I saw this article yesterday - Intel is not doing very well, to the point where they may even stop manufacturing chips:

https://shorturl.at/KA8T9

Full URL: https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2025/07/intels-potential-exit-from-ad vanced-manufacturing-puts-its-oregon-future-in-doubt.html

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Jul 30 2025 17:06:31 -0500, you wrote:

I saw this article yesterday - Intel is not doing very well, to the
point where they may even stop manufacturing chips:

https://shorturl.at/KA8T9

I didn't read the article because that site begged me to disable my ad blocker, which I'm not going to do. But it is starting to look that way. I saw something recently about somewhere upwards of 40,000 layoffs, too?

At one time they were a great company, creating great chips that were /made/ to be overclocked (and they even told you to do so!). Then, at some point I'm not sure what happened. There's been a few generations in a row now that have been complete crap in comparison. If some of the latest chips basically have to be underclocked in order for them to not overheat, there's a serious problem. If they can't find the problem(s), maybe it's time for them to hand off the reins to someone else. They've basically owned the market for so long and gouged their prices more and more, only to tank themselves.

I'm not all that sad about it, to be honest. With all that's been going on with Intel the past few generations, I've been leaning towards an AMD build next time, anyways.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Intel's potential exit from advanced manufacturing
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Jul 30 2025 07:15 pm

I didn't read the article because that site begged me to disable my ad blocker, which I'm not going to do. But it is starting to look that way. I saw something recently about somewhere upwards of 40,000 layoffs, too?

Yeah, I've heard about that recently too. And specifically since I live in Oregon (where they're one of the state's largest employers), I heard they recently laid off over 2,000 people in Oregon.

At one time they were a great company, creating great chips that were /made/ to be overclocked (and they even told you to do so!). Then, at some

I don't remember Intel specifically telling you to overclock their CPUs.. I know of their Turbo Boost technology though (which I didn't think was really overclocking, but more of a power-saving technique to increase clock speed only when needed). And I know if their unlocked processors, but I thought that was more of a "do so at your own risk" thing.

I'm not all that sad about it, to be honest. With all that's been going on with Intel the past few generations, I've been leaning towards an AMD build next time, anyways.

I don't particularly feel sad about it either. I feel like it's just weird to see Intel doing so badly lately when they've been so big in the market for so long. I had actually used AMD processors for a long time in the past. I've been considering using AMD for my next PC as well.

One thing though is that Intel processors have QuickSync, which basically does hardware-based video encoding, and it helps with video transcoding. I sometimes do video transcoding on my PC, and I have another PC that I run Plex Media Server on, and if Plex needs to transcode the video to a lower resolution (due to bandwidth issues or if the client TV has a smaller resolution), the QuickSync helps with that. As far as I know, AMD CPUs don't have QuickSync, as it's an Intel-only technology.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Wed, Jul 30 2025 20:46:49 -0500, you wrote:

I don't remember Intel specifically telling you to overclock their
CPUs.. I know of their Turbo Boost technology though (which I didn't
think was really overclocking, but more of a power-saving technique
to increase clock speed only when needed). And I know if their
unlocked processors, but I thought that was more of a "do so at your
own risk" thing.

I'm sure it has always been a "do so at your own risk" thing, but they never shyed away from touting how overclockable their chips were. Some BIOSs even had settings to auto-overclock safely. As a matter of fact, my last build which is still running is an Asus motherboard, and was overclocked by CyberpowerPC before they even sent it to me. My current build is a Gigabyte Auros motherboard, and has 3 or 4 settings to overclock. You don't have to mess with the voltage or anything yourself. You just select which setting you wish to overclock at, anywhere from a mild overclock that shouldn't mess with your temps at all, to an extreme one that you would probably need full on liquid cooling for.

I had decided not to overclock the i9-9900k, though. And it still has enough power for anything I throw at it.

I don't particularly feel sad about it either. I feel like it's just
weird to see Intel doing so badly lately when they've been so big in
the market for so long. I had actually used AMD processors for a
long time in the past. I've been considering using AMD for my next PC
as well.

They became a giant, gouged their prices, then probably started using shitty parts, had to hit deadlines so they rushed these more recent chips out the door in order to say they did it, and now they're paying the price.

One thing though is that Intel processors have QuickSync, which
basically does hardware-based video encoding, and it helps with video transcoding. I sometimes do video transcoding on my PC, and I have
another PC that I run Plex Media Server on, and if Plex needs to
transcode the video to a lower resolution (due to bandwidth issues or
if the client TV has a smaller resolution), the QuickSync helps with
that. As far as I know, AMD CPUs don't have QuickSync, as it's an Intel-only technology.

I'd imagine most of the higher end AMD CPUs wouldn't have a single problem with any kind of work you put it through. Those X3D models are seeming pretty amazing at this point. I just can't see upgrading anything until I see some kind of bottleneck in my current setups, and at this point, I don't.. at all.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Intel's potential exit from advanced manufacturing
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Jul 31 2025 05:33 pm

I'm sure it has always been a "do so at your own risk" thing, but they never shyed away from touting how overclockable their chips were. Some BIOSs even had settings to auto-overclock safely. As a matter of fact, my last build which is still running is an Asus motherboard, and was overclocked by CyberpowerPC before they even sent it to me. My current build is a Gigabyte Auros motherboard, and has 3 or 4 settings to overclock. You don't have to mess with the voltage or anything yourself. You just select which setting you wish to overclock at, anywhere from a mild overclock that shouldn't mess with your temps at all, to an extreme one that you would probably need full on liquid cooling for.

Yeah, I had heard about some success stories with people overclocking their Intel CPUs. I haven't overclocked one of my PCs in a long time though. I think the last time I overclocked a PC may have been in the mid-90s when I had an AMD 5x86-133 (which was really a 486DX4-133). I had heard it could safely be overclocked to 160mhz by bumping the bus speed up from 33mhz to 40mhz. I did that and it ran fine at 160mhz. Several years later, I had an AMD Athlon CPU which I think I tried to overclock but I don't remember for sure now.

I had decided not to overclock the i9-9900k, though. And it still has enough power for anything I throw at it.

Yeah, I'm still using an i9-9900k in my main PC, and I haven't overclocked it. I have a liquid CPU cooler in it, and I was thinking that would be good in case I wanted to overclock it, but I feel likt it has been fast enough for anything I throw at it. I'm okay with the video transcodings I run on it, and it also runs Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 pretty well (my graphics card is an Nvidia RTX 3080 TI, which helps).

They became a giant, gouged their prices, then probably started using shitty parts, had to hit deadlines so they rushed these more recent chips out the door in order to say they did it, and now they're paying the price.

Yeah.. Also I think they've made some arguably bad decisions and haven't been managed very well. I heard that before Apple released the iPhone, Apple asked Intel if they wanted to make the CPUs for the iPhone, but Intel decided not to. Also, it seems Intel hasn't developed any strong AI technology to compete with Nvidia and others. That and with their CPU manufacturing difficulties, it seems Intel has generally fallen behind AMD, ARM, and other competitors.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Thu, Jul 31 2025 18:14:05 -0500, you wrote:

Yeah, I'm still using an i9-9900k in my main PC, and I haven't

One of the last of the greats, probably. The next generations after that started having problems. I'm glad I built when I did.

overclocked it. I have a liquid CPU cooler in it, and I was thinking

Like an AIO (All in one) cooler (which is what I use), or a full blown water cooling system with tubes and shit?

that would be good in case I wanted to overclock it, but I feel likt
it has been fast enough for anything I throw at it. I'm okay with
the video transcodings I run on it, and it also runs Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 pretty well (my graphics card is an Nvidia RTX 3080
TI, which helps).

Yeah, I don't think it'll slow up any time soon, either.

As for the 3080 TI, yikes dude. Unless you bought it recently, did you pay almost as much as you could build a gaming PC for it? I have a 3060 in each of my PCs, and there's no issues yet. When I start to notice any games slowing down, I'll upgrade to a 5060 (or maybe even a 6060 if it makes it that long). That way I can get about 5 years per card while still spending less than what it would cost for a XX80 TI series card in a 10 year period. ;)

Yeah.. Also I think they've made some arguably bad decisions and
haven't been managed very well. I heard that before Apple released
the iPhone, Apple asked Intel if they wanted to make the CPUs for the iPhone, but Intel decided not to. Also, it seems Intel hasn't
developed any strong AI technology to compete with Nvidia and others.
That and with their CPU manufacturing difficulties, it seems Intel
has generally fallen behind AMD, ARM, and other competitors.

Didn't one of their big shots just step down somewhat recently? I can't imagine it's only one person close to the top of the food chain, though.. and I'd rather blame the people in charge than the peons out there making the chips. They had plenty of chances to make changes, and they didn't.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Intel's potential exit from advanced manufacturing
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Jul 31 2025 06:46 pm

overclocked it. I have a liquid CPU cooler in it, and I was thinking

Like an AIO (All in one) cooler (which is what I use), or a full blown water cooling system with tubes and shit?

It's an AIO.

As for the 3080 TI, yikes dude. Unless you bought it recently, did you pay almost as much as you could build a gaming PC for it? I have a 3060 in each of my PCs, and there's no issues yet. When I start to notice any games slowing down, I'll upgrade to a 5060 (or maybe even a 6060 if it makes it that long). That way I can get about 5 years per card while still spending less than what it would cost for a XX80 TI series card in a 10 year period. ;)

Yeah, I suppose for the price of the 3080 TI, perhaps a (low-end?) gaming PC could be built.. I bought it in early 2022, and by then, prices were starting to come down a bit and they were becoming available again, and I figured why not.. I was coming from a 2070 Super though, so it was a fairly significant upgrade, and I figured I'd still be keeping my PC around for a while. It's a bit crazy how expensive GPUs became for a while though.. When I bought it, I was on a wait list with EVGA, and and at the time, I didn't know if GPUs were going to get cheaper or become more available, so when one became available, I decided to buy one.

Didn't one of their big shots just step down somewhat recently? I can't imagine it's only one person close to the top of the food chain, though.. and I'd rather blame the people in charge than the peons out there making the chips. They had plenty of chances to make changes, and they didn't.

Intel has had several CEOs in the past several years. Not long before I left Intel (2019ish), their CEO Brian Krzanich was basically let go from Intel - They say it was because they found out he had a relationship with a subordinate, but I heard from some people the real reason was because he wasn't improving Intel's manufacturing like they'd hoped. Then Bob Swan stepped in as interim CEO, then became permanent CEO, but he was only there from 2019 to 2021; then Pat Gelsinger from 2021 to 2024, then it looks like David Zinsner & Michelle Johnston 2024-2025, and now Lip-Bu Tan is Intel's current CEO.

Nightfox

Hey Nightfox!

On Thu, Jul 31 2025 19:14:37 -0500, you wrote:

It's an AIO.

That's all you need for any processor, to be honest. As long as you're not overclocking to the point where anything more than that would be needed. Along with my Corsair AIO, I have 7 Corsair fans as well. My case never gets hot. ;)

Yeah, I suppose for the price of the 3080 TI, perhaps a (low-end?)
gaming PC could be built.. I bought it in early 2022, and by then,
prices were starting to come down a bit and they were becoming
available again, and I figured why not.. I was coming from a 2070
Super though, so it was a fairly significant upgrade, and I figured
I'd still be keeping my PC around for a while. It's a bit crazy how expensive GPUs became for a while though.. When I bought it, I was
on a wait list with EVGA, and and at the time, I didn't know if GPUs
were going to get cheaper or become more available, so when one
became available, I decided to buy one.

I'm pretty sure anything in the 30xx and 40xx series are still mid-range to high end. With the upgrade cycles, I feel like if you can buy a mid-range GPU for less than $400-$500 and go 2-3 generations without any display issues at 1440p (I have no need for 4k whatsoever), anything more than that is just being fancy. I upgraded each machine to a gtx3060 from gtx970s, so also a significant upgrade.

I guess I just have no definitive reason to spend over a grand on a GPU, when after a few generations they're all outdated anyways.

Intel has had several CEOs in the past several years. Not long
before I left Intel (2019ish), their CEO Brian Krzanich was basically
let go from Intel - They say it was because they found out he had a relationship with a subordinate, but I heard from some people the
real reason was because he wasn't improving Intel's manufacturing
like they'd hoped. Then Bob Swan stepped in as interim CEO, then
became permanent CEO, but he was only there from 2019 to 2021; then
Pat Gelsinger from 2021 to 2024, then it looks like David Zinsner & Michelle Johnston 2024-2025, and now Lip-Bu Tan is Intel's current
CEO.

Oddly enough, they're still in dire straits.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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