I did say it is only one factor, and probably not the major one. As far as knowing about HT, and overall performance, there is such a thing as advertising.
Yes, and this advertising has made it so that people know that Core i3 = good, Core i5 = better, Core i7 = best. Beyond that the vast majority of buyers don't know or simply don't care about the details.
Remember that most people/computer buyers are not technically literate. They are buying a tool to help make their lives better. Always keep this in mind.
Just think of the advertising and good press Intel would get by shifting performance up in every tier of the product stack.
I don't get what you're saying. Intel improves performance and adds new features in each tier with each new product. This hasn't helped boost sales at all.
What can they advertise now? Pay 1500 dollars for an ultra book that has no better performance than a 4 or 5 year old conventional laptop that cost 1/3 of that. ?
This is what Intel advertises:
Also, I think you are missing the point. The trend in technology has been to make things slimmer, lighter, etc. Battery life over the 4-5 year old "conventional" laptop hulk is going to be much better (and yes people care about battery life), screens are higher quality, the systems are lighter/easier to carry, storage performance has improved, etc.
A mainstream Ultrabook with a Broadwell-U/Skylake-U is just a far better experience for the average Joe than a 4-5 year old laptop.
Oh, and if you want our best iris pro igpu, you have to pay another 500 bucks.? No wonder sales are in the toilet.
OK, first of all, Intel isn't charging a $500 delta for Iris Pro GPU, so this doesn't make a lot of sense. The PC OEMs put the higher end CPUs into systems that are, across the board, higher quality. Harder to build industrial designs, better storage, much higher quality displays, better touchpad/trackpad controllers, higher quality cooling system, etc. Remember that OEMs are trying to make money here and they want to up-sell people too.
They have little incentive to stick an Iris Pro into a cheap POS PC because somebody buying a cheap POS PC is probably buying on price, not on the best features/bells and whistles. And even if Intel were to bring Iris Pro pricing down, the non-Iris Pro chips would still be cheaper and the OEMs would still choose them for their cheap POS systems.
All I am trying to say, is if one is considering an upgrade
Why does the average person consider an upgrade? Does the Average Joe run Geekbench 3 and determine that it's time for a new PC because his score is too low?
Remember, average Joe is buying systems not CPUs. Unhappiness with a current system and a desire to buy a system that's better in many noticeable ways (Geekbench 3 and other such benchmarks are the last thing average Joe cares about) are what fuel upgrades.
but you only get a few percent improvement, you will definitely say "forget it". If the improvement is bigger, then perhaps you would do it.
Improvement in what way? If average Joe is considering an upgrade, then obviously his current system is not satisfying his needs and it's important enough for him to spend a big portion of his post-tax salary (particularly if Joe lives in an emerging market and a PC represents ~4-8 weeks of his salary).
"Good enough" is not an absolute measure. It is a continum of "barely adequate" to "more that enough" Undoubtedly there are some people with "good enough" that would consider "better" if "better" were not such a miniscule improvement.
Improvement in what way? A PC today for the same money that you had to spend 4-5 years ago is dramatically better in many ways beyond CPU performance benchmarks. It also happens to be much better in CPU/GPU performance benchmarks.
One of the way to improve sales in a stagnant or declining market is to offer more value for the money. Intel seems to stubbornly resist this
What average Joe "values" is different than what enthusiasts on AnandTech forums value.
except for the minuscule ipc improvements from generation to generation, which has now been made on a longer cycle. I dont really know if the are holding back on these improvements or not. I really dont think so, but no matter really. They could do so much more by making hyperthreading more readily available, making edram more available, and increasing core counts.
I guarantee you that the average PC buyer does not know about/care about any of those things. Go to Best Buy and ask a random shopper if they even know what hyper-threading and eDRAM are. Also ask him/her how many CPU cores his/her home PC has. ;-)
Perhaps we will see if this "good enough" excuse is valid if Zen is competitive and priced lower. According to the intel defenders, it doesnt matter, because the 99% average Joes have a computer that is "good enough" and will not upgrade no matter what the value quotient of a new chip.
AMD Zen will not change the fundamentals of the PC market. It only has the ability to shift market share away from Intel to AMD if it is any good.