No, not really.    If you use a good Linux like Mint Mate 19.2 you will get good performance out of older hardware that will not be degraded by Intel mitigations to the point the whole thing gets sluggish.

My $17.99 solid state SSD boot drive speedup put me back in the game for another few years at least, so I am good where I am equipment-wise.

https://liliputing.com/2019/12/this-business-card-is-a-linux-computer-made-from-
3-in-parts.html



If you wanted to showcase your skills while hunting around for a new job, get lots of free international level advertising and expose yourself to those who would want to hire you --- you could do this.

"Martha, get this guy scheduled for an interview with Tom and his team to see if he fits their opening".

Also proves he is a dab hand with a soldering iron -- he hand built the boards.

https://liliputing.com/2020/01/zotac-introduces-zbox-mini-pcs-with-intel-come...



Brand new generations of 7nm laptop processors are coming out from both AMD and Intel.   These last new 7nm generations of low wattage (15 watt, 7watt and below) processors now come with "good enough for light gaming" built in graphics and enough CPU and Graphics processing power to pass the old "will it run Far Cry" test --- and they will do it in a fan free noiseless format too.  

Watch these things become 7 watt and 5 watt CPUs inside the next 5nm generation which happens later on this year.   These will be very small, very economical chipsets.

Given a year or so to get replaced a couple of times by the upcoming competitive waves, these processors will slide down the competitive & price listings to become bottom of the barrel cheap.

You can watch these new laptop chipsets from Intel and AMD do this slide to the bottom death dance starting now, when they are still primo products that are still carrying a primo price bump.

5nm has started its VERY RAPID DEPLOYMENT stages, driven by the lower cost effects of not needing million dollar production masks being replaced all the time like all the 7nm generations required.    

The new direct burn EUV production equipment is what makes 5nm go, and it will go quite rapidly indeed.

Apple's A14 chipset is in full 5nm production runs RIGHT NOW at this point in time, and when it is done the production machinery is free to roll out other customer's first 5nm chipsets.

https://www.techradar.com/news/at-ces-2020-intel-fails-to-defend-its-crown-fr...

I just watched what passed for the Intel CES keynote presentation.   Lots of fluff and some vague brown vapor, but no real world beating products that are really real at all in any market segment.

HOWEVER, Intel's lips are moving so we all know what that means.   First, Intel has no stake in Android and for them to try to take any form of secondary credit for Google and the Android Play Store is absurd.   Ditto for Mediatek's modems (I can remember Intel suing Mediatek over those modems a year or so ago).

Intel is showing us NOTHING that they have invented.   And if the stinky little rumor that Samsung is actually running those 10nm laptop chipsets for Intel is true then things get even worse for Intel.

Intel has a serious problem right now.   AMD has "reality cleaned" Intel's clock but good for the next 2-3 years already (going by what Intel is presenting as their future "competitive" products and technologies which are all items that are "not real" right now).

These Intel projects all supposedly depend on new Intel production line stuff that is actually two summers away from right now assuming they actually get built on time.

AMD is back to sandbagging whole generations of stuff again but TSMC 5nm 15 layer lithography has such huge cost savings and so many production driven "productivity advantages" that AMD is going to have to go there anyway this year or next year simply by being driven by the HUGE production cost savings that is out on the table.


WARNING:   Samsung/IBM consortium has also completed their gate all around 3nm process and Samsung is working on 3nm mobile processor designs and already has a working 5nm FinFet SOC chipset design that are able to be built on these same process lines.
 
Samsung is trying to be a foundry source again, and if Intel picks up on all that Samsung is offering them right now it could all get real interesting real quick like ..... but that presupposes Intel has the brains and balls to actually go do that.

It must be painful to be an Intel show presenter, showcasing your next 2021 year's stuff that AMD had just highlighted in their own presentation as only being half as good as what AMD was presenting today (shipping in 60 days).   This man knows that by the time he can ship what he is showing that AMD will be working on their 5nm generation's second improvement wave and that has to weigh on his mind quite a bit.



What'cha got in your hands, dude?    Where did you get it from?   Never do say out loud, do you ????   You just talk about Intel's future laptop plans for summer after next ...... and all them narsty Samsung and TSMC brown vapor rumors just keep a swirling around and around and around yer head faster and faster so strong now that you had to shave off all your hair just to keep the swirly hair effects in control .......
REMEMBER, Intel has NEVER EVER built a phone style SOC so who built this one for you ?????



I especially like the way Intel took "credit" for the Mediatek modems that they are buying --- and the credit they took for the items in the Google Android Play Store.   And the long haired hippy like graphics dude was a hoot and a half, really, he makes the whole thing worth watching.


===================================================


Forbes, and two tech review magazines all bring up the same exact points ---- Intel did NOT announce a new chipset at CES although they showed a new chipset and a new motherboard and talked some about Tiger Lake BUT they never actually said there was a connection between what they showed and what they talked about.

The nasty rumor about Samsung is still circulating, and it does provide a rational why Intel won't say what that chipset was nor where it actually came from.

Intel may plan to buy the equipment and make their own stuff eventually, and they certainly need whatever image building things that they can buy, borrow or steal right now because their image is really low at the moment.

Intel is certainly resting in a rough patch right now currently losing 2-3% market share per month with the potential for that rate to increase as the AMD laptop chipsets begin to get real world reviewed with no real Intel competitor class chipsets being built into products at this point in time.

CES 2020 is over.

Here is a brief synopsis of what was announced.

AMD announced 3 new laptop chipset lines sporting new graphics generations that will come in between 10-15-25 watt ranges depending mostly on the number of graphics cores they sport.

These AMD all in ones kick the butt of what Intel put out a month ago by a factor of 2x on the heaviest most powerful units .....  

(ranges up to 3x on the lesser levels as Intel tends to run a bit wimpy graphically on the lesser units)

Intel has announced ..... NOTHING but some vague plans for a 1-2 year out time frame.   Nothing that Intel has vapor announced beats what AMD has for real, right now.

AMD announced a 64 core Threadripper that simply tears up ALL KNOWN Intel mainframe chipsets, no matter how many sockets or cores that they may have.   Intel's multisocket chipsets start around $12,000 just for the multiple CPUs that they require ...... and current draw to support Intel's big guns runs in multiples of 300 watts, depending on the system board rack configurations (since you HAVE to have  independent rack type power supplies for the largest Intel installations).

AMD requires no more than 250 watts off a large PC type power supply to provide juice for their biggest Threadripper systems, which are dual socket units on a normal looking fits in a vertical case motherboard.  

The new AMD Threadripper just announced is a $4,000 single socket motherboard normal enough looking large case PC rig up with six cpu clusters making up 64 cores on a single socket system and it pulls up to 250 watts of power unless it is overclocked (which is hardly necessary as it already moves along twice (2x) as much processing power compared to Intel's finest super heated overclocked monstrosities).

Yes, the newest Treadripper is smaller physically and requires less power to run it than the last generation of Treadripper big boys required power-wise.....


===================================================


AMD has returned to Sandbagging Mode again ...... they have two 7nm+++ generations sitting in the can at this time that they will not roll them out until Intel (or somebody) does something to require them to move these out into production and into distribution.   AMD has lots & lots of time to sell off old stocks at full price, in other words.

AMD also has the first generations of 5nm FinFet designed and ready, and the first generation of at risk production of 3nm Gate All Around is out in testing with their motherboard vendors and business partners.


===================================================




Apple, Mediatek, Huawei and Samsung are all actually closer to being real AMD technical competitors than Intel is at the moment.

There have been several very good articles written this past month about Intel and their very slow decline after being upstaged and dethroned by AMD.

Point made is that Intel is MASSIVE, Intel is still holding on to 85% of the total market share and that inertia mass is being re-enforced by some very restrictive contracts that Intel forced builders to sign up order to be allowed to order Intel chipsets ANY AT ALL in the past 20 years.

In the EU, such restrictive "restraint of trade" contracts have been invalidated by the EU in direct actions, but until all major nations do likewise Intel still has a contractual choke hold on the throats of the PC industry.

Next, AMD's technical superiority is only one generation deep and is somewhat marginal at the moment compared to the complete total industry wide big picture.   Intel is close behind them, in other words.

Intel has now begun to get some key products "advanced technically" by having them run in lot sizes at Samsung and TSMC -- a short term but very necessary thing that Intel must do to keep from slipping further into irrelevance.

Intel has deep pockets and Intel can afford to pay cash to buy the tech they need.  Intel blew over 30 billion dollars trying to do 10nm repeatedly "the Intel way" so they can certainly afford to pay 20 billion over the next few years to run their Intel 7nm at Samsung and TSMC in order to become competitive again.


Getting things into perspective.

Intel makes more money each month than AMD makes in a year.   This is still true even after Intel has lost every technical crown that they had once owned.  

Intel can just buy what they need from Samsung and TSMC, just like Apple does ......

AMD cannot grow any faster that what they are growing, they simply cannot take over more Intel market share faster than they are already doing it right now.

AMD's biggest danger is failing to supply the chipsets they have taken orders for ...... as Intel continues to do because of their "shortages".


====================================================


Taken world-wide, 2020 demand for PC processors exceeds what both AMD and Intel together can currently supply.  Both are booked up 100%.

Both companies are struggling to make their already sold shipments on time.

Newest semi-confirmed rumors are that Intel is buying most of their low end Core I3s and their new low end Pentium class of processors, all of these old tech requirements are coming from Global Foundries since Global can do an old style 22nm or 16nm or 14nm for them using something that is quite similar to the Intel production methodologies.

So we now have Intel running various levels of production at all their old competitors just to make up their production shortfalls.  Intel is also running the newest lithography levels that Intel simply cannot do in house (due to a lack of modern technology) at Samsung and TSMC just to keep from giving it all over to AMD on a platter ......

At my wife's request I will only touch her Windows machine when she asks me to.

She only asks when it clogs up to the point it won't run at all.

This time she had 4 new adwares installed on her machine.  She had been hijacked 4x in other words.

She had 4 instances of dropbox trying to run at the same time, all using one drop box account out on the net.

She had 6 instances of Firefox all trying to run at the same time, with at least 3 of them attempting to update Firefox to a newer revision.

She had 8 Microsoft system alerts running in the background trying to fix her very broken Windows 10 machine.

She had zero free memory and approaching zero free hard drive space.  This was from  multiple multiple backed up MS nightly updates eating up all her spare hard drive space.



====================================================



I had been reading that MS had hit a new low in totally screwing up user's home computers, and now I believe it.