Intel Reportedly Looking Into Further Reduction in CPU Pricing for 2020

[Raevenlord]

Intel's policy on CPU pricing has been a strong, definite one for years: no price reductions. Faced with less than admirable competition from a struggling AMD back in its Phenom and especially Bulldozer days, Intel enforced a heavy hand on the market and on CPU pricing. However, a much revitalized AMD and difficulties in the transition to the 10 nm process have left Intel with no other recourse than to cut pricing on its CPUs in order to remain competitive. No uptake of new I/O technologies such as PCIe 4.0 has also taken its toll on Intel's position in the server and HEDT market, which has led to recent price-cuts and tightening of Intel's Xeon line of CPUs - as well as price-cuts in the order of 50% in their Cascade Lake-X processors compared to the previous generation.

DigiTimes, citing industry PC makers, says that Intel is gearing up to keep fighting in the only front it actually can, besides puny core count increases on their heavily-iterated Skylake architecture - pricing. This move comes in a bid to keep its market dominance, which Intel themselves have said - after Zen 2, that is - isn't a priority for the consumer market. You can rest assured that Intel is very, very likely already practicing hefty price reductions for tray-quantity purchases for partners. However, it seems that the company might bring some price cuts on to its upcoming Comet Lake CPUs. The company has always been loathe to reduce pricing on existing inventory, rather choosing to reduce the price on new launches (see the Cascade Lake-X example above), which, arguably, saves Intel's face on claims of only being able to compete on pricing - which lurks dangerously close to Intel being painted as the budget, price-cut alternative to AMD.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[lexluthermiester]

However, a much revitalized AMD and difficulties in the transition to the 10 nm process have left Intel with no other recourse than to cut pricing on its CPUs in order to remain competitive.

That took long enough. If Intel had been smarter they would have reduced prices sooner as a way to stall AMD's progress. Whether that might have worked, we'll never know. Then there is this..

No uptake of new I/O technologies such as PCIe 4.0 has also taken its toll on AMD's position in the server and HEDT market, which has led to recent price-cuts and tightening of Intel's Xeon line of CPUs and price-cuts in the order of 50% in their Cascade Lake-X processors compared to the previous generation.

..which shows that Intel was complacent.

 

[birdie]

There was no no-price-reductions policy per se - there was no competition since the release of Core 2 Duo CPUs in 2006 until the release of Ryzen 3000 CPUs (13 years FFS!) which meant Intel could charge as much as they possibly could. Ryzen 3000/Zen 2 is the first AMD architecture in a very long time which rivals Intels and it shows.

As always it's all about competition. And don't think for a second AMD won't follow suit given a chance. Do you remember the Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU? Do you remember it cost $1000 in 2006 (adjusted for inflation that would be over $1300 in 2020)?

AMD fans are always quick to forget that AMD is a commercial company whose interest is not "the best CPUs and GPUs for consumers" but their profits first and most.

 

[lexluthermiester]

until the release of Ryzen 3000 CPUs

Not true. The first Ryzen's gave Intel a kick in the pants.

 

[IceShroom]

There was no no-price-reductions policy per se - there was no competition since the release of Core 2 Duo CPUs in 2006 until the release of Ryzen 3000 CPUs (13 years FFS!) which meant Intel could charge as much as they possibly could. Ryzen 3000/Zen 2 is the first AMD architecture in a very long time which rivals Intels and it shows.

As always it's all about competition. And don't think for a second AMD won't follow suit given a chance. Do you remember the Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU? Do you remember it cost $1000 in 2006 (adjusted for inflation that would be over $1300 in 2020)?

AMD fans are always quick to forget that AMD is a commercial company whose interest is not "the best CPUs and GPUs for consumers" but their profits first and most.

I think Intel & Nvidia fan should remember that too, cause the forget on every next day.
How will Intel offer price cut, when they still have cpu shotrage? Business 101 : Price will always increase during shortage.

 

[mtcn77]

Not true. The first Ryzen's gave Intel a kick in the pants.

Yeah, anybody recall $1,000 6950X'es!

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

Not true. The first Ryzen's gave Intel a kick in the pants.

True. If it wasn't for that, we'd still be rocking quad core i7 CPUs ...

Ryzen woke them up and finally pushed increased core counts on mainstream platforms in roughly a decade.

Who remembers the $1k Pentium 4 EE CPUs...?

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_4/Intel-Pentium%204%20Extreme%20Edition%203.73%20GHz%20-%20JM80547PH1092MM%20(BX80547PH3730F).html

 

[dj-electric]

That poll is a bit strange.. it basically asks us "Zen 2's pricing made it a pseudo-monopoly in the DYI market, do you think a lower price can help Intel?"

 

[R0H1T]

Yeah, anybody recall $1,000 6950X'es!

They were above $1700 last time I checked, closer to $1800 even at that time. If that wasn't daylight robbery don't know what else could it have been termed as

 

[mtcn77]

They were above $1700 last time I checked, closer to $1800 even at that time.

So, you are saying 1800X was p/w competitive, next to a '$1800 chip'? I'm distraught at the joke I've missed...

 

[Totally]

As always it's all about competition. And don't think for a second AMD won't follow suit given a chance. Do you remember the Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU? Do you remember it cost $1000 in 2006 (adjusted for inflation that would be over $1300 in 2020)?

Why do you guys keep bringing that up like there is a point to be made? Like Intel did not have their own expensive CPU that was $1 dollar less, a whole dollar condemned that to obscurity, like we do not have CPU prices north of $1300 today.

 

[R0H1T]

So, you are saying 1800X was p/w competitive, next to a '$1800 chip'? I'm distraught at the joke I've missed...

Well I'm sure it wasn't a joke to anyone who bought the chips, or i9-9xxx last year

 

[birdie]

Not true. The first Ryzen's gave Intel a kick in the pants.

Only for pros who use(d) them for massively multithreaded tasks like compilation, rendering, video encoding, etc. Their IPC wasn't there to really compete and the fact that Intel is thinking of lowering prices right now proves that even further.

 

[dj-electric]

My only question out of this story is - why wait for H2 2020?
Why lose all that market share by then?

Do it now! start working on it!

 

[R0H1T]

Do it now! start working on it!

They still have their shareholders to answer to, not to mention the price erosion in the servers. Intel, unless everything goes right for them over the next few years, will really bleed a lot of money trying to stave off AMD from their multiple strongholds. That doesn't mean of course that they'll start posting losses, but the margins will go down aplenty & likely profits as well.

 

[wiyosaya]

For me, even if intel keeps cutting prices, it would be a hard sell - especially since intel is unlikely to change their practices of requiring new motherboards for each new generation of CPU.

 

[SL2]

Do you remember the Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU? Do you remember it cost $1000 in 2006 (adjusted for inflation that would be over $1300 in 2020)?

Insane, but at least it had two cores!
Before that, all they could change was clock speed and cache size. Quite a different situation compared to now..

 

[Minus Infinity]

At this stage they’d have to be almost free for me to consider an Intel processor. Nothing will stop me from Zen 3 for my new system build. Intel deserve a huge kick up the @rse. Ultimately I want them to get their act together, competition is always good, but I hope they do it real tough for a few years and there is a change in management and direction.

 

[dinmaster]

main reason why i didn't buy a intel cpu this time around, the cpu being $700cad and a motherboard being min $150cad, i went with a 3800x for $440cad with a $60cad mobo works great. intel shortage is really hurting them and not being about to keep up with amd technology wise imo.

 

[birdie]

At this stage they’d have to be almost free for me to consider an Intel processor. Nothing will stop me from Zen 3 for my new system build. Intel deserve a huge kick up the @rse. Ultimately I want them to get their act together, competition is always good, but I hope they do it real tough for a few years and there is a change in management and direction.

Ryzen 3000/Zen 2 IPC ~ Sky Lake IPC. Ice Lake IPC = 1.18 * Sky Lake IPC. Tiger Lake IPC = 1.1 * Ice Lake which makes Tiger Lake CPUs 30% faster than the best currently available AMD CPUs. Remind me with what Intel can't compete again 'cause I've lost you there. Intel doesn't have the node to produce these CPUs but AMD does not have any nodes at all - it outsources their CPU/GPUs to TSMC. Get your facts straight before spewing another portion of fanboyism. WCCFTech should be a place to go for you if you want to talk to like-minded people.

main reason why i didn't buy a intel cpu this time around, the cpu being $700cad and a motherboard being min $150cad, i went with a 3800x for $440cad with a $60cad mobo works great. intel shortage is really hurting them and not being about to keep up with amd technology wise imo.

I'm curious why you went for such a cheap mobo. It likely doesn't even have USB 3.2 gen 2 ports and just a single M.2 slot. That's weird. Also, it most likely contains a 16MB BIOS chip which could limit its features.

 

[Cheeseball]

You want a competitive miracle? 9900K for $250, 9700K for $175, 9600K for $130

C'MON INTEL YOU CAN DO IT

 

[SL2]

It likely doesn't even have USB 3.2 gen 2 ports and just a single M.2 slot. That's weird.

Maybe enough for him?
Personally I'm fine with anything USB 3.

 

[Deleted member 193706]

Ryzen 3000/Zen 2 IPC ~ Sky Lake IPC. Ice Lake IPC = 1.18 * Sky Lake IPC. Tiger Lake IPC = 1.1 * Ice Lake which makes Tiger Lake CPUs 30% faster than the best currently available AMD CPUs. Remind me with what Intel can't compete again 'cause I've lost you there. Intel doesn't have the node to produce these CPUs but AMD does not have any nodes at all - it outsources their CPU/GPUs to TSMC. Get your facts straight before spewing another portion of fanboyism. WCCFTech should be a place to go for you if you want to talk to like-minded people.



I'm curious why you went for such a cheap mobo. It likely doesn't even have USB 3.2 gen 2 ports and just a single M.2 slot. That's weird. Also, it most likely contains a 16MB BIOS chip which could limit its features.

30% faster than a competing AMD 25w mobile chip, where the hell are they on the desktop and hedt front? what a pathetic post, you need to rethink your OWN fanboyism if THIS is the best you can conjure up before ranting at people for preferring AMD cause they offer better core counts, IPC and perfformance compared to Intel when it comes to $/performance, and we're not just talking about 2-3 mobile chips that will never make it to desktop. Have a double slap for your poor attitude and misleading and biased Intel love

 

[EarthDog]

You want a competitive miracle? 9900K for $250, 9700K for $175, 9600K for $130

C'MON INTEL YOU CAN DO IT

I mean, that's less than a 3700x, the 9900k... what is your goal, to get Intel more sales??? Lololol nice one!

 

[Zotz]

has also taken its toll on AMD's position

You mean - on Intel's position.