First benchmarks are out for Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD, Financial) mobile processors, and the results are quite rosy. Ryzen 5 2500U beat beat seventh generation Intel (INTC, Financial) counterparts by quite a margin while coming close to eighth generation Kaby Lake. On the GPU side, Ryzen powered parts outperformed Intel while keeping parity with Nvidia (NVDA).
Intel is also partnering with Advanced Micro Devices to create a multichip module (MCM), powered by Radeon graphics. This is an indication of Advanced Micro Devices’ success in the semiconductor space; Intel’s partnership seems to be an acknowledgement of rising competition in the industry.
Growth in data center is also in the cards for the company. The strategy of targeting 1S servers market seems to pay off for Advanced Micro Devices as the company continues to gain cloud customers. Five of the top seven cloud players including Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) Baidu (BIDU, Financial) and Tencent (TCEHY, Financial) are on board in using EPYC in their data centers. Advanced Micro Devices is also gaining traction on the graphics side of data centers. Amazon (AMZN, Financial)'s AWS is deploying AMD’s graphics silicon to enable running graphics applications in cloud.
Comparable portable performance bodes well
AMD continues to give Intel a run for its money. In the mobile space, Intel effectively had no competition before the launch of Ryzen Mobile. The price-performance is favoring Advanced Micro Devices as the company is pricing its mobile processors in a lower bracket. In the high-end market, AMD is also gaining traction as is evident from its collaboration with Intel on graphics.
Mobile computing is the key for Advance Micro Devices’ success in the PC space. The sales of notebooks and detachable PCs are expected to increase to 52.3% of total PC shipments by 2021, according to IDC. Notebooks and detachable PCs made around 36% of the PC shipments during 2016. Overall, being at parity with Intel in portable space will help AMD gain market share.
Recent benchmarks show reassuring results for Advanced Micro Devices. Ryzen 5 2500U recently appeared in Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Financial)'s Envy x360. It sits decently above some optimized Intel eighth-generations laptops. Cinebench R15, a general purpose CPU benchmark, reveals almost identical scores for Ryzen 5 2500U and Intel’s Core i5-8250U in single and multithreading loads.
| Cinebench R15, CPU | Ryzen 5 2500 | Core i5-8250U | Intel Core i5-7300HQ |
| Single threading load | 137 | 145 | 131 |
| Multi threading load | 574 | 576 | 514 |
| 3D Mark 11, 1280x720 | AMD Radeon RX Vega 8, 2500U | Intel UHD Graphics 620, 8250U |
| Combined Performance | 2918 | 1529 |
| GPU only | 3602 | 1653 |
Source: Notebookcheck
“3DMark 11 scores for the Vega 8 in the HP convertible are unequivocally faster than the common HD Graphics solutions found on the Intel U-class family,” according to notebookcheck.
Power consumption is also impressive for Ryzen 5 2500U as it provides around 50% performance boost in CPU performance and 20% boost in GPU performance over HP's Spectre x360 15 with the i7-7500U CPU and GeForce 940MX dGPU. This indicates AMD’s lead as far as power-performance dynamics are concerned.
It is also worth mentioning that Ryzen-equipped Envy x360 15 is just $630 USD compared to $850 USD for a Kaby Lake-R-equipped Envy x360 15, indicating price advantage. In short, Intel has a strong competitor in the mainstream portable PC space.
The collaboration also bodes well
Intel realizes the competitive threat, which is evident from Intel’s partnership with AMD in high-end portable computing. Intel’s MCM for high-end portable PCs will feature AMD’s graphics silicon. This is also a plus for Advanced Micro Devices as it exposes the company to the high-end portable GPU market. Further, this can also be construed as a price signaling exercise from Intel. AÂ partnership between the competitors might signal price collaboration, and the companies can increase margins.
What's the takeaway?
Things are turning out to be positive for Advance Micro Devices. The company is at parity with Intel in terms of manufacturing node. This is resulting in market share gains in desktop and data center space.
The portable PC front is even more favorable for AMD given the price, performance and power advantage. The high-end market is also becoming accessible amid partnership with Intel. Overall, there seems to be no reason for selling AMD just yet as the company is set to gain market share across the board.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
