I'd argue more that they're like Cisco for the last 20-30 years. Everyone seems to talk about all the upstarts coming in and beating them at their game, but they have such an immense level of the market share and they're continuing to advance (even if it's minor iterations) that they can't be bothered to address everyone announcing the downfall of their empire.
AMD as as much market share as Intel lets it, I'm confident it could crank up the heat if it felt like it, undercut AMD by 33% with 33% more powerful products, and grind them in the dust without blinking. It doesn't because it'd get Ma' Bell'd out of existence.
No they couldn't. Intels stock price would tank on the complete lack of revenue and the board would get the boot in an instant. Its not the period of the yearly 2000's where every sector intel was in had massive growth allover it so you could have a war chest and still deliver massive revenue and GP numbers.
Zen competes with Zepplin from 6 core to 32 core, RR will compete in laptops. Vega and GP 100 will compete in highend compute while being paid for by consumer GFX or Sony/MS. Consider things like AMD will have more chip capacity with dual sourcing from Samsung and GF then it has ever had before. That its Zeppelin strategy helps with yields vs monolithic 32 core parts. That AMD with P10 @ 232mm sq with PCB, VRM, GDDR5, packaging/testing and AIB margin is selling from 150USD to 260USD and making something like 30-35% GP.
So if intel wanted to go to WAR with AMD. AMD could sell 24-32core server parts for 600 to 1000 USD and 6core consumer parts @ 150USD and likely increase both revenue and GP from today. If they try to bring down the price of KNL they will have to fight NV as well as AMD and both have other revenue sources for that part to subsidize that fight .
Then look at things like intel has to feed ~110k mouths while amd only 10K. That the price of manufacturing per Zepplin is in the $20-$30 range then fighting on price doesn't look like a good idea.
How about this for a thought, intel trys to sink AMD with massive price cuts, AMD has way less opex costs so can still under cut, that under cut leads to more market share for AMD which actually increases intels manufacturing costs from lower fab utilization, how does the next intel AMG look?
So what exactly can intel do? to flight on price will be bloodly for intel and likely not hurt AMD anymore then it already has. They need to fight on performance and that takes time, so if intel has wasted the last 4 years ( not saying they have, i dont know) then they have a very delicate fight on their hands for the next 4 until the choices they make today flow through to products.