Literally illegal. Only AMD and Intel have the patent cross-licensing rights to make x86 chips. There used to be a third company (Cyrix and subsequently VIA), and (maybe?) still is, but it hasn’t been relevant to the desktop CPU market in decades.
The real competition will come from ARM-based computers.
We don’t need competition in the x86 space, we need competition in the mobile/desktop/server space. That could easily be performance competitive ARM or RISC-v or whatever. Better even with diversity of design.
Apple doesn’t really exist as a competitor for a number of industries and use cases due to not officially supporting anything other than OSX so I’m not sure if they’re a fair comparison here.
The only real edge they have is in non-gaming related consumer workloads.
They do fine with content creation. Windows 11 has been such a bear many are moving back, and the m-series mac mini is a surprisingly capable little box that’s not offensively priced.
Asahi Linux has made fantastic progress too. It’s really just bare metal windows that’s a problem anymore on these and nobody wants windows anymore anyways. It’s just what they have. Outside of gaming it’s largely unnesscarry to use windows in 2025.
Not having competition is not a good thing. I hope a third player comes along.
yup, a third party named RISC-V
Literally illegal. Only AMD and Intel have the patent cross-licensing rights to make x86 chips. There used to be a third company (Cyrix and subsequently VIA), and (maybe?) still is, but it hasn’t been relevant to the desktop CPU market in decades.
The real competition will come from ARM-based computers.
We don’t need competition in the x86 space, we need competition in the mobile/desktop/server space. That could easily be performance competitive ARM or RISC-v or whatever. Better even with diversity of design.
Enterprise ARM servers exist, I’ve used them, they’re neat.
With a proper stack you don’t even notice they’re arm
Or riscv
Heck of an industry to break into.
Competitor is already here. Apple and Ampere are making ARM systems that fit most users needs. There are ARM servers. But people don’t want to switch.
Apple doesn’t really exist as a competitor for a number of industries and use cases due to not officially supporting anything other than OSX so I’m not sure if they’re a fair comparison here.
The only real edge they have is in non-gaming related consumer workloads.
They do fine with content creation. Windows 11 has been such a bear many are moving back, and the m-series mac mini is a surprisingly capable little box that’s not offensively priced.
Asahi Linux has made fantastic progress too. It’s really just bare metal windows that’s a problem anymore on these and nobody wants windows anymore anyways. It’s just what they have. Outside of gaming it’s largely unnesscarry to use windows in 2025.
Would TSMC be considered a competitor to AMD?
No. AMD is fabless; TSMC doesn’t design chips. They’re in different parts of the supply chain.
In fact, AMD is a customer of TSMC.