Intel Corp (INTC)

[Tim May]

The performance increases are happening via more cores, better GPUs, more transistors, more X, more Y, etc. And customers are willing to pay for the faster solution. I just did with a Mac Pro, Xeon E5, 6 cores, 12 threads, 512 GB SSD, dual AMD FirePro GPUs, etc. Likewise, recent supercomputer plans mentioned widely. Lots of CPUs, and plans to use the Knights Landing chip.

And Intel is well aware of the competition. It faces serious competition from AMD in those aforemented GPUs. (I am sure Intel is not thrilled to only get the CPU part of the Mac Pro and similar machines from HP, Dell, etc.)

We know precisely why CPU speeds were going up consistently for a long while, then got throttled back and have remained topped-out in the 3-3.5 GHz range for several years.

And it ain't because AMD stopped being as much of a threat in CPUs as it had once been.

--Tim