I'm the reason vendors sell gimped PC hardware.

[jhu]

Wonder how well a single-core 3-3.5 GHz HT Skylake would fare against quad Atoms?

Quite well (it's faster even at 2.8 GHz).

 

[TheELF]

You could mention video encoding and other grunty stuff but the average person consumes, not creates. You don't need a "powerful" computer anymore for basic desktop usage.

Τhe average person does convert movies/serials for ps3/4,mediabox etc playback,but would be more then ok with converting with quicksync ... at more than 200FPS avg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTI-625Na0
It's a shame intel doesn't promote it more,they should bundle handbrake with their drivers or something,slap a nice gui on top of it make it quicksync only and that's that.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That isn't it. If a G1820 is $40 off Newegg right now, I'd bet money that big box OEMs can get it for $20 or less in volume and slap it with a half decent H81 board and the actual difference to a cheap Atom would be minimal or non-existent. And Celerons don't even get a sticker no more, its all "Intel inside". Consumers with no clue would be way better off with that.

And Intel has always had Celerons even recently - G530, G1610, G1820, upcoming Skylake Celerons - so they obviously sell (and pretty well most like) - I can't see why they are not way more popular with OEMs. It certainly isn't cost. The CPU and mobo are not that expensive.

It could easily be the simple fact big core Celeron/Pentiums are not quad core. Marketing wise it looks better with 4 cores vs. 2 cores. Never mind those 4 cores are half the performance of the 2 big cores, and for Bay Trail has an anaemic IGP to match.

After all your average consumer is much better off with a new "kwad core"... :hmm: :biggrin:

 

[frozentundra123456]

Τhe average person does convert movies/serials for ps3/4,mediabox etc playback,but would be more then ok with converting with quicksync ... at more than 200FPS avg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTI-625Na0
It's a shame intel doesn't promote it more,they should bundle handbrake with their drivers or something,slap a nice gui on top of it make it quicksync only and that's that.

Not so sure. Among my family and friends, maybe 25 or so that I am pretty familiar with their computer usage, none of them, including myself, does any significant amount of video conversion.

 

[TheELF]

I'm just saying that it's something that a fairly large percentage of users might do and might do more of if they knew about quick sync.
There are also the screen capturing(can also be done with QS) and youtube uploading people.

Anyway transcoding is fast with QS so you don't need a big CPU even for that.

 

[escrow4]

I'm just saying that it's something that a fairly large percentage of users might do and might do more of if they knew about quick sync.
There are also the screen capturing(can also be done with QS) and youtube uploading people.

Anyway transcoding is fast with QS so you don't need a big CPU even for that.

No point when you can buy a no name $50 android box off ebay that can do that. Or slap a Raspberry Pi 2 together with a Youtube vid for a HTPC.

 

[Rakehellion]

Um, no. Starving the big core would be supremely dumb of Intel to do given that it's at the heart of its server chips.

But server chips cost $6000 instead of $300 to make up for the low volume.

 

[myocardia]

But server chips cost $6000 instead of $300 to make up for the low volume.

Uh, Arachno has not even posted in this thread.

 

[Cerb]

Τhe average person does convert movies/serials for ps3/4,mediabox etc playback,but would be more then ok with converting with quicksync ... at more than 200FPS avg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTI-625Na0
It's a shame intel doesn't promote it more,they should bundle handbrake with their drivers or something,slap a nice gui on top of it make it quicksync only and that's that.

Or, you know, set the quality as high as possible, as just do it slower. Batch transcoding may bog down an Atom or a 1MB L3 big core, but a 3+MB 2C*T one, no big deal. Just let it run until it finishes with them all.

Unless you need something fast in real time, or productivity losses from slow CPUs effectively cost you money, you'll OK with a Pentium, and pretty well off with an i3, today...so long as it isn't hobbled by the main storage being a large spinning layer of magnetic material, anyway.

But server chips cost $6000 instead of $300 to make up for the low volume.

Pretty nice ones start at under $700. They cost up to thousands because they are used in systems that cost much more than that, when you're talking about such monster CPUs. And yes, an extra $5,000 is not much, compared to all the RAM, discs, networking, warranties, and then software licenses, developer costs, etc.. Intel sells them for so much because they can get away with it. With what big software companies charge, it really will be a small difference in cost compared to much cheaper CPUs.

 

[Arachnotronic]

But server chips cost $6000 instead of $300 to make up for the low volume.

Google/Microsoft/Facebook aren't paying $6000 for any server chip. Not even close.

 

[Grooveriding]

I feel like Intel probably sells more $6000 18 core Xeons than they do 5960x. I could be wrong, but I think it's a pretty safe bet.

I think the experience of using a decent rig would be enough to make a lot of people who buy a pieced together best buy POS want to use a better machine. Not meaning you need the best CPU and video card, but a decent i3 or i5 with a mid-range GPU. Most people probably approach it as an appliance needing it to perform certain functions, likely web browsing, netflix, youtube, email etc., and do not see the value in the huge price disparity between that cheap machine and the PC that costs thousands.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I feel like Intel probably sells more $6000 18 core Xeons than they do 5960x. I could be wrong, but I think it's a pretty safe bet.

I think the experience of using a decent rig would be enough to make a lot of people who buy a pieced together best buy POS want to use a better machine. Not meaning you need the best CPU and video card, but a decent i3 or i5 with a mid-range GPU. Most people probably approach it as an appliance needing it to perform certain functions, likely web browsing, netflix, youtube, email etc., and do not see the value in the huge price disparity between that cheap machine and the PC that costs thousands.

The "$6000" or whatever ridiculous list price that Intel puts in their processor price lists have pretty much zero to do with reality, heh.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Most people probably approach it as an appliance needing it to perform certain functions, ... and do not see the value in the huge price disparity between that cheap machine and the PC that costs thousands.

That would probably be me.

Then again, for some specific uses of my PC (web browsing with Firefox / Waterfox, a single-threaded task), my PC (my new SKL G4400 @ 4.29) benchmarks (CPU-Z single-thread benchmark) faster than an i7-67000K @ 4.0Ghz.

 

[coercitiv]

Most people probably approach it as an appliance needing it to perform certain functions, likely web browsing, netflix, youtube, email etc., and do not see the value in the huge price disparity between that cheap machine and the PC that costs thousands.

That would probably be me.

Nope. People don't buy the same appliance again and again, and they certainly don't change appliances like they change their socks.

You made a hobby out of this. Most people do not.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The "$6000" or whatever ridiculous list price that Intel puts in their processor price lists have pretty much zero to do with reality, heh.

The prices probably increased proportionally. So when it was $2000 it would have been 1/3rd of now, at $6000. That seems to explain the weird phenomenon of much revenue increases at Intel compared to volume increases. I also think its the trick in how they avoided the volume decline of the entire PC market as said by Gartner and IDC etc, to follow up with revenue declines.

People buy computers because they *need* it. Well, frankly speaking you don't, but if you want to use internet and e-mail and watch videos you buy a system based on the budget you have.

OP: Part of the reason value systems are so abundant is I think that's how markets grow. Aside from really special examples like Apple selling abundant expensive devices and systems, a *normal* market needs to cover all needs and desires. You can't expect to grow the market buy having more expensive chips without covering the low end.

1-2 years ago they were able to stabilize the PC market decline by introducing... low end chips. The logic is likely that participating in the market despite very low revenue is better than nothing because otherwise people get it from somewhere else(Tablets, Smartphones, Internet TVs, and everything else that computes). No doubt skyrocketing debt created by excessive consumerism and low savings mean people often can only buy those cheap devices.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I don't know if it's really a "problem" or that low end PCs are the reason that CPUs aren't seeing big YoY speed gains.

We are definitely seeing impressive performance gains in terms of performance per watt, (transistors per watt?) just not performance-per-core.

Just a result of reaching near peak in technological advances that's all. In the beginning you had HUGE gains because you had multiple factors you could exploit: Higher power use chips, the transistor material was very simple, the fabs were much cheaper, and new process was fairly standard, you had market to grow and money to make.

Now you have "problems" every which way in semiconductor industry of reaching that extra % of performance.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The prices probably increased proportionally. So when it was $2000 it would have been 1/3rd of now, at $6000. That seems to explain the weird phenomenon of much revenue increases at Intel compared to volume increases. I also think its the trick in how they avoided the volume decline of the entire PC market as said by Gartner and IDC etc, to follow up with revenue declines.

So in your eyes datacenter growth is based on price increases? Good luck with that "theory".

 

[biostud]

From a user standpoint I don't understand why low end laptops aren't sold with a 128Gb SSD instead of a 500Gb 5400rpm HDD. The cost difference should be really low, but the difference in user experience is enormous.

 

[Innokentij]

Yes, because I buy it.

No you are not, there is some 3rd world country's and work environment that dont need more then a dual core and 4gb of ram tough. Think even that market is dieng tough to thin clients.

Also are you just bored and looking for attention? See thread under.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2457583

 

[Blue_Max]

From a user standpoint I don't understand why low end laptops aren't sold with a 128Gb SSD instead of a 500Gb 5400rpm HDD. The cost difference should be really low, but the difference in user experience is enormous.

Agreed. Even the cheapest 240-256GB SSD still runs circles around a mechanical drive as poor as those. (I suspect too many users would run out of space on 128GB drives... poor downloading/file maintenance skills, plus Windows takes a HUGE chunk of it.)

I recently had to limp along on a Core2Duo lappy for a couple weeks... even upgrading it from a 5400 to 7200RPM drive made a big difference!

 

[VirtualLarry]

From a user standpoint I don't understand why low end laptops aren't sold with a 128Gb SSD instead of a 500Gb 5400rpm HDD. The cost difference should be really low, but the difference in user experience is enormous.

Yes and no. The newest lowest-end laptops have 32GB (or if you're lucky, 64GB) eMMC storage. Which is both a pro and con. It's fast for random-access like a SATA SSD, but it's not removable and / or recoverable in another machine like a SATA laptop drive is.

I agree, I would prefer a 128GB (or larger) SATA SSD in a laptop. But given the choice between a 500GB 5400RPM laptop spinner, or a 32GB eMMC, the eMMC gives a better user experience, for the most part.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No you are not, there is some 3rd world country's and work environment that dont need more then a dual core and 4gb of ram tough. Think even that market is dieng tough to thin clients.

Also are you just bored and looking for attention?

You do realize that I wasn't claiming that I, personally, am literally responsible for vendors selling "gimped" PC hardware.

My point was that, the low end sells. Even crazier, the low end sells even more, when it's even more low-end. (See the success for Bay Trail Atoms in every form-factor under the sun.)

If consumers cared about the minimum performance of their PCs, you think that they would turn their noses up at the newest even-lower-than-prior low-end PCs. But they're not. Those PCs are selling, and selling well.

 

[AdamK47]

I'm the same way. Always buying the low end parts.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm the same way. Always buying the low end parts.

Four Nvidia GTX Titan Xs in 4-Way SLI

Trololol

 

[Innokentij]

You do realize that I wasn't claiming that I, personally, am literally responsible for vendors selling "gimped" PC hardware.

My point was that, the low end sells. Even crazier, the low end sells even more, when it's even more low-end. (See the success for Bay Trail Atoms in every form-factor under the sun.)

If consumers cared about the minimum performance of their PCs, you think that they would turn their noses up at the newest even-lower-than-prior low-end PCs. But they're not. Those PCs are selling, and selling well.

Im not really sure what to say here, it's kind of "u dont say moment here" let's take something easy, like cars. "I cant belive there is more fords being sold then ferrari" Is like o rly ya dont say haha. Not trying to be an asshole here but it's kind of common sense we are talking about here or im missing a point?