Why Intel Buying AMD Could Create Huge Problems For Chrome OS
AMD has been single-handedly going at it with two chipset behemoths in the form of Intel and Nvidia in modern computing, both of which are vying for a monopoly in their respective category of dominance.
Both Intel’s chipset dominance and Nvidia’s tight grip in the Discrete Graphics Processing Unit market have been under constant attack from the Santa Clara-based company whose strategy has been offering more bang of your buck through several generational releases.
Excitingly, however, AMD’s relentless effort
This is expected to edge the semiconductor firm closer to its rivals than it has ever been before.
Emboldened by its continuous rise especially during a time of economic uncertainty within several large markets, AMD has no intention of slowing down as the company made a grand entrance into the Chrome ecosystem earlier this year.
Chrome OS is turning out to be the next coliseum with Intel, who have enjoyed a significant dominance in a market where the majority of mid to high-end variants of Chromebooks run the variations of Intel’s chipset offerings.
The company will now have to settle with two new competitors in this space, namely, Qualcomm and AMD.
The introduction of the HP Chromebook 14, – being the first device within the Chrome OS platform to run on AMD hardware – could be the herald of major changes to come in the neare future.
The HP Chromebook 14 might be new but the hardware powering the device is at least, a couple of years old. It is either a lackluster maiden arrival – AMD certainly has more powerful hardware it could’ve used — or the semiconductor company might be using the release to test the waters.
Either way, Intel is being forced to fight a battle it doesn’t want to lose since AMD might be working on three separate devices if anything about previous reports holds any truths to them.
These devices are said to use ‘Kahlee’ board believed to use the Raven Ridge chipsets from the company. This CPU is manufactured using the Semiconductor’s in-house Zen architecture and will reportedly feature onboard Radeon Vega Graphics.
If quantified, the results will be a 150% performance boost, higher than comparable chips making these Chrome devices far more powerful than the HP Chromebook 14.
AMD’s recent shake-up with its CPU and GPU lineup coupled with its recent foray in the Chromebook market has had a
The company might be using this to send a signal to Google that it is indeed ready for prime time as Intel is seemingly losing due to some of the issues surrounding its Canon Lake
The outlook for Canon Lake is so bad that Google is said to be skipping the generation altogether and shifting its focus to the more tangible release of Ice Lake instead.
And, this is where AMD could squeeze in having already tested Chromebooks against its own hardware — AMD A4 or A6 processor coupled with an integrated AMD Radeon R4 or R5 graphics chip expected to power the HP Chromebook 14.
This is could give AMD a significant overall advantage over Intel in a quickly expanding Chromebook market but Google seems to have already made plans to stick with Intel-powered chipsets for its next release.
This would all mean nothing if current rumours hold an ounce of truth to them. According to some sources, Intel executives are pondering over the possibility of buying AMD in its entirety.
The news quite frankly, sounded more like a pipe dream than anything else but with a recent mega acquisition like Disney absorbing Fox movies, one as big as Intel taking control over AMD is plausible despite the legal constraints it might have to endure.
An acquisition like this, however, could have some negative cascading effects in several areas including the x86 processor industry as well as halt AMD’s recent resurgence in its GPU battle with Nvidia.
Chromebooks won’t be off the hook either since merging AMD with Intel could theoretically-speaking, spell doom for the platform with competition being significantly stifled. This will give Intel a monopoly over the chipset industry thereby potentially slowing down the developmental progress of our beloved operating system.
Personally, I think the rumors surrounding Intel buying AMD are only but that since the latter has seen an exponential growth thereby giving it the strength it needs to knock Intel off its strides.
We will just have to wait and see if the rumors do really hold up and whether Intel will eventually use the merger (if it ever happens) to influence the Chrome OS ecosystem.
Source: HOTHARDWARE
