Intels lower Q115 guidance

[TechFan1]

In Windows 10 the metro apps function just like desktop apps, although you can still use them like the win 8 version still if you wish. Is it possible the oems are just not buying any extra chips because they don't want to have many extra haswell or broadwell chips after skylake is released? I still think Skylake will be a bigger performance bump than a lot of people are expecting.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Windows is a productivity platform, and Microsoft is thoroughly trashing the productivity side in order to transform windows in a bad content consumption platform. They will end up with a closed ecosystem like Apple, but one that nobody wants to use anymore.

This, I agree with.

 

[Dave2150]

Apple computers, require defrag utils, registry cleaners, anti-malware and anti-virus software?

Windows 8.1 has all that built in, with no need for user input. It does it all automatically. I guess you haven't even used windows 8.1 if you don't know this.

Last time I had to edit my registry was with Vista, a long time ago.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Windows 8.1 has all that built in, with no need for user input. It does it all automatically. I guess you haven't even used windows 8.1 if you don't know this.

Last time I had to edit my registry was with Vista, a long time ago.

I was referring to software that actually works, as opposed to token OS-provided utils. You obviously haven't been a Windows user for very long if you think that the OS-provided tools are good enough.

 

[Anon_lawyer]

Why would corporate upgrade on a 3-4 year cycle if there is no tangible benefit? Going from Sandy Bridge to Haswell or Broadwell is pointless for the average office worker.

You might be surprised. The place I used to work upgraded me from a I7-2600K to a I7-4770K after 3 years. With a discrete graphics card to boot. Now, in case you're wondering, for lawyers CPU intensive work is something like scrolling really fast through a big PDF. Literally. Word, Outlook, IE/Chrome, Acrobat are pretty much all I use... you could swap me out with an I3 and I'd never notice unless I checked. but, someone talked management in to a 3 year upgrade cycle. So they did.

 

[ninaholic37]

You might be surprised. The place I used to work upgraded me from a I7-2600K to a I7-4770K after 3 years. With a discrete graphics card to boot. Now, in case you're wondering, for lawyers CPU intensive work is something like scrolling really fast through a big PDF. Literally. Word, Outlook, IE/Chrome, Acrobat are pretty much all I use... you could swap me out with an I3 and I'd never notice unless I checked. but, someone talked management in to a 3 year upgrade cycle. So they did.

What a waste of money (x2).

 

[scannall]

Agreed. With a few tweaks, Classic Shell is almost (but not quite) back to Win 7. And with the improved Win 8.1 back end, the combo definitely improves on Win 7. I wish they'd bring Classic Shell up to Win 7, though, and not merely up to Vista.

Win 10 is better than 8/8.1. But sucking less doesn't make great promotional material. All of my Windows machines have Blu-ray drives in them, so I think I'll just stay at 7 for a while.

 

[jdubs03]

This, I agree with.

Keep in mind that it is still early days, RTM will probably be around the back-to-school timefame, so lets say August at the earliest; so 5+ months away, I'd imagine a lot is going to change over time, including a bunch of customizing features. Microsoft knows they need to get the enterprise on board to gain greater amounts of overall adoption rates and hence increased profitability, so I'm sure they're going to do everything they can to make it so.

On the subject of the current form, I don't think its too bad; the wifi notification thing is already changed which definitely needed to be done and was the only thing I actually provided feedback on (I use Windows 7, one of the reasons being the current W10 builds don't support trackpad scrolling on my computer which sucks). The continuum feature is kind of neat, but they do need to offer the capability of making the start menu bigger/smaller like they had before. I like the ability of running metro apps in windowed mode, it makes it more appealing and isn't nearly the contrast as full-screen apps in Windows 8.

But the bottom line is, we're comparing an early build of Windows 10 where lots of things are still going to be added and changed. Look for BUILD to give everyone a better indication of where Windows 10 is going, and even then there will be ~4 more months of builds.

 

[Idontcare]

No, it is not at normal cadence. At normal tick/tock, we would have had desktop broadwell instead of haswell refresh, and Skylake coming soon. *If* Skylake comes mid year and if it shows something like 15% or more improvement, then we are pretty much back on schedule, but I am not counting on that. Even from SB to Haswell we saw about 5% plus 8% increase, so Haswell to Skylake needs about 15% improvement to just keep up with the most recent tick/tock improvements.

And since normally each generation has slipped to about 15 months, what I am realistically expecting is Skylake by end of the year and 10% or less improvement vs Haswell. I hope I am wrong on both counts, but we will see. Intel talked a good game with Broadwell up until the very end, but continually made, shall I call it "overly optimistic"projections on both timing and performance.

I'm in agreement with you.

In my opinion, Intel is reaping what they sowed when they opted to roll out a Haswell Refresh last summer instead of rolling out 14nm broadwell.

It has just taken time for the slowdown in upgrades to catch-up with them. But it finally has.

And now they get to contend with the other end of the spectrum, the Osborne effect, for the remaining upgrade stragglers who know that Intel is not only (finally) releasing Broadwell this year, but also Skylake to boot.

 

[Maximilian]

Its because I never built a new rig this year. DDR4 is too expensive and having a hexacore haswell when I know an octocore exists would irritate me, the octocore is too expensive as well.

Maybe next year intel... maybe next year.

i5 4570 is still running fine :thumbsup:

 

[Nothingness]

I keep on reading that OS upgrades are a motivation for system upgrades in companies. My experience contradicts this: the companies I have worked for (from small to mega corp) set up a cadence at which computers get replaced, and they deploy OS upgrades when needed. This works well since latest releases of Windows don't require more performance.

 

[Idontcare]

I keep on reading that OS upgrades are a motivation for system upgrades in companies. My experience contradicts this: the companies I have worked for (from small to mega corp) set up a cadence at which computers get replaced, and they deploy OS upgrades when needed. This works well since latest releases of Windows don't require more performance.

Its a smokescreen for the fact they are a year behind where they need to be with 14nm.

If they had launched 14nm desktop broadwell last year, instead of a 100MHz Haswell refresh, and still seen a drop in demand Q1 this year then I would accept the "XP made the customers not buy our processors" excuse.

But in my position, with my experience, Intel's problem is Intel's product (or lack thereof). Enough with the blaming of the customer or of Microsoft. Take some responsibility, and for the sake of someone's god please do something about it and release a 14nm desktop processor in volumes!

 

[ShintaiDK]

IDC, whats your view on the strong dollar contra other currencies in terms of sales? CAD and EUR for example have lost 15-25% against the USD the last 3 months or so.

 

[sm625]

It's not an issue with Intel. It's the broader economy.

Even excluding gasoline, retail sales have not grown at all in the last 6 months. (Time to print more money!)

 

[Idontcare]

IDC, whats your view on the strong dollar contra other currencies in terms of sales? CAD and EUR for example have lost 15-25% against the USD the last 3 months or so.

I do forex for a living now, so the exchange rate volatility is front-and-center for me (personally).

But the fact that Intel chose to not touch on it as an excuse says they volumes. If they really felt the lack of demand was because of exchange rate deltas then surely they would have said so, versus laying blame at the feet of existing XP users.

Unless they are playing the savvy politics card, always a possibility.

 

[Idontcare]

Going to have to do a mea culpa here, not sure what I was drinking yesterday (I thought it was just coffee, honest!) but clearly I failed to grasp what was literally staring me right in the face in the Intel news release (and quoted in the OP):

The change in revenue outlook is a result of weaker than expected demand for business desktop PCs and lower than expected inventory levels across the PC supply chain. The company believes the changes to demand and inventory patterns are caused by lower than expected Windows XP* refresh in small and medium business and increasingly challenging macroeconomic and currency conditions, particularly in Europe.

Business PCs and currency conditions. Makes complete sense. The currency situation wrt the USD is cratering demand pretty much everywhere but the USA.

And Intel was quite explicit that this is a business desktop demand issue, not a consumer desktop issue.

Anyways, for some reason I found myself re-reading Intel's statement and it suddenly dawned on me just how badly I had misread it the first time around. Doh!

 

[Dave2150]

I was referring to software that actually works, as opposed to token OS-provided utils. You obviously haven't been a Windows user for very long if you think that the OS-provided tools are good enough.

Windows user since Windows 95 here.

The tools you mentioned work perfectly in Windows 8.1. I'm sure there are superior programs out there for those functions, though for the vast majority of the userbase, the included programs are more than satisfactory.

Can you actually give an example of a problem with the tools you mentioned, that the typical end user would have? Didn't think so buddy.

 

[ClockHound]

And now they get to contend with the other end of the spectrum, the Osborne effect, for the remaining upgrade stragglers who know that Intel is not only (finally) releasing Broadwell this year, but also Skylake to boot.

LOL!!! Someone must PAY for the price of success!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Windows user since Windows 95 here.

The tools you mentioned work perfectly in Windows 8.1. I'm sure there are superior programs out there for those functions, though for the vast majority of the userbase, the included programs are more than satisfactory.

Can you actually give an example of a problem with the tools you mentioned, that the typical end user would have? Didn't think so buddy.

MSE in Win7 was rolled into Win8/8.1 and renamed Windows Defender.
It missed 100% of malware in a test.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2423819

Windows 8.1's system defrag utility is stupid, and actually defrags SSDs.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2404955

And there is no OS-provided registry cleaner. Not that you necessarily need one, but some people feel that way.

 

[imported_ats]

You might be surprised. The place I used to work upgraded me from a I7-2600K to a I7-4770K after 3 years. With a discrete graphics card to boot. Now, in case you're wondering, for lawyers CPU intensive work is something like scrolling really fast through a big PDF. Literally. Word, Outlook, IE/Chrome, Acrobat are pretty much all I use... you could swap me out with an I3 and I'd never notice unless I checked. but, someone talked management in to a 3 year upgrade cycle. So they did.

A large driver for the 3 year upgrade cycles is hardware wear out and support issue increase. Its generally cheaper to replace the thing every 3 years than it is to have the support staff AND spare parts needed to trouble shoot the wide variety of issues older hardware will have. This is especially true if your business makes a profit, as you can use depreciation to offset profits.

So you get lower support costs, lower overheads, and a tax write off. Its pretty much win win for the companies. Plus for people who actually use their laptop as a laptop and not a portable AiO, 3ish years is about all the time they last between being hauled around to meetings and travel.

 

[Dave2150]

MSE in Win7 was rolled into Win8/8.1 and renamed Windows Defender.
It missed 100% of malware in a test.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2423819

Windows 8.1's system defrag utility is stupid, and actually defrags SSDs.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2404955

And there is no OS-provided registry cleaner. Not that you necessarily need one, but some people feel that way.

The Windows Defender article is sketchy at best.

The ssd defrag isn't a 'full' defrag - it's an ssd optimized one, that's only enabled if you have system restore enabled.

 

[podspi]

MSE in Win7 was rolled into Win8/8.1 and renamed Windows Defender.
It missed 100% of malware in a test.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2423819

Windows 8.1's system defrag utility is stupid, and actually defrags SSDs.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2404955

And there is no OS-provided registry cleaner. Not that you necessarily need one, but some people feel that way.

MSE gets a really bad rap because people don't understand what it is doing.

MSE doesn't really do heuristic scanning at all, which makes it miss newer stuff pretty badly. It also makes it light on resources, and is generally pretty good about catching the high-impact stuff you're actually the most likely to get.

I've also heard (from an AMA on Reddit by some Microsoft engineer) that the MSE team gives away their signatures to all the other security companies. So assume they do ANY work above and beyond what Microsoft does, you'd expect Microsoft's to be the lower-bound.

It's actually pretty smart, because MSE is really all you need if you are careful (and can take the time to do an on-demand scan every once in a while with the free version of more expensive tools) while still leaving room for other companies to add value, negating (to some extent) antitrust concerns.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The Windows Defender article is sketchy at best.

The ssd defrag isn't a 'full' defrag - it's an ssd optimized one, that's only enabled if you have system restore enabled.

Which is the default, so by default, Win8.1 will unnecessarily defrag your SSD.

Edit: I'm going to bow out of this minor argument at this point. Basically, if you're a knowledgeable Windows' user, you will already be aware of the limitations of the OS-provided utilities, and seek out more capable equivalents. If you don't really care if or how they work, only that they are provided for you already, then be happy with the ones included in Win8.1.

 

[Spawne32]

The PC ecosystem needs a healthy Microsoft, and as of now they are actively working to destroy their platform. The fact that windows XP is still being discussed today is a testament of how divorced Microsoft is from the market.

Windows 10 looks promising but i hear that completely, I cant believe sometimes when I go into a business and see windows XP still being used. I think part of the reason sales are leveling off is more to do with the fact that not only are intel's prices considerably higher from the lack of competition, but as the CPU's get faster, less and less mainstream buyers feel the need to upgrade. Not to mention that new technology is being geared towards smaller cheaper products where as 10 years ago you need a $1000 dollar desktop or "gaming laptop" to handle some of the same programs we are running on tablets and netbooks these days. The average price of a laptop for a regular consumer has gone from being close to $1000 down to about $200-300. Without huge performance bumps from each iteration of new processor from intel, no reason to buy new hardware for most people. Not like AMD is going to drive competition leading to innovation either.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Going to have to do a mea culpa here, not sure what I was drinking yesterday (I thought it was just coffee, honest!) but clearly I failed to grasp what was literally staring me right in the face in the Intel news release (and quoted in the OP):



Business PCs and currency conditions. Makes complete sense. The currency situation wrt the USD is cratering demand pretty much everywhere but the USA.

And Intel was quite explicit that this is a business desktop demand issue, not a consumer desktop issue.

Anyways, for some reason I found myself re-reading Intel's statement and it suddenly dawned on me just how badly I had misread it the first time around. Doh!

Good to see you got more..or less (irish)coffee

It was obvious just from the trend we have seen with complaining CAD buyers, that currency had to matter. And now the euro and EMR2(Like danes) can complain too. And with the ECB printing 60B€ a month its not going to get any better.

The surprising part is that consumer devices are not affected, yet.