Intel keeps up the unethical SDP scam with “new” 4.5W parts [S|A]

[Aikouka]

You know that how, exactly?

Nothing in that quote expresses that I know anything for certain. However, I bet dollars to donuts that you're going to make some comment on me using the term "low-power Haswell processors" to describe processors specifically built for lower power usage compared to their meatier brethren.

Apparently you don't see the point in criticizing them for these worthless marketing gimmicks

So, since you've admitted that they're worthless (as bolded in the quote), why are you creating such a fuss over them?

you're already assuming that the devices will perform better or even sip less power than previous Haswell/Ivy tablets ... and all that derived from a magical SDP number which nobody knows what it means!

I'm pretty certain that I said to wait for benchmarks so we know how much power they use rather than making silly assumptions based on a metric that we don't understand. That doesn't even include the fact that the processor is only a part of the computing platform anyway.

 

[galego]

With that attitude you should find yourself saying the same of AMD's TDP.

Is this true, that you feel the same about the relevance of AMD's 125W TDP specification for the FX-8350 as you do the 4.5W SDP specification of Intel's future Haswell SKU?

Therefore your answer to my question about technical details of Intel SDP is a mention to AMD.

 

[galego]

Due to Intel's marketing stupidity, they will use the same i7 brand for their 11.5W parts as they will for their 130W parts.

I know people who believes that all i7 are quads thanks to Intel marketing.

But my magical definition for SDP means power consumed while turned off, look at how low it is compared to everyone else! This is a revolutionary breakthrough.

SDP is a meaningless number, it's like saying my 7990 has a "CIDP" of 5W - crossfire idle design power. Meaningless numbers making meaningless claims

This is my point as well.

 

[AnandThenMan]

With that attitude you should find yourself saying the same of AMD's TDP.

Is this true, that you feel the same about the relevance of AMD's 125W TDP specification for the FX-8350 as you do the 4.5W SDP specification of Intel's future Haswell SKU?

Did you not state that Intel is doing the responsible thing by making up acronyms to make them look better, and in the process increasing their brand equity? So are you also saying that AMD's TDP figures are doing the same thing?

This has nothing to do with consumers, or even OEMs.

This has everything to do with increasing the perceived resale value of Intel's primary SKU of concern - INTC

And if you happen to be an individual with INTC holdings then you appreciate that Intel's business leaders are doing what they can to increase the resale value of your asset.

 

[Keysplayr]

Therefore your answer to my question about technical details of Intel SDP is a mention to AMD.

I think it's more of noticing your forum spamming more than the nitpick subject why AMD is brought up and why you don't seem to care about that end. Only Intel. Which in turn leads us to believe you have an agenda. We are only human and can't help thinking this way when we see your forum spamming. It is natural for you to expect the kinds of questions you are getting. So don't be surprised when you get them.

 

[guskline]

:thumbsdown:Another sad thread to build forum count.

 

[Arkaign]

I think it's more of noticing your forum spamming more than the nitpick subject why AMD is brought up and why you don't seem to care about that end. Only Intel. Which in turn leads us to believe you have an agenda. We are only human and can't help thinking this way when we see your forum spamming. It is natural for you to expect the kinds of questions you are getting. So don't be surprised when you get them.

Indeed. IDC asked a very simple and clear question. Instead of an answer, he dodged IDC's honest query entirely. A dodge that lines up entirely with the post history of this user, without exception, over 1,000 posts in just 4 months : nearly 100% posts of either

(A)- Attack company X
(B)- Applaud company Z

Regardless of logic, fact, circumstance, or the presentation of any of these at any time, it is quite clear that all of these are irrelevant to this person.

It's okay, you are all noticing the same things that many others already have. It has been brought up to me by the powers that be that the best response to continual troll threads and posts is simply to ignore them entirely, to leave them exposed as what they are, and to let them die without giving them even the credence of a response. And with that note, I will return to exactly that course of action.

 

[Idontcare]

Did you not state that Intel is doing the responsible thing by making up acronyms to make them look better, and in the process increasing their brand equity? So are you also saying that AMD's TDP figures are doing the same thing?

I was not commenting on Intel's SDP, or AMD's TDP, specifications in the post of mine which you quoted.

I was commenting on why Intel went to the trouble of making sure all the tech-related sites and blogs were made aware of the Intel's SDP-related "4.5W" headline, from which all of us became inundated.

There are technical reasons for the creation of the specifications, and then there are marketing reasons why us, the laymen consumer, become aware of those technical specifications.

Those are two entirely separate discussions.

Galego was going to the trouble of taking exception to Intel's lack-of-transparency in defining its SDP specification, not an exception to Intel's motivation to market the specification's existence per se.

I merely inquired if he applied his concerns uniformly, as it would appear to me that per his own wording in his post he should find himself taking equivalent exception to AMD's lack of transparency in the definition of their own TDP specifications for the FX-8350.

If I did not make such an inquiry then my interpretation of his post would be prone to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of his position, and presumably he'd prefer to avoid causing such misunderstanding, ergo my effort to motivate him to expand on his position on the topic of less-than transparent specifications from any company.

 

[Markfw]

galego. This post is as a combination of mod and a user. Everyone here sees your posts as fanboy posts, and your "reported posts" try to back that up. Its not going to work, and your continued fanboy attitude and posts will only get you vacationed again. A permanban is in your future if you don't knock it off. No official action will accompany this post, but any reaction of yours to it will not be to your advantage. You are causing more hatred, and flamebait then I have seen in years, and I won't put up with it.

 

[galego]

I was not commenting on Intel's SDP, or AMD's TDP, specifications in the post of mine which you quoted.

I was commenting on why Intel went to the trouble of making sure all the tech-related sites and blogs were made aware of the Intel's SDP-related "4.5W" headline, from which all of us became inundated.

There are technical reasons for the creation of the specifications, and then there are marketing reasons why us, the laymen consumer, become aware of those technical specifications.

Those are two entirely separate discussions.

Galego was going to the trouble of taking exception to Intel's lack-of-transparency in defining its SDP specification, not an exception to Intel's motivation to market the specification's existence per se.

I merely inquired if he applied his concerns uniformly, as it would appear to me that per his own wording in his post he should find himself taking equivalent exception to AMD's lack of transparency in the definition of their own TDP specifications for the FX-8350.

If I did not make such an inquiry then my interpretation of his post would be prone to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of his position, and presumably he'd prefer to avoid causing such misunderstanding, ergo my effort to motivate him to expand on his position on the topic of less-than transparent specifications from any company.

You wrote about how great a SDP number will be for end-users and I invited you to explain us, as end-users, the technical details behind SDP numbers. I am still waiting for the answer to my question.

Your original post and my answer:

I would think a number like SDP (or ACP) would be far more informative to an end-user than a number like TDP.

<snip>

So what good is knowing the TDP for those SKUs? It doesn't really tell the consumer much, other than putting an upper-limit on what they'll find with their chips.

So being told your SoC has an 11.5W TDP is probably equally meaningless, but at least if you know something like the SDP value then you have a better grasp of what to expect the power consumption is going to be like.

Care to explain then how the SDP number is obtained and what measures? Concrete info please, not anything vague such as it measures average power consumption in a given scenario, without defining that "scenario".

For me, as an end-user, with the current lack of info, saying that a SoC has a SDP of 4.5W is not different than saying me that it has a clock speed of 8 (without giving units) or a ZXCDFRTVHG of 3.1416, without explaining me what is "ZXCDFRTVHG".

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

You wrote about how great a SDP number will be for end-users and I invited you to explain us, as end-users, the technical details behind SDP numbers. I am still waiting for the answer to my question.

Your original post and my answer:

My interpretation is that IDC meant that SDP (although poorly or NOT defined) is giving an approximation to the "REAL LIFE" power consumption (i.e. Typical power).
Rather than TDP, which is giving an idea to the "MAXIMUM" (high power consumption when cpu is doing lots of work, e.g. Prime95) power rating (I know that many people have said that TDP is NOT the maximum power, I am just trying to explain a point).
This (in some peoples opinion) may well be more useful to most (typical) end users. Who want an idea of typical battery life.

IDC does not seem to be claiming that he is an expert on SDP, or even that he knows exactly its definition.

how great a SDP number will be

He does not seem to be saying that it is "GREAT", he seems to be saying that it is a bit better (or more), than the existing TDP measure.

 

[Idontcare]

You wrote about how great a SDP number will be for end-users and I invited you to explain us, as end-users, the technical details behind SDP numbers. I am still waiting for the answer to my question.

Your original post and my answer:

Your question is ill-defined and unanswerable. You know it is, since you went to lengths to concoct it so.

Care to explain then how the SDP number is obtained and what measures? Concrete info please, not anything vague such as it measures average power consumption in a given scenario, without defining that "scenario".

You know the only people who can answer your question is Intel, and you know asking me an unanswerable question is basically asking me to waste my time explaining to you why it is a waste of time...which is exactly what you have now accomplished.

What you are doing here is trolling, and I don't feed the trolls. We ban trolls once they've reasonably convinced us that they really are just divisive polarizing trolls masquerading as fanboys.

Right now you are very near providing the confirmation, but don't let me stop you, please continue, by all means.

 

[NTMBK]

:thumbsdown:Another sad thread to build forum count.

:thumbsdown: Another pointless post to build forum count.

 

[beginner99]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown/13

This is a dual-core A15 which easily uses 4 W alone (and that is because it is throttled). Together with the GPU it would easily go up to 8W if it were not throttled. So a dual-core A15 with mali T-604 GPU has a TDP of about 8W but is throttled to 4W. Now a 4.5 W SDP 11 W TDP Haswell doesn't look that bad at all...

And considering that Nvidia Shield requires active cooling just tells you when ARM tries to increase performance they stop being efficient and actually might be less efficient than x86.

 

[AtenRa]

And considering that Nvidia Shield requires active cooling just tells you when ARM tries to increase performance they stop being efficient and actually might be less efficient than x86.

What ARM and x86 efficiency has to do with this thread ??
And if im not mistaken, NVIDIA Shield uses a custom ARM + NVIDIA iGPU. You cannot generalize about ARM SoCs just by looking at NVIDIA Shield.
Not to mention that the Dual Core A15 in the link use 4W playing a game, something the Intel Haswell 4.5W SDP will never do(Mame doesnt count ).

 

[SiliconWars]

galego. This post is as a combination of mod and a user. Everyone here sees your posts as fanboy posts, and your "reported posts" try to back that up. Its not going to work, and your continued fanboy attitude and posts will only get you vacationed again. A permanban is in your future if you don't knock it off. No official action will accompany this post, but any reaction of yours to it will not be to your advantage. You are causing more hatred, and flamebait then I have seen in years, and I won't put up with it.

Seeing as you're posting as a mod AND a user, I'll answer you at the user level.

The usual suspects will report his posts as part of their usual tactic to get AMD fanboys banned. Should I name them and see how close to the mark I get? If any mod used the number of reported posts as a reason for a ban then of course the AMD guys are going to end up with more bans because the intel fanboys are more numerous and organised to report posts as a group.

Also I'm pretty sure that fanboys were encouraged here? At least that was what IDC and JV said in two posts over the past few days?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35313435&postcount=236
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35320710&postcount=8

So which one is it? Or maybe it's basically like we all suspect and ONE side of the fanboys get encouragement while the other side gets the infractions and bans.

 

[MisterMac]

Seeing as you're posting as a mod AND a user, I'll answer you at the user level.

The usual suspects will report his posts as part of their usual tactic to get AMD fanboys banned. Should I name them and see how close to the mark I get? If any mod used the number of reported posts as a reason for a ban then of course the AMD guys are going to end up with more bans because the intel fanboys are more numerous and organised to report posts as a group.

Also I'm pretty sure that fanboys were encouraged here? At least that was what IDC and JV said in two posts over the past few days?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35313435&postcount=236
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35320710&postcount=8

So which one is it? Or maybe it's basically like we all suspect and ONE side of the fanboys get encouragement while the other side gets the infractions and bans.

I might agree with you in general - but doesn't any forum mod have to deal with everything on a case by case basis?

In this specific case the poster in question - keeps avoiding and ambiguously wording things to keep prolonging opening up his personal position on his favorite side's "weak points" (If i can call it that).

This is where IDC's post makes sense - they (the mods) are sensing someone delibaretely trying dance around the lines and rules - to further his agenda.


Your a self conceived fan of team red(if i recall) - but you don't seem to have that much trouble and you argue efficiently and know how to handle certain people who favour team blue.
You also stick to facts and know when to draw a line in terms of extrapolation\speculation.

You don't see a discrepancy of you as a poster vs "the one that shall not be named! (I couldn't help myself sorry) " ?

Miles of difference to me.

 

[galego]

My interpretation is that IDC meant that SDP (although poorly or NOT defined) is giving an approximation to the "REAL LIFE" power consumption (i.e. Typical power).

But as emphasized in my previous post:

Care to explain then how the SDP number is obtained and what measures? Concrete info please, not anything vague such as it measures average power consumption in a given scenario, without defining that "scenario".

For me, as an end-user, with the current lack of info, saying that a SoC has a SDP of 4.5W is not different than saying me that it has a clock speed of 8 (without giving units) or a ZXCDFRTVHG of 3.1416, without explaining me what is "ZXCDFRTVHG".

At the beginning we believed that the 4.5W is valid for ordinary frequency. Latter, we knew that the 4.5W SDP is only valid when the chip is caped to 800MHz. What "REAL LIFE" use is associated to the 800MHz? This question was made before by several posters. Someone mentioned if gaming or browsing was in the "REAL LIFE" scenario. I replied that only light browsing must be.

Your question is ill-defined and unanswerable. You know it is, since you went to lengths to concoct it so.

You know the only people who can answer your question is Intel

<snip insults>.

According to the information that I have, as end-user, your claim that SDP "would be far more informative to an end-user than a number like TDP" was without basis.

I offered you the possibility to base your claim with relevant info (I don't know who you are and if you have info from Intel or not). The question is not ill-defined, but you could avoid to answer or to say "I don't know", instead that, you mentioned AMD.

Only now you admit that you don't have additional info, I don't ask again.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

So who cares?

I do. Honesty matters. And it's been pretty obvious to me from the start of this SDP business that its primary intention is to make these chips seem like they use less power than they really do.

 

[mrmt]

I do. Honesty matters. And it's been pretty obvious to me from the start of this SDP business that its primary intention is to make these chips seem like they use less power than they really do.

I don't think SDP should be used as a marketing tool. It's ok if Intel wants to use this metric to give OEMs parameters to battery size, but not as a marketing tool.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

But as emphasized in my previous post:



At the beginning we believed that the 4.5W is valid for ordinary frequency. Latter, we knew that the 4.5W SDP is only valid when the chip is caped to 800MHz. What "REAL LIFE" use is associated to the 800MHz? This question was made before by several posters. Someone mentioned if gaming or browsing was in the "REAL LIFE" scenario. I replied that only light browsing must be.



According to the information that I have, as end-user, your claim that SDP "would be far more informative to an end-user than a number like TDP" was without basis.

I offered you the possibility to base your claim with relevant info (I don't know who you are and if you have info from Intel or not). The question is not ill-defined, but you could avoid to answer or to say "I don't know", instead that, you mentioned AMD.

Only now you admit that you don't have additional info, I don't ask again.

I think there is a little bit of a misunderstanding, so I will try to clear it up.

The SDP is defined in Watts, and Watts are a well standardised unit of measurement.

The "wishy washy" bit, is that we don't know exactly what set of software Intel ran to perform the tests, and probably don't know the finer details, such as clock speed settings (e.g. clock throttling temporarily disabled or not, if that is even possible), graphics clock frequency(s), and potentially a whole pile of other finer details.

Nevertheless we do have an idea that the "benchmark" is attempting to run a pile of "real-life" benchmarks, in order to estimate the typical users, "real life" power consumption (and hence be able to determine the approximate battery life).

Therefore, on the one hand, it is disappointing that intel have chosen to apparently NOT define what they were doing (precisely), so we can't easily independently verify it and/or perform exactly the same tests on our own hardware, and/or optimize our exact device, to do well in these tests (But as Samsung has recently been rumored to illustrate, this has its downsides as well).

So there is apparently no need for you to massively over-react to the SDP, and go into significant disagreements with anyone, who thinks that maybe SDP is NOT 100% a total disaster.

------------------------------------------

Friendly note

It is NOT a good idea, to get into big forum arguments with a VERY popular poster.

It is a REALLY, REALLY BAD idea to get into big arguments with forum mods/admins.

Once they have issued (public) warnings, you should take heed and quiten down, else something might happen, which you may regret later.

 

[Aikouka]

At the beginning we believed that the 4.5W is valid for ordinary frequency. Latter, we knew that the 4.5W SDP is only valid when the chip is caped to 800MHz. What "REAL LIFE" use is associated to the 800MHz? This question was made before by several posters. Someone mentioned if gaming or browsing was in the "REAL LIFE" scenario. I replied that only light browsing must be.

I own a tablet (iPad 4th generation) and an ultrabook (ASUS Zenbook), which are both products that this chip is essentially being marketed to -- albeit, I'd argue the best example of a tablet would be Razer's Edge! Anyway, do you know what I do the most on my tablet and ultrabook? Web browsing, video playback, etc. These are the activities that most likely make up SDP, and guess what... they're also the same activities that Apple uses to demonstrate the battery life of their devices. Why? Because they're common activities. That isn't to say that my Zenbook and iPad don't have games on them, because they certainly do; however, that isn't their main purpose.

According to the information that I have, as end-user, your claim that SDP "would be far more informative to an end-user than a number like TDP" was without basis.

The basis is that based on what Intel said it represents fits the common use pattern for the intended devices. Could Intel be lying or stretching the truth? Sure, it's possible, but would I expect it? No.

The usual suspects will report his posts as part of their usual tactic to get AMD fanboys banned. Should I name them and see how close to the mark I get?

You don't think that the mods have any idea who tends to lean in what direction? They read the forums too, and guess what... reporting a post does include your username. I'd know as I've gotten responses back after reporting troll posts on occasion.

For me, as an end-user, with the current lack of info, saying that a SoC has a SDP of 4.5W is not different than saying me that it has a clock speed of 8 (without giving units) or a ZXCDFRTVHG of 3.1416, without explaining me what is "ZXCDFRTVHG".

You really do love stretching things, don't you? :\ You know what SDP is meant to define and in which unit of measurement it is provided. The only unknown is exactly what metric is used to define it. However, isn't that also true for TDP as well?

EDIT:

I don't think SDP should be used as a marketing tool. It's ok if Intel wants to use this metric to give OEMs parameters to battery size, but not as a marketing tool.

I've stated this in the past (in this thread), but I'll say it again: I don't think this is a marketing tool. I can understand why someone might think it is. Look at it this way... when Apple announces how efficient a new SoC is, they don't leave it at that. They provide durations depending on tasks, because those are the numbers that end-users actually care about.

In other words, the people that will possibly use the low-power aspect to market will be the OEMs, and they'll most likely run their own battery life tests (just like Apple did with the mobile Haswell CPUs in the MBA). You may see terms like "low-power Haswell CPU", which it is... compared to the high-end i7s.

 

[sushiwarrior]

That's a very confusing message, "we support fanboys", but then "post another fanboy topic and prepare for the banhammer"... personally, galego usually sticks to honest thread titles (ie. quoted out of articles) and while he may be very enthusiastic to say the least, I don't see him doing anything like trolling, he's just posting his very-far-AMD side of the field opinion. And I see enough people who consistently have a problem with that, and they flame him because of that. I don't think he's trolling by saying that Streamroller will be the next coming of jesus, that's his opinion and he is entitled to it. Anyone flaming him is who I would call at fault, especially since they consistently keep hammering at him.

-------------------------------

The unethical problem I see about SDP is that Intel essentially said "this is the same as a TDP". You see tons of websites reporting about it like it is a TDP. If I took my "5w 7990 CIDP" and put that in place of where TDP goes on my chart with a little asterisk, then I'm not really doing anything different than Intel, am I? SDP can be exceeded, TDP cannot be exceeded. So why is SDP put where a TDP should be. They are completely different things, and one cannot be a replacement for the other. If Intel wants to advertise 4.5W, they should permanently cap the chip at 800mhz.

 

[podspi]

I agree that SDP is more or less useless for the end-user. This "debate" reminds me of the debate over whether Bulldozer was an 8-core or 4-core processor. At the end of the day it does not matter, all that matters are the performance characteristics of the final product.


The OEMs will know (either from Intel or by their own testing) the power and cooling requirements of these chips and will design their products accordingly (or deal with the RMA consequences). If one of these chips allows a Haswell fanless with decent performance, that is literally all that matters. If they don't, it isn't like OEMs are going to design one and have them exploding/burning people's hands/etc anyway.

 

[Keysplayr]

That's a very confusing message, "we support fanboys", but then "post another fanboy topic and prepare for the banhammer"... personally, galego usually sticks to honest thread titles (ie. quoted out of articles) and while he may be very enthusiastic to say the least, I don't see him doing anything like trolling, he's just posting his very-far-AMD side of the field opinion. And I see enough people who consistently have a problem with that, and they flame him because of that. I don't think he's trolling by saying that Streamroller will be the next coming of jesus, that's his opinion and he is entitled to it. Anyone flaming him is who I would call at fault, especially since they consistently keep hammering at him.

-------------------------------

Very Interesting interpretation you have there, of what is essentially anti-Intel forum spamming.