Intel Strategy Shuts Out PC Enthusiasts

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I may just go with a higher end AMD.

What "higher end AMD" do you think exists? Intel now leads AMD in price/performance at every single tier of the market.

intel clearly has the powerhouse cpu's, anyone who tells you otherwise probably hasn't done much/little research, but amd still has a strong hand on great cpu's for a cheap price.

just one meager example:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320+Eight-Core&id=1782#price

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2700K+%40+3.50GHz&id=881

on the performance chart they are near neck at neck for basic comparison, however the price is 100 dollars more to nearly doubling in price.

for anyone besides an enthusiast who has to run everything above 60 fps, that is probably going to be there choice. I have yet to run into any game my phenom II can't play on ultra (or high under insane load with huge graphics mods) matched with my 7850. Which is honestly perfectly okay, I went full on in the situation knowing the performance would be a bit weaker than expected versus an intel version of each, but that's kind of a known fact when buying amd vs intel in the first place.

OT: whoops should add my opinion to this, i doubt this is as misleading as it seems, most people will probably just continue on ivy for the next 5 years, it's not like games are going to magically jump exponentially in hardware requirements.

still, will be interesting to watch what happens nonetheless if amd makes a move on it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Having read a fair bit about this on different forums, I can tell you right now that the source is from a translated text which got the google-translate treatment, so a lot got lost in translation.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1729595&page=3

Second last post on that page has the "real" translation of it.

-- Intel will not provide new products for Desktop and non-BGA laptop segments in Broadwell era
-- Instead, they will provide higher clocked Haswell for those segments in 2014
-- Broadwell is "more than tick", and it will include some technologies that were previously planned for Skylake
-- This is because Intel needs to be more competitive in the tablet market, and this may mean the end of Tick-Tock strategy
-- It mentions nothing about Skylake and later or if they will be LGA or not for the desktop

So despair not enthusiasts.

Thank goodness someone finally said this, because if you didn't, I was going to.
You get a cookie.

All the documentation about Broadwell shows it's aimed squarely at the Tablet Market; not desktop PCs.

Semiaccurate is a rumormill and not a credible primary source. They cited their source through Google Translate, for fuck's sake, and based the meat of their article on a speculative comment the original author made.

At this juncture, I'm calling this article sensationalist bullshit and lazy journalism.

 

[Stryc9]

I may just go with a higher end AMD.

What "higher end AMD" do you think exists? Intel now leads AMD in price/performance at every single tier of the market.

I mean higher end on AMD's own scale completely ignoring that Intel even exists kind of like how I used to do when AMD made the better processors.

 

[ResonanceSD]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320+Eight-Core&id=1782#price

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2700K+%40+3.50GHz&id=881

No "enthusiast" with a brain buys a 2700K. They buy a 2600K and then overclock it.

And besides, no enthusiast is buying AMD Bulldozer chips anyway, because let's face it, they're shit. 8 Cores that don't even work? No thanks.



I love how all the AMD fanboys conveniently completely forgot about the enormous financial problems that are hanging over AMD's head. Ivy Bridge is still kicking your ass, let's not forget that people XD

 

[DonTsetsi]

Guys, chill. Even if the info is true (which is questionable) it only means that Intel will start selling the permission to build a processor to the motherboard makers. You know, the same way they now sell the permission to use their socket. Also, not all PC enthusiasts are gamers. The professional users need a powerful CPU much more than the gamers do. 3D visualization, for example, usually uses the CPU as much as, if not more, than the GPU. No game needs a bleeding edge processor, but not needing a rendering farm is more than worth the price of one. And AMD just isn't good enough.

 

[Aikayai]

Does no one realize that AMD will be going bust within 2 years or less? This is why Intel is making its move. Share prices for AMD are so cheap now that you could be working at a fast food joint and buy shares weekly (Since they're dying slowly its hard to see this as a good investment).

 

[Signa]

I'll stick with my AMD system, thank you.

Intel has been on the Bleeding edge of performance but AMD has always been quality merchandise.

You can say that now, but you weren't stuck with one of their first-ever chips like my dad was. An AMD 120MHZ laptop was a slug around the Pentium 1 133 tower our family had. It was 12 years before my dad bought another laptop, and 18 before he trusted an AMD chip again. The expereince was bad enough that I've only forgiven AMDs within the last 5-6 years myself.

OT: Guys, relax, this is new scheme is for laptops/tablets, not desktops. Can you imagine how stupid it would be if we had to even double a mobo manufacture's product line, just to be as competitive as they are now? No manufacturer is going to take their current line of mobos, and then sell every permutation of their line accompanied with every processor available? Even if they cut it down to top-tier mobo line gets paired with top-tier processor, and so on down the line, they are still going to be unable to even come close to offering the consumers what they get now. I for one usually end up with top-tier mobos, but then high-mid-range CPUs. I imagine that's what most enthusiasts do. If they offered that build, who is going to supply the demand for the top-end CPUs, and what mobo is going to get stuck with that? There's no way this news is legit.

 

[BeerTent]

I will be buying a Mac, but I can see AMD sales improving.

The irony in the first bit of this statement is too good to not point out, assuming your getting a mac to avoid Intel.

If this is all true, and a lot of people are saying the source is shit, then this could very well be our future. AMD is inevitably going under. They're processors were just plain awesome while it lasted, but I feel the acquisition of ATi brought both sets of hardware down a few pegs. (Ask me about my last Radeon... We're talkin' a lot of pegs here.) The average user just won't know better, and there will be little demand for the units you have to insert yourself.

We need more information. Reliable information. Why do this? What benefit does it have to the customer? The last thing I want to see is a motherboard that is it's own unit, only sporting SATA on the board itself. I can understand placing low end sound and graphics cards on the Mainboard, but a Proc, and inevitably RAM in the future? No. Even for laptops, this still feels like a disaster. There's a reason why you can swap components out of a car, just like there's a reason why you can swap components out of a PC.

 

[tautologico]

If people think AMD would win over any sizable portion of the market with this, they're seriously delusional about the size of the enthusiast market. It's not even guaranteed that this will happen, given the source.

Most people now buy laptops or other devices which make a complete hardware package. Intel knows the biggest threat to them is ARM with the mobile devices, not AMD with the PC. The PC as it was 30 years ago is gone, it's no use thinking about the "PC" market when the market is not really about PCs anymore.

 

[lacktheknack]

"Source: Semiaccurate"

That's a pretty bang-on description.

Fusing the motherboard and CPU is annoying, and yes, it's a loss of customization, but "the end of custom PC building"? Please.

If AMD is smart, they'll milk this for all it's worth.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I will be buying a Mac, but I can see AMD sales improving.

The irony in the first bit of this statement is too good to not point out, assuming your getting a mac to avoid Intel.

If this is all true, and a lot of people are saying the source is shit, then this could very well be our future. AMD is inevitably going under. They're processors were just plain awesome while it lasted, but I feel the acquisition of ATi brought both sets of hardware down a few pegs. (Ask me about my last Radeon... We're talkin' a lot of pegs here.) The average user just won't know better, and there will be little demand for the units you have to insert yourself.

We need more information. Reliable information. Why do this? What benefit does it have to the customer? The last thing I want to see is a motherboard that is it's own unit, only sporting SATA on the board itself. I can understand placing low end sound and graphics cards on the Mainboard, but a Proc, and inevitably RAM in the future? No. Even for laptops, this still feels like a disaster. There's a reason why you can swap components out of a car, just like there's a reason why you can swap components out of a PC.

No, I just like the GUI and UNIX based security of OSX too much not to get a Mac Wow, that's a lot of acronyms. Although I am a little annoyed at the fact that technology is super focused on getting slimmer. This means less expandability due to the soldering of parts to the case/motherboard and the lack of disk drives in some modern computers.

 

[Metalrocks]

amazing. they probably give us a crappy CPU on a motherboard or a crappy motherboard with a good CPU that we will have some problems in the end.
looks like my next pc in the future will be AMD again.

 

[QUINTIX]

Yeah, The Inquire's split from the register [http://hardforum.com/archive/index.php/t-1458433.html] and Charlie Demerjian's split from the inquire is rather suspect, and Charlie does have a lot of difficulty with math, particularly percentages [http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/mythbusters-math-mix-up/], and he has miss-cited at least one google-translate version of an article, but as he was spot on about nVidia?s thermi yield difficulties despite his unwillingness to correct his 7% article (which repeatedly cites) he and his associates at Semi Accurate haven been well ahead of the curve on many tech stories despite the occasional numerical error, and the fact that they actively scour foreign websites shows why. In fact Charlie frequently complains about other more well known tech blogs plagiarizing him.

Charlie Demerjian has a good record behind him. He's asked excellent questions at a hot-chips presentations (can't find video, arg...). He's also asked excellent questions while interviewing software engineers from epic games and coldplay. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIByXVphoM0]

This is what former Opteron marketing man John Fruehe had to say about him [www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=137904&p=189137&hilit=charlie#p189137]:

Hey, take it easy on Charlie. The world that he lives in is full of "unofficial" information. In that world, you get conflicting data and you have to make calls on what you believe is and is not true.

I give him credit for calling out when he might be rethinking something. If the rest of the guys that post based on backroom conversations would do the same, my job would be a lot easier. I don't mind the speculation, that is the game. But when you find out more details that show the speculation could be off base, you should call that out. Charlie does a better job than the other guys on that.

I am not taking sides, just making an observation.

Semiaccurate authors and investigators have direct contact with folks at fabs and oems. They know what they are talking about.

Edit: it was 1.7%, not 7%
Further edit; Via twitter SemiAccurate states the 7 out of 416 die candidates was verified from multiple sources.

 

[thiosk]

I'd like to point out that it's gonna be tough to push beyond the 14 nm node in general, and I anticipate most progress beyond 14 nm will be playing with the cores, architectures, and cache. If the number of contacts goes up too high, it may become challenging to safely install a chip outside of a clean room environment. Intel already makes all the chips, so packing their own boards makes sense too. I just feel sorry for evga.

That being said,

I love the lga
And I'd have to see it go away.

Most of you are buying chips that never leave the orig device, anyway. Laptops, tablets, etc will not be effected.

 

[Jfswift]

Yea but usually by the time I feel a need to upgrade my processor I end up replacing the mobo too. I do see where you're going with this OP and I'm mildly concerned. I'd be more worried about companies like Sony integrating stuff in their chips that forces commercials and "always online" games.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320+Eight-Core&id=1782#price

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2700K+%40+3.50GHz&id=881

No "enthusiast" with a brain buys a 2700K. They buy a 2600K and then overclock it.

And besides, no enthusiast is buying AMD Bulldozer chips anyway, because let's face it, they're shit. 8 Cores that don't even work? No thanks.



I love how all the AMD fanboys conveniently completely forgot about the enormous financial problems that are hanging over AMD's head. Ivy Bridge is still kicking your ass, let's not forget that people XD

while that is true for a lot people, or "enthusiasts" as you put it, it's still a bloody expensive piece of technology, which was the crux of the post in the first place.

AMD fanboys? right..because you're looking at this from a neutral standpoint, quite clearly. I find it a little concerning that you have to bring up that last point, as you have to somehow justify your purchase over other peoples.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

In regions with more regulations on how companies do business, I don't see this lasting.

 

[Vault101]

so just to clarify (the the techno-dunce)

intel may not sell their processors seperatly..but atttatched tot he motherboard...i dont knoww hat this mans for thr other components (like graphics and such)