Intel Reportedly Looking Into Further Reduction in CPU Pricing for 2020

[Cheeseball]

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

LOL They've been pushing the 9900K past the MSRP of $488 for too long now.

But seriously, if they're going to really do a price cut, they should undercut the 3700X, maybe around $280 if they want to still save face.

EDIT: Actually $300 would be a good spot since it would be a good upgrade for existing 8400, 9400F, 8600K, 9600K, 8700K/9700K(probably not???) owners who may be on Z370/Z390. It is possible to get an "okay" Z390 board for around $100 now.

 

[Crackong]

Consumer Wins

Thanks AMD

 

[Tartaros]

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

C'MON INTEL YOU CAN DO IT

I would consider upgrading to a 9 series with the hardware fixes if the price was reasonable. I have the money right here but also zen 3 is closer now, so why the fuck would I buy this overpriced crap, even if a new system costed me more and I really don't need a new computer? This has been going for the last 3 years and NOW they decided to act, even if their shareholders got no fucking idea and their greed led Intel to this ridiculous situation?

Fuck them.

 

[lexluthermiester]

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

I do. Had one. Had the money at the time so I figured why not. It overclocked well but other than that and the bragging rights, there wasn't much to it. Core2Quad Extremes however were very worth the money because they were literally next level performance.

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.

You just contradicted yourself. The benchmarks also prove that last part incorrect. Why are you still arguing that point 2 years later? Ryzen was an excellent choice from the beginning, regardless of the tasks required of it.

 

[mechtech]

"Does Intel need to reduce prices to remain competitive with AMD's Zen 2?"

Nope.

If they have shortages, and everything is selling out and they are still making more money in a quarter than AMD in a year, they could probably raise prices if they wanted to.

On the consumer side at least. On the enterprise side, statement is probably somewhat true, but would loose some market share. I know we just bought a bunch of servers, I asked for AMD, and IT dept. got Intel servers.................

 

[hat]

I've noticed a lot of Intel CPUs out of stock even at Newegg. It's not just a shortage of supply to businesses that buy massive orders of these things, it's at the point where it's observable by the single customers like you and me now. However, AMD cannot supply the world alone either, even if their processors conclusively beat Intel's in every conceivable way. When demand is greater than supply, prices rise. The way I see it, both Intel and AMD could get away with price gouging right now...

 

[mtcn77]

I know we just bought a bunch of servers, I asked for AMD, we (IT) got Intel.................

It would be hilarious, if sharing this was considered insider trading.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

"Does Intel need to reduce prices to remain competitive with AMD's Zen 2?"

Nope.

If they have shortages, and everything is selling out and they are still making more money in a quarter than AMD in a year, they could probably raise prices if they wanted to.

On the consumer side at least. On the enterprise side, statement is probably somewhat true, but would loose some market share. I know we just bought a bunch of servers, I asked for AMD, we (IT) got Intel.................

They are "selling out" because they are not replenishing stock. Unless you can find actual sales figures Q2Q, intel making more money then AMD is relative.

 

[R0H1T]

If they have shortages, and everything is selling out and they are still making more money in a quarter than AMD in a year, they could probably raise prices if they wanted to.

That isn't 100% accurate, at least so far as consumer segment is concerned, especially DIY. Intel has huge demand in the enterprise space, especially like the one you mentioned, as the Pentiums & Celeron still vastly outsell anything Athlon in this space. But huge part of the major issue (demand?) is rebates or promotional $ which are tied to the way Intel works & how they still have a deathgrip on the likes of HP, DELL etc.

Take away this artificially pent up "demand" & their numbers aren't all that great, especially against Athlons & R3 where Intel is horrendous value not to mention anorexic performance!

 

[mtcn77]

I don't know about you guys, but the way it stands, Intel is doing a much better job at marketting than AMD, eventhough they lost me on an occasion. Their Iris Pro lineup had a second dual mode in which the esram could accelerate cpu rather than the gpu. Intel never dedicated themselves to that field, eventhough it would make tremendous gains in singlethreaded benchmarks. Ferra.ru is offline, afaik, so I cannot post the same total war benchmarks that showed puny old broadwell G series up there with its 6000 series consecutive.

 

[InVasMani]

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 security vulnerabilities for each new generation of CPU.

Fixed!

 

[chodaboy19]

What good is any of this if intel can't even supply their cpus???

 

[mtcn77]

What good is any of this if intel can't even supply their cpus???

Read: effort justification bubble.

 

[lexluthermiester]

"Does Intel need to reduce prices to remain competitive with AMD's Zen 2?"

Nope.

Opinion, not supported by market status or Intel's own actions.

 

[kid41212003]

This will further boost AMD's stock price. It was at $2.00 at some point in 2016. If I had purchased $1k of stock back then instead of buying my Intel rig, I would have $25k now. Imagine that...

 

[Dragonsmonk]

This will further boost AMD's stock price. It was at $2.00 at some point in 2016. If I had purchased $1k of stock back then instead of buying my Intel rig, I would have $25k now. Imagine that...

It was in the $1.60's mid 2015.... having just invested in a new 3rd gen TR.... I wish I would have known

 

[Valantar]

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.

That calculation is a bit off - you're working with relatively low percentages, so every bit counts, and Zen 2 has (according to AnandTech's Spec2017 testing) a ~6.7% IPC advantage over Skylake (9900K tested). That shrinks Ice Lake's 18% increase to a much smaller 10% lead, and Tiger lake would then just move the needle a bit more to a 21% advantage. (Not to mention the rather skewed comparison of Tiger Lake - an unlaunched, future product not arriving until at least late in the year - to "the best currently available AMD CPUs". Wouldn't the fair comparison be to compare architectures available around the same time frame?) Add to that the rumored 15% IPC increase for Zen 3 (at this point this is just as believable as any Tiger Lake numbers, as neither are official nor confirmed in any way) and we're looking at a very slim lead for Intel. Not to mention that Ice Lake on 10nm clocks lower than Zen 2 on 7nm in the same power envelope (the 8-core Ryzen 7 4800U has a 1.8GHz base clock, while the 4-core i7 1065G7 has a base clock of just 1.3GHz), meaning that AMD can make up for any IPC deficiency by a slight clock speed lead. Tiger Lake is likely to clock higher on 10+, but so is Zen3 on 7+. Launch timings of course don't match perfectly, so who has the advantage at any given moment will change, but we're not looking at a situation where Intel is likely to run off with the IPC lead again, nor a clock speed lead.

Currently: Intel IPC = 1 (except for ULV mobile where some SKUs are 1.18), AMD IPC = 1.067; either 6.7% advantage AMD or 10,6% advantage Intel, depending on the SKU. AMD Zen 2 mobile chips are not yet out, Intel Ice Lake desktop chips are likely never arriving. Intel 14nm clocks higher than AMD/TSMC 7nm, which again clocks higher than Intel 10nm. Intel 10nm is still struggling with yields given how much more common 14nm Comet Lake is than Ice Lake (Comet Lake also outperforms Ice Lake due to higher clocks).
Later this year/early next year: Intel IPC = ~1.299, AMD IPC = ~1.227; ~5.8% advantage Intel. No idea about clock speeds, but expecting Intel 10nm+ to bypass TSMC 7nm+ sounds unlikely.

This looks like a tightly competitive market, which is exactly what end users should want, and would mean that features and price rather than raw performance becomes the main points of competition. This is excellent, and going to be very, very interesting.

 

[R0H1T]

Later this year/early next year: Intel IPC = ~1.299, AMD IPC = ~1.227; ~5.8% advantage Intel. No idea about clock speeds, but expecting Intel 10nm+ to bypass TSMC 7nm+ sounds unlikely.

There's one more thing which people need to keep in mind, since Zen AMD is actually cooler than Intel counterparts on the desktop. I expect Renoir & it's successor to have a similar albeit lesser advantage against ICL or TGL in the mobile space, unless of course OEM's decide to do this to AMD (yet again)

Barring a major reversal in fortunes, Intel's seriously looking down the barrel over the next few years.

 

[Valantar]

There's one more thing which people need to keep in mind, since Zen AMD is actually cooler than Intel counterparts on the desktop. I expect Renoir & it's successor to have a similar albeit lesser advantage against ICL or TGL in the mobile space, unless of course OEM's decide to do this to AMD (yet again)

Barring a major reversal in fortunes, Intel's seriously looking down the barrel over the next few years.

That's how Zen 2 can clock higher than Ice Lake in the same power envelope. "Running cooler" means "draws less power", which is kind of meaningless in a mobile scenario where a given sustained power envelope is used as a design goal for the entire device and there's thus a hard performance ceiling rather than a power floor. (Barring minor variances and/or OEM adjustments) A 15W TDP mobile chip will limit itself to 15W when subjected to a sustained load. The question isn't how cool the chip runs (which depends on the laptop's cooler design, fan speeds, etc.), but how fast it runs at a given power level.

 

[R0H1T]

"Running cooler" means "draws less power"

There's also heat density which you're neglecting, Zen is cooler in large parts due to that & of course the TIM or solder. So no I wouldn't say they're synonymous.

 

[EarthDog]

There's also heat density which you're neglecting, Zen is cooler in large parts due to that & of course the TIM or solder. So no I wouldn't say they're synonymous.

Yep. I've had a 5W IC run at 90C... although it is certainly related, and all other things remaining the same, less power should translate to less heat, but it doesn't always work that way.

 

[trparky]

Can someone check Hell? I think that the Devil may be handing out hot chocolate.

 

[Valantar]

There's also heat density which you're neglecting, Zen is cooler in large parts due to that & of course the TIM or solder. So no I wouldn't say they're synonymous.

Of course this isn't a 1:1 thing, but close enough barring major fuck-ups by the OEM. Also, shouldn't the higher heat density of 7nm place AMD at a disadvantage here? Of course that can be balanced out by the scheduler spreading loads out across cores that are far from each other, but I thought the general rule followed the logic of same heat in a smaller area = worse. Beyond that, recent Intel desktop chips are also soldered, so there shouldn't be a disadvantage there (though der8auer's experiments with sanding down the die to make it thinner does indicate Intel did something weird in packaging). I don't know how big Intel's Ice Lake die is, but it's relatively well established that Zen cores are smaller than Core cores, increasing heat density. Then again spreading 15W out over 8 cores instead of 4, even in a similar silicon area, should probably improve thermals.

 

[candle_86]

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.

yea not quite, Phenom II was quite compative with intels 2009/2010 sub 200 lineup, it forced the Q8xxx series low as well as the E8xxx e7xxx and dual core i5's into playing in the same market, granted it couldn't touch Lynnfield or Nehelm it did compete.

 

[Renald]

They are only cutting prices now because 4000U series are coming with AMD and Dell and HP won't wait for another years to change their professional offer.
Cheaper, more powerful, less consuming and plenty of stock (compared to Intel).

They only have a part of server market, due to the momentum of this matter, and then remains professional laptops.
If they lose that, they lose it all !