In an unlikely turn of events, two chip rivals, AMD and Intel, have come together to form the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. The advisory group will focus on expanding the x86 ecosystem by simplifying software development and improving platform interoperability.
Intel and AMD will provide developers with tools to create scalable solutions and identify architectural enhancements that can meet the demands of modern computing, such as AI workloads, custom chiplets, and advancements in 3D packaging.
“We are on the cusp of one of the most significant shifts in the x86 architecture and ecosystem in decades – with new levels of customisation, compatibility and scalability needed to meet current and future customer needs,” said Intel chief Pat Gelsinger.
“We proudly stand together with AMD and the founding members of this advisory group, as we ignite the future of compute, and we deeply appreciate the support of so many industry leaders.”
“Establishing the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group will ensure that the x86 architecture continues evolving as the compute platform of choice for developers and customers,” said AMD chief Lisa Su.
AMD and Intel believe that x86 is still relevant in the era of AI. In an exclusive revelation at the Advancing AI 2024 event, an AMD executive told AIM that the company was the first to bring neural processors to the x86 environment.
“In the x86 world, we introduced those first neural processors in 2023 with a product we call ‘Phoenix Point’ delivering 10 TOPS of neural processing performance and enabling several workloads, such as Windows Studio effects and many other third-party ISVs that were supporting those early chatbots and assistants on the device,” shared the executive.
‘Phoenix Point’ is the world’s first fully accelerated AI inference engine on x86 processor silicon with the new XDNA architecture.
DisARM Qualcomm
This move by Intel to partner with AMD comes at a time when the company is fighting for survival.
According to a recent report, Qualcomm is likely to wait until after the US presidential election in November before deciding whether to pursue an offer to buy Intel. With Intel’s acquisition, Qualcomm is possibly trying to strengthen its hold in the PC market and add Intel’s Lunar Lake with x86 architecture to its portfolio.
Intel appears to be not ready to move to x86 architecture anytime soon, while its competitors are shifting to ARM architecture. To advance the x86 advisory group, AMD and Intel garnered support from major PC manufacturers, including HP, Microsoft, Dell, and Lenovo.
During the unveiling of Lunar Lake, Gelsinger ended the ARM vs x86 debate, saying, “The final nail in the coffin of this discussion is that some claim x86 can’t win on power efficiency. Lunar Lake busts this myth. This radical new SoC architecture and design delivers unprecedented power efficiency—up to 40% lower power consumption than Meteor Lake, which was already very good.”
According to Statista, in the third quarter of 2024, Intel processors accounted for 63 percent of x86 computer processor tests, while AMD processors represented 33 percent.
When focusing solely on laptop CPUs, Intel is the clear winner, capturing 71 percent of laptop CPU benchmark results in the second quarter of 2024. Meanwhile, AMD processors made up 21 percent of the laptop CPUs tested.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm is challenging Intel with its ARM-based processors. The company recently launched Snapdragon X Elite, its latest ARM-based processor designed for Windows laptops, to compete with Apple’s M-series and Intel’s x86 processors.
Microsoft recently introduced a new category called ‘Copilot+ PC,’ which can run generative AI models directly on the device without relying on cloud support. Interestingly, during the announcement Microsoft appeared to favour Qualcomm processors over Intel and AMD for its AI capabilities.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus are set to launch in new Windows Surface PCs, along with offerings from Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Acer, and other major OEMs in the coming months. These processors feature NPUs capable of 45 TOPS, slightly exceeding Microsoft’s minimum requirement.
On the other hand, Intel claims that Lunar Lake processors are 30% faster than AMD chips and 68% faster than Qualcomm’s offerings, although these claims have yet to be validated through real-world testing. Intel’s Lunar Lake features 40 NPU tera operations per second (TOPS) and over 60 GPU TOPS, resulting in more than 100 platform TOPS.
“It does seem like Lunar Lake is the kiss of death for Snapdragon X Elite. Similar battery life, but with broad app compatibility of x86, and an actually usable GPU. However, long term though, I hope this isn’t the death of Windows-on-ARM. It’s always good to have more silicon vendors, and hence more competition,”a user posted on Reddit.
Similarly, AMD recently launched the new Ryzen AI PRO 300 Series, based on the AMD ‘Zen 5’ architecture, which is AMD’s implementation of the x86-64 instruction set. The processor offers over 50 NPU TOPS of AI processing power, exceeding Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI PC requirements.
On the other hand, much like Qualcomm, Apple, which previously used to use x86, has also moved away to ARM architecture. Last year, Apple signed a new deal with ARM for chip technology extending beyond 2040. Apple is already using ARM’s V9 architecture for its latest M4 MacBook chips, which it announced in May.
Friends or Frenemies?
The collaboration between AMD and Intel is intriguing, given that they are competitors in the AI data centre market as well. Recently, AMD launched the 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors, formerly codenamed ‘Turin’ which they market as the world’s best server CPUs for enterprise, AI, and cloud applications.
At the Advancing AI 2024, AMD claimed that its EPYC is better than Intel’s Xeon “We did a 50-50 comparison between general compute workloads and AI workloads, and EPYC still outperforms Xeon, even with AMX,” said an AMD executive in an exclusive interview with AIM.
The company claimed that AMD EPYC 9965 processor-based servers will significantly improve over Intel’s 5th generation, Xeon 8592+ CPU-based servers. They can expect 4X faster results in business applications like video transcoding, 3.9X quicker insights in scientific and HPC applications, and 1.6X better performance per core in virtualised environments.
However, earlier this year, Intel also announced its sixth-generation Xeon servers. The new processors are optimised for AI workloads. The new offerings include support for GenAI solutions like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and feature Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel AMX) to improve AI performance.
Moreover, the company will release the complementary Xeon 6900E and 6700P series CPUs in Q1 2025.
It will be interesting to see what customers choose and how long this new brewing friendship lasts. Also, this is not the first time AMD has partnered with its rival. Recently, it partnered with NVIDIA to provide them with CPUs that can be integrated into NVIDIA’s GPUs.
“We’ve shown a 20% improvement in training and 15% improvement in inference when connecting EPYC CPUs to NVIDIA’s H100 GPUs,” said Ravi Kuppuswamy, senior vice president & general manager at AMD, at Advancing AI 2024, citing Llama 3.1 inference model with 8 H100 GPUs, where the CPU provided significant value in large-scale GPU clusters.
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