It’s about time Intel pulled out of the space heater business. Switching from an Intel to an Apple Silicon Mac is such a groundbreaking difference, it’s incredible what you can suddenly do on just 8 watt hours.

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You are partially correct about the yield. The thing is - nobody knows. We are only working with estimates. However just like you, I'm confident in Lip Bu Tan, especially if we take a look at how he managed to turnaround Cadense Design Systems. You are however completely wrong about 18A not being able to outperform TSMC 2nm nodes (the current ones out there). And the reason why is backside power delivery. People mistakenly think that transistor density is everything, but that's really not true. Yes TSMC 2nm nodes have more transistors. But compare 2nm TSMC nodes (random) with Apple Sillicon which is built with "worse technology". Design matters more than transistor count. A poorly designed 2nm chip will underperform a well designed 5nm chip. So why 18A is expected to outperform? Well because all that space that could've been used for transistors... is used for PowerVia (i.e. BacksidePowerDelivery) and RibbonFET. Along with other tech. Such as improved "3D packaging" that allows them to pack different chips together (imagine having a TSMC node embedded within a complex system of 18A nodes). Lastly they have something that's referred to as "Omni MIM" capacitors that help stabilize the chip under heavy workload (think AI). If you pack this altogether you'll have a simple explanation as to why 18A will be more stable than TSMC nodes and will deliver more power / watt. Which is key for modern day computing due to heavy energy needs (again... think AI). Hopefully I convinced you in the sense that you'll know your investment is a good investment. People who didn't follow Intel don't understand how much money was poured into RnD while they were still building the fabs in Arizona.

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Clueless take; sorry. AMD's CPUs offer greater IPC/watt, which is king when it comes to datacenter power and cooling costs. I'm not sure why Amazon would do something so stupid; so my take is that the extra costs associated with running Intel will be subsidized by either Intel or the Trump administration.

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