last month.

Even midrange non-K Intel Alder Lake processors are showcasing impressive clock speeds when overclocked. Intel is also preparing to launch its latest chips for laptops in the coming months, with Geekbench tests indicating the upcoming Alder Lake-P chips outperforming previous generations by over 30%.

Elsewhere, the Core i7-12700H processor was found to be 47% faster than the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX chip in multi-core operations.

Of course, AMD is set to launch its answer to Alder Lake in the form of the upcoming Ryzen 7000 processors based on its Zen 4 architecture, which will represent the first time stock AMD desktop processors run at 5GHz. Team Red’s 3D VCache technology is also set to make its debut on the company’s desktop silicon.

At the start of 2021, AMD surpassed Intel in desktop CPU market share for the first time in 15 years. We’ll have to wait for Alder Lake’s laptop release and the launch of Ryzen 7000 processors to see which company comes out on top in terms of market share in 2022. Either way, the consumer market will ultimately benefit from these exciting new chips powering the latest systems.

Editors' Recommendations

Zak Islam
Computing Writer
Zak Islam was a freelance writer at Digital Trends covering the latest news in the technology world, particularly the…
CES 2023: Intel’s new 13th-gen CPUs are faster, cheaper, and more efficient
Intel Core i9-13900K held between fingertips.

Intel is greatly expanding its Raptor Lake desktop processor lineup. As announced during CES 2023, the CPU range will receive some new entries, and these upcoming processors prioritize efficiency by zoning in on performance-per-watt.

The list of upcoming processors is huge, including models ranging from the high-end Core i9-13900 to the budget Core i3-13100F. There are six T-series models coming up too. Here's everything that Intel is preparing for desktop users.

Read more
Intel’s 24-core laptop CPU might outclass desktop i9 processors
A render of Intel's H-series mobile processors.

Intel is pushing laptop CPU core counts to places they've never been before. The company announced its 13th-gen Raptor Lake mobile processors at CES 2023, including the flagship Core i9-13980HX which includes a massive 24 cores that could top the list of the best Intel processors.

That sounds insane considering even AMD's desktop Ryzen 9 7950X only comes with 16 cores. But Intel's cores aren't all built equally. Like the previous generation, 13th-gen mobile Raptor Lake processors include a combination of performance (P) cores and efficient (E) cores. The most powerful chips in the range come with 24 cores, but they're split across eight P-cores and 16 E-cores.

Read more
No one wants to buy AMD’s Zen 4 chips — what’s going on?
A hand holding the Ryzen 9 7950X in front of a green light.

AMD’s Zen 4 processors could be in deep trouble, according to recent sales data. In fact, it looks like Zen 4 chips could be five times less popular than the previous-generation Zen 3. Why is no one buying Zen 4?

The data comes from German retailer Mindfactory (via Reddit), which provides daily sales data for a range of processors, both Intel and AMD. And the findings for December 2022 do not make pleasant reading for fans of Team Red.

Read more