Intel CPU Rant

[poofyhairguy]

I know but it's still far better than Intel GMA IGPs on found on 775 motherboards and laptops, that's what I was trying to say is that it's useful for many things just not hardcore gaming or video rendering. For office stuff, playing old games, movies and so on it's very much fine.

Well that isn't hard to do. 775 Intel GPUs sucked too.

Nvidia had a GPU with hardware T&L (aka what some people feel is the minimum to call it a GPU) in 1999.

Intel didn't have a GPU with hardware T&L until 2006!!!!!

The Intel GPU department has been a waste from the start. They should have just bought PowerVR a decade ago.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Well that isn't hard to do. 775 Intel GPUs sucked too.

I gotta say, I have had first-hand, positive experience with the ancient Intel GMA 950 GPU. It works fine, 100% trouble free even on Windows 10 w/ "default" drivers. (1 desktop and 1 laptop).

 

[VirtualLarry]

I gotta say, I have had first-hand, positive experience with the ancient Intel GMA 950 GPU. It works fine, 100% trouble free even on Windows 10 w/ "default" drivers. (1 desktop and 1 laptop).

I know firsthand that the G41 chipset IGP is HORRID. Can't play back 60FPS web video, choppy scrolling, basically sucks pretty badly.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I know firsthand that the G41 chipset IGP is HORRID. Can't play back 60FPS web video, choppy scrolling, basically sucks pretty badly.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I don't playback anything >720p on those boxes

For everything else, it's fast enough, and blue-screen free :thumbsup:

 

[Exophase]

2. Are mismatched (aka a $400 CPU that will be paired with a 980 ti has the best GPU, not some celeron customer that is actually running games on integrated graphics)

Not everyone who wants a $400 CPU wants it because they're high end gamers. There are a lot of other things that benefit from more CPU.

I thought about going Intel IGP when I needed to change my GPU due to being exasperated with Linux issues. I decided against it because I didn't want to have to change my motherboard too, and because Intel's IGPs have their own issues with needing Linux stuff that's out of sync with the distros. But in terms of performance it would have probably been sufficient for the games I play, while a much lower end IGP may not have been.

 

[Sheep221]

Well that isn't hard to do. 775 Intel GPUs sucked too.

Nvidia had a GPU with hardware T&L (aka what some people feel is the minimum to call it a GPU) in 1999.

Intel didn't have a GPU with hardware T&L until 2006!!!!!

The Intel GPU department has been a waste from the start. They should have just bought PowerVR a decade ago.

You are aware that Intel started with their IGP stuff much later than Nvidia with accelerated graphics?
In fact, only type of IGP before Intel was S3/VIA and SiS which, were so bad that discrete video cards were installed to every computer regardless of intended use.

 

[Magic Carpet]

You are aware that Intel started with their IGP stuff much later than Nvidia with accelerated graphics?
In fact, only type of IGP before Intel was S3/VIA and SiS which, were so bad that discrete video cards were installed to every computer regardless of intended use.

Intel 740 was out as early as 1998 or 1999 I think. I used it briefly, it was fine for the internet. Awful in games, however. Drivers were indeed hit or miss.

 

[Exophase]

Intel 740 was out as early as 1998 or 1999 I think. I used it briefly, it was fine for the internet. Awful in games, however. Drivers were indeed hit or miss.

Early 1998, but AFAIK it was a discrete GPU? Its successor, i752, was integrated in the i810 chipset in early 1999.

Enthusiasts were annoyed at the time because if you wanted a 133MHz FSB P3 with an intel chipset you needed to either use i820 or i840 with expensive RDRAM or defective SDRAM support, i810 with IGP and no AGP slot at all, or the venerable old 440BX with overclocked FSB. Or a somewhat questionable VIA chipset.

Eventually Intel released i815 but IMO this debacle at the time really helped push Athlons (and Durons) before P4 even came out.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I don't playback anything >720p on those boxes

For everything else, it's fast enough, and blue-screen free :thumbsup:

LOL, fair enough.

 

[poofyhairguy]

You are aware that Intel started with their IGP stuff much later than Nvidia with accelerated graphics?

They never caught up or even got close. ATI had hardware T&L GPU with the first Radeon in 2000. PowerVR had it in the Dreamcast. Freaking Matrox had some kind of hardware T&L in 2001. Intel started from scratch and has stayed half a decade behind.

 

[./M@]

In 2015, Intel set a record for i7s sold and it's only picking up in 2016.

My $0.02.....18 years as a AMD fan....just got my first i7. the cost to performance is finally near par with AMD. Looking forward to what Intel can bring to gaming for me...fingers crossed.


./M@

 

[JimmiG]

I guess not when you can like I said, sell server rejects for high prices, along with an expensive motherboard.

But if there is no economics for more than 4 cores, why is AMD bringing out their flagship new architecture as an 8 core chip?

Selling overpriced "server rejects" allows Intel to pretend like they care about the high-end market when they really don't.

The compromises if you want a 6 cores instead of 4 are just too great:
-Older CPU architecture, 1 or 2 generations behind - lower IPC (made worse by the fact that more cores = slightly lower clock speed)

-Lower clockspeed: Yes, more cores = lower clock speed. However, server chips (and by extension, server rejects) aren't designed for maximum clock speed either. They prioritize power usage at continuous loads and stability. A CPU specially designed for the high-end desktop market would perform better in that role.

-Unnecessarily complicated and expensive motherboards - I'm happy with the number of PCI-E lanes etc., I just want 2 extra cores!

-Outdated chipset - Why is the "flagship" platform lagging behind in new developments, internal/external connection standards etc.?

Do you have a source or statistics that HDET is a staggering failure? By definition, i7 3930K->i7 5960X are targeted at enthusiasts. Even if all of these CPUs represent just 3-5% of Intel's market share, doesn't mean they are a failure. That's like claiming that GTX280->GTX980Ti are all failures since <5% of the entire dGPU market buys them.

Very few people buy a Porsche 918, McLaren P1, and LaFerrari. Are those failures too since 99.9% of people who don't own those cars?

The 2 primary reasons Intel still hasn't bright 6-core to the mainstream are lack of competition and people keep paying $350/350 EUR for a glorified HT i5. It's very simple. As soon as there is competition in any viable form, Intel will bring a 6-core Icelake/Tigerlake to the mainstream. It's only a matter of when not if of a mainstream 6-core Intel CPU. With $389 i7 5820K and i7 6800/6820K, the price premium over Z170/270 and i7 6700/7700K is minimal. More and more people will move to HDET. Just because the average Joe noob who buys Lenovos, HPs, Dells, and Apples of the world will keep buying weak CPUs like Core-Ms, i3 and i5s, there is a growing number of PC enthusiasts who want and will buy 6-10 cores. With Zen, next gen PS5/XB2 likely going AMD again, the future is more cores. It's inevitable since IPC and clock speed gains are slowing down. It means the only other way to get more performance is spread the load across kofe threads. With DX12, it will be easier than ever once it matures and developers learn to load 6-8 cores well.

Basically: The mainstream isn't buying 6-core CPUs, because Intel hasn't made them available on the mainstream platform. Intel hasn't made 6-core CPUs available on the mainstream platform, because the mainstream isn't buying 6-core CPUs.

AMD has offered 6 and 8 core CPUs on mainstream platforms for ages (since the Phenom II X6), but they're no competition for Intel. With no competition, Intel is quite happy to keep things the way they have been since the Q6600 in 2007.

 

[zentan]

Indeed. I have a Haswell i3 4160-based computer, and I was surprised at just how competent it happens to be for gaming @ 1080P. Don't get me wrong, I'd hate for it to be my primary gaming setup, but compared to what Intel was 'serving' up 15 years ago in the same price range, it's awesome.

Yeah,just not gaming,they also came out before AMD integrated graphics with 4K decode support and then there is quick sync.At least for many people with Celerons,pentiums,i3s,etc. the integrated graphics is more than sufficient for needing a discrete card unless of course one needs gaming or compute performance suitable for discrete cards.Plus like someone already mentioned not everyone needs a discrete GPU.Even for photoshop they have been more than sufficient to a good extent.Of course in many areas they are of no match to AMD but overall a decent enough addition.

 

[geokilla]

No, not really. When the first C2Ds came out, we did a bit of experimenting with them, versus P4s. The Conroe cores were a few percent shy of 200% higher single-threaded performance, at the same clock speeds...at least in gaming. The P4s were great at things like content creation/video encoding, though.

I'm just trying to understand that chart... Then it is "equivalent or greater" isn't it? Because it's over 200% faster back in the Core 2 Duo days. And the current Core i3 is way faster than Core 2 Duo by who knows how much.

Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition 840
(2M Cache, 3.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)

That thing had Hyper-Threading too.

in April of 2001, the Pentium III 800 rendered this same "chess2" POV-Ray scene in just under 24 minutes.
http://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/13

In Starcraft 2, an extremely CPU limited title, when paired with a GTX460, a $184 i5 2400 3.1Ghz (3.4Ghz turbo) is ~5.5X faster than $1000 2005 Pentium 4 840.

And for people who tend to always downplay how amazing Nehalem was vs. Kentsfield Core 2 Quad back in the days, Starcraft 2 players would remind you. On Ultra settings with a GTX480, Nehalem was a REVOLUTION.

http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page13.html

As a SC2 player, I can't agree with you enough on this. Clock speeds have come a long way despite them still "rated" at 3.X or 4.X GHz. Right?