So, where's the Intel monopoly?

[Arg Clin]

Well, if BD really destroyed SB by a huge margin, then I bet Intel would have reduced pricing even more.

Maybe maybe no. Intel has to walk a very fine line in order not to piss off anti competition authorities at this point. Killing off AMD would not be in the best interest of Intel - they need exactly what AMD is - a weak competitor that's not really a threat to Intels profit margint, yet large enough to give the impression that there isn't a monopoly that needs regulation.

I hope that the whole APU approach (Llano/Bobcat) really pays off for AMD. Some reports seems to indicate that it does - the biggest obstacle is GloFo at this point.

I think AMD is doing the right thing. Llano is actually a brilliant product, because what most users need right now isn't more CPU power, it's a decent GPU at a cost effective level.

That'll allow AMD to get back in the high end game for real, because it is a nice place to be marketing wise. Just takes up a lot of ressources to stay in the top though.

 

[PreferLinux]

Ubuntu has the reputation of being user friendly and easy to install and all that, being called 'crazy' for using Ubuntu is akin to saying linux should only be dabbled with by SW engrs.

Only crazy because it's the only one bothered with, not because it's used. Not to mention that its reputation is entirely undeserved.

 

[Arachnotronic]

$100 for a high end CPU is what people have traditionally been able to get.
/thread

In what universe has a top end CPU been $100?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

In what universe has a top end CPU been $100?

In the past there have been some great gems at that price point, though. The oldest one I can remember:

Pentium D 805: Easily overclockable by 35% and very fast at its introduction in multi-threaded programs. Much better bang-for-buck than anything AMD had at that price point at the time. Loved to suck power, though.

Pentium E2160: $90 and overclockable by 75% (yes, you heard that right). When overclocked it was on average faster than the Core 2 Duo E6700. Good power consumption and most overclocking could be done on the stock cooler.

Pentium E5200: $84 and overclockable by over 50%. Faster than a Core 2 Duo E7300 when so.

I miss those days, I really do.

 

[Arachnotronic]

None of those are "top end" CPUs -- they're just good midrange CPUs with high overclocking ability.

If that's what you're after, pick up an Athlon II x4 631 and push it to 4.4GHz.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

None of those are "top end" CPUs -- they're just good midrange CPUs with high overclocking ability.

If that's what you're after, pick up an Athlon II x4 631 and push it to 4.4GHz.

Well, I never said they were. The Pentium D 805 overclocked to 3.6GHz could perform close to the 955 EE, though, so you could make an exception there.

Shame we can no longer get $300 worth of performance out of $100 CPUs.

 

[Arachnotronic]

It's probably because the desktop market isn't doing that well anymore, so Intel/AMD are trying to actually sell their higher margin chips.

 

[StrangerGuy]

It's probably because the desktop market isn't doing that well anymore, so Intel/AMD are trying to actually sell their higher margin chips.

http://ark.intel.com/products/52219

This is where the high margin actually is.

 

[ed29a]

an FX-60 and FX-57 for $1,000. Bold emphasis is mine.

Nothing needing explanation. It happened in the European market, and I don't see you complaining about Bulldozer being initially priced higher than it was supposed to. The FX-8120 was supposed to be $205-210 and is at $220, while the FX-8150 was supposed to be at $245-250 and is at $280. Even at the correct prices they're both worse for the money than the i5-2500K.

What part of 'value' is so hard to understand? The 'v', the 'a', the 'l', the 'u' or the 'e'? I don't care who makes the processor but a 200$+ CPU is not 'Value'.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

http://ark.intel.com/products/52219

This is where the high margin actually is.

It's been replaced by the i7-2670QM. But still, it's definitely a high-margin chip. But so are the Core i7-2600 and higher-end chips like the i7-980. Then there's also the Xeons, the highest margin chips of them all.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

What part of 'value' is so hard to understand? The 'v', the 'a', the 'l', the 'u' or the 'e'? I don't care who makes the processor but a 200$+ CPU is not 'Value'.

The part where none of what you've posted makes any sense. Another member posted that even with little to no competition Intel is giving us great value and you reply by showing him the Core i7-990X, a $1000 CPU. Perhaps it was an attempt at trolling, but whatever it was, it means little. When AMD was on top they released CPUs at that price point as well.

If you weren't busy flaming you would've noticed there's the Celeron G530 at $57, the Pentium G630 now reduced to $73, the Pentium G850 which has also been reduced to $85, and the Core i3-2120 at $125. All of these are faster and much more efficient than their AMD counterparts while costing either the same or less. They're also on a current platform with support for future CPUs, while AM3 CPUs/Motherboards are on a dead socket.

 

[ed29a]

The part where none of what you've posted makes any sense. Another member posted that even with little to no competition Intel is giving us great value and you reply by showing him the Core i7-990X, a $1000 CPU. Perhaps it was an attempt at trolling, but whatever it was, it means little. When AMD was on top they released CPUs at that price point as well.

If you weren't busy flaming you would've noticed there's the Celeron G530 at $57, the Pentium G630 now reduced to $73, the Pentium G850 which has also been reduced to $85, and the Core i3-2120 at $125. All of these are faster and much more efficient than their AMD counterparts while costing either the same or less. They're also on a current platform with support for future CPUs, while AM3 CPUs/Motherboards are on a dead socket.

So, here we are. Bulldozer didn't crush SNB nor is it available in any appreciable quantities.

Intel still offers us a 2600K w/ HT for $315, a 2500K for $219, and if we really want to push it to the max, a 990X for $1,000.

But even with lack of competition, Intel gives us an incredible value. So whenever I hear people claiming that the reason our CPUs nowadays are fantastic is due to AMD's competition and without it we'd be doomed, I chuckle.

That was the OP's post. Any mention of Celeron? Or Pentium? Or Core i3? Again, a 200$+ CPU is not 'value', which was my initial point.

Understand? Or need me to draw you a picture?

 

[Zink]

It's been replaced by the i7-2670QM. But still, it's definitely a high-margin chip. But so are the Core i7-2600 and higher-end chips like the i7-980. Then there's also the Xeons, the highest margin chips of them all.

With back and forth competition and AMD in the dominant position today, small die size chips like this would be mainstream mobile chips, have less artificial clockspeed and feature limiting, and sell for $150. The tiny dual cores at 3ghz speeds would be $65 chips in the value laptops. That is what AMD is having to do today, take its 2B transistor chips that cost years of R&D, run them at the highest frequencies possible, and sell them for $250. Intel wouldn't be making record profits but they would be able to cover manufacturing costs while still having billions for development. Like people have said, without competition there is still demand to be filled, companies just take bigger margins and take their time with innovation. Competition (or government run enterprise) is necessary to give consumer the highest performance at the lowest cost possible.

 

[Rifter]

$100 for a high end CPU is what people have traditionally been able to get.

You ---------------------------------------------------> Reality


You have NEVER been able to buy a high end CPU for $100. Just because you choose to buy low/mid end CPU's and overclock them for better performance doesnt mean they are top end CPU's.

 

[StrangerGuy]

A current $100 CPU is "value" provided you don't care about:

1. Performance/$ with after mobo cost
2. OCing
3. Power consumption

 

[Chiropteran]

All of these are faster and much more efficient than their AMD counterparts while costing either the same or less. They're also on a current platform with support for future CPUs, while AM3 CPUs/Motherboards are on a dead socket.

Huh? I'm not going to debate whether the intel "value" CPUs are a better deal than AMD's, but what exactly are you talking about sockets at the end there? If you were putting together today an "AM3" socket CPU based system, you would just go ahead and buy an AM3+ socket board, if future upgrades concern you. Which wouldn't be any more dead than the intel equivalents.

It's like arguing that the cheap intel CPUs have no upgrade options because with their low power usage you would use a weaker power supply that can't handle higher end CPUs or video cards.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

In the past there have been some great gems at that price point, though. The oldest one I can remember:

The oldest one I had was the Celeron 300A. Set FSB to 100MHz and they all ran at 450MHz, without any issues. People didn't even call it overclocking until you got past 100MHz bus. It was the CPU that got me into overclocking. Also, it was too good -- it seriously ate into the sales of more expensive CPU's

Pentium D 805: Easily overclockable by 35% and very fast at its introduction in multi-threaded programs. Much better bang-for-buck than anything AMD had at that price point at the time. Loved to suck power, though.

Umm, no. Unless your workloads consisted entirely of video encoding or something, the A64 3000+ was just plain better, and by a ridiculous margin in many real-world tasks. (They also overclocked nicely.) That anandtech article is just weird. Looking at the benchmark charts, why would you actually want that chip?

Pentium E2160: $90 and overclockable by 75% (yes, you heard that right). When overclocked it was on average faster than the Core 2 Duo E6700. Good power consumption and most overclocking could be done on the stock cooler.

Had this one. Served me well.

Pentium E5200: $84 and overclockable by over 50%. Faster than a Core 2 Duo E7300 when so.

I miss those days, I really do.

Intel is really trying to make sure they never come back, by stopping overclocking on cheap parts. Really made me wish BD would have been able to compete.

Well, we can always hope that ARM catches up or something. (not.)

 

[Chiropteran]

Unless your workloads consisted entirely of video encoding or something, the A64 3000+ was just plain better, and by a ridiculous margin in many real-world tasks. (They also overclocked nicely.) That anandtech article is just weird. Looking at the benchmark charts, why would you actually want that chip?

That is kinda hilarious " In fact, the Athlon 64 3000+ consumes less power under full load than the Pentium D 805 does with both of its cores idling."

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Huh? I'm not going to debate whether the intel "value" CPUs are a better deal than AMD's, but what exactly are you talking about sockets at the end there? If you were putting together today an "AM3" socket CPU based system, you would just go ahead and buy an AM3+ socket board, if future upgrades concern you. Which wouldn't be any more dead than the intel equivalents.

It's like arguing that the cheap intel CPUs have no upgrade options because with their low power usage you would use a weaker power supply that can't handle higher end CPUs or video cards.

All you'll get at budget price points with AM3 is motherboards with the crappy 760G chipset. You wouldn't be able to do any meaningful upgrades, anyway. Those motherboards have 3+1 phase power and are probably barely enough for the power sucking leeches that are the FX-6100 and up. Even then, those aren't much in the way of upgrades. You're getting higher multi-threaded performance but the same or even lower single-threaded.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

That is kinda hilarious " In fact, the Athlon 64 3000+ consumes less power under full load than the Pentium D 805 does with both of its cores idling."

Yeah, but if you count overclockability, the 3000+ was left far behind. By then it wasn't much slower in single-threaded and much faster in multi-threaded. And as we all know, less than two years later it was pretty much a necessity to have a dual-core.

Yes, it used a lot more power. But it was also cheap and very fast when overclocked, and you could get 3.6GHz easy out of it.

Looking at the benchmarks it was quite good in many areas except gaming:

 

[zsdersw]

Looking at the benchmark charts, why would you actually want that chip?

That's the same question everyone's asking about Bulldozer.

 

[Chiropteran]

All you'll get at budget price points with AM3 is motherboards with the crappy 760G chipset. You wouldn't be able to do any meaningful upgrades, anyway. Those motherboards have 3+1 phase power and are probably barely enough for the power sucking leeches that are the FX-6100 and up. Even then, those aren't much in the way of upgrades. You're getting higher multi-threaded performance but the same or even lower single-threaded.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0366104

Or is $49 after rebate out of the price point you are looking at? How much are the intel boards you are comparing to?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0366104

Or is $49 after rebate out of the price point you are looking at? How much are the intel boards you are comparing to?

Right... except probably only around 1/5th the people here have a MicroCenter near them. But that board is available on Newegg, too, so it doesn't matter. For $50 and $60 there's some Intel boards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138332
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157241
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128504

The problem is that you can't put meaningful upgrades to the AMD boards because of how much of a power hog Bulldozer is. You probably don't want to be running the FX-6100 or anything faster on a 3+1 phase motherboard, while anything up to a Core i5-2400 will be fine in any budget Intel board. Truth be told, FM1 seems like a better socket for budget systems.

The TDP numbers are pretty meaningless. Since the FX-6100 and i5 are rated at 95W you'd think they'd consume very comparable amounts of power, but the i5 consumes a lot less.

 

[Chiropteran]

The problem is that you can't put meaningful upgrades to the AMD boards because of how much of a power hog Bulldozer is. You probably don't want to be running the FX-6100 or anything faster on a 3+1 phase motherboard

Eh, the specs say it supports 125W processors, it should run an FX-8150 fine.

 

[cubby1223]

I do find it funny that when the Athlon 64's were first coming out, I kept commenting how intel would turn it around and destroy AMD, if AMD ever made a serious run at intel's cpu marketshare. Of course back then everyone across the internet flamed me for hating computers and hating competition and hating low prices

And intel countered by releasing the Prescotts...

(And for the record my own cpu history has been AMD 386DX/33, Texas Instruments 486DLC-40, intel 486DX-50, AMD 5x86-133, K6-2 200, K6-3 350, Athlon 1.13ghz, Athlon 1.4ghz, XP 2000+, XP 2500+, A64 3000+, A64 4000+, Athlon II X3-440 - it's not like I was ever anti-AMD )



But we are at the point here with cpu speed, where ~99% of people don't need faster computers. It's in part why tablets are gaining in popularity. Intel will always be in fierce competition, be it with AMD or with their own product lines of the past.