Intel 10th Generation Core "Comet Lake-S" Desktop Processor Boxed Retail SKUs Listed

[Vayra86]

Its as if you intentionally don't get this.

With AM4 I could buy one motherboard in 2017 and go from 8 cores, 4GHz and 100% IPC to 16 cores, 4.5GHz, 115%IPC without buying a new board. And that's with there still being a generation of forward compat yet to come.

In Intel's case I SHOULD be able to go from 4.2GHz on 4 cores to 5GHz on 8 cores, no problem. The only reason I can't is because Intel didn't let motherboard vendors push BIOS updates to compatible motherboards.

That's not "buying every year", its not "buying the wrong product", and it's not "baby steps" - its more than doubling your computing performance and saving £150 in the process by not upgrading to a new motherboard that you dont need because it offers no compelling advantage in its own right.

And that's true even if you're comparing top end products, which means completely ignoring people who buy a midrange item due to finances at that time, with the intention of moving up the product stack a couple generations later.

You're in no position to tell anyone how to feel about Intel limiting their upgrade path solely to line their pockets with extra chipset sales. Especially when neither Intel nor AMDs last 3 chipsets have had any killer features that would make dropping a 3950X or 9900K into an X370 or Z170 board actually a bad thing for most users doing most tasks.

Especially since your argument rests entirely on the faulty premise that people want forward compatibility so they can buy *every year*, which is ridiculous, because people *have had* that much forward compatibility with Intel, - they're complaining that more was always possible, and should be given to consumers instead of consumers being artificially locked off from it due to a near-monopoly abusing it's position at the consumer's expense.

I'm not in a position to tell others how to feel about how Intel conducts its business. But I do know how I feel about it. And I don't care. And this goes for many many others. In the same vein, you are not the one telling me I should care either. This works both ways, no?

So yes, you could theoretically double your perf on the same board. But will you, and do you need it? I'm not saying NOBODY does it. I'm saying the percentage of the market that even considers it, is ridiculously small; too small obviously for Intel to care about. We will see if they start doing it now that they have competition...

It also means buying a pretty expensive board to begin with if you want the upgrade path. Not exactly the use case of that midrange buyer short on cash... You call it 'limiting an upgrade path'. I just don't see it that way, sorry. I'm not feeling limited at all and I don't see the advantage of same board CPU upgrades.

Its simple. If its not a baby step, you had a subpar CPU in the board to begin with and you should have waited. If it is a baby step, you're wasting money. If you need 8/16 today and think you need 16/32 two gens later... yeah...right. Again, this applies only to a very tiny minority.

 

[GlacierNine]

So yes, you could theoretically double your perf on the same board. But will you, and do you need it? I'm not saying NOBODY does it. I'm saying the percentage of the market that even considers it, is ridiculously small; too small obviously for Intel to care about. We will see if they start doing it now that they have competition...

What an amazing statement. You're so close to getting it.

Point 1, made by you: Intel had no competition until recently
Point 2, made by you: Nobody does it.
Point 3, made by me: Nobody *could* do it because Intel only provided at most 1 gen of forward compat
Point 4, made by me: That makes Intel more money through chipset sales since someone going from a 6700K to an 8700K has to buy a new motherboard.
Point 5, made by you: Nobody does it because upgrading from a 6700K to a 7700K is barely an upgrade
Point 6, made by me: People would do it if the upgrades were worth having. An upgrade from a 6700K to an 8700K is much more compelling than an upgrade to a 7700K.
Point 7, made by me: People have been doing it on AM4, where the artificial limitation on being able to drop a new chip in, hasn't been a thing and the platform is slated to last another generation.

You're just making an argument that nobody does something that they've been specifically prevented from doing due to corporate greed, despite the complete absence of any technical problem in doing so. And for some reason you've decided that makes it correct to block off the consumer from having more options. It's insane.

Its simple. If its not a baby step, you had a subpar CPU in the board to begin with and you should have waited. If it is a baby step, you're wasting money. If you need 8/16 today and think you need 16/32 two gens later... yeah...right. Again, this applies only to a very tiny minority.

Except that with AMD I can totally have that, and if I were a photographic professional or a video editor without the budget to go full threadripper, it'd be great to do exactly that.

Not only that, but the same would apply to intel - someone buying a 6700K in 2016/2017 would have been unable to buy better performance without going HEDT at huge extra expense.

There are lots of video editing jobs that do better on more cores, but at the time, going to 6 cores was a minimum investment of $434 plus a more expensive X99 motherboard, so let's call that a $200 premium to pay over buying a Z170 and a 6700K system.

If that person had wanted to go further up the stack, the top CPU was $1723. Plenty of small creators or even smaller businesses doing things like leveraging youtube for product demos, simply can't justify that kind of outlay, so it makes perfect sense to buy the 6700K system, which gives you most of the performance at significantly less cost.

In 2019 we got the 9900K with twice the cores of the 6700K. That business, if Intel wasn't intentionally locking off upgrades for absolutely no good reason except "sell more chipsets", could have dropped a 9900K into the same rig and gotten a colossal performance boost - and at no point, given the hardware they COULD have bought at the time each change was made, would they have been making an incorrect choice - Your argument stipulates that because they needed to upgrade, they made a wrong choice originally, but what were the choices?

They could go Broadwell-E and buy an expensive HEDT motherboard along with paying $434 for their 6 core CPU instead of a 4 Core, or $1723 if they wanted 10 cores.

And even if they had done so, they'd have been unable to leverage quicksync, which if they were editing in Adobe Premiere (Or working in Handbrake) would have been a huge performance uplift for them at zero cost due to the lack of IGP in the HEDT parts they could have bought. (Granted, Adobe didn't support quicksync until 2018, but plenty of other professional applications, like Handbrake, support quicksync for iGPU acceleration of work, and they did so earlier than Adobe did)

This whole "Blame people for buying the hardware they now want to upgrade" attitude you have is just ridiculous - it doesn't even work if you're talking about products that were the best available at the time, let alone if you're discussing people moving from say, a 1600X to a 3700X.

 

[ARF]

I'm not in a position to tell others how to feel about how Intel conducts its business. But I do know how I feel about it. And I don't care. And this goes for many many others. In the same vein, you are not the one telling me I should care either. This works both ways, no?

So yes, you could theoretically double your perf on the same board. But will you, and do you need it? I'm not saying NOBODY does it. I'm saying the percentage of the market that even considers it, is ridiculously small; too small obviously for Intel to care about. We will see if they start doing it now that they have competition...

It also means buying a pretty expensive board to begin with if you want the upgrade path. Not exactly the use case of that midrange buyer short on cash... You call it 'limiting an upgrade path'. I just don't see it that way, sorry. I'm not feeling limited at all and I don't see the advantage of same board CPU upgrades.

Its simple. If its not a baby step, you had a subpar CPU in the board to begin with and you should have waited. If it is a baby step, you're wasting money. If you need 8/16 today and think you need 16/32 two gens later... yeah...right. Again, this applies only to a very tiny minority.

In the middle and low income countries which are perhaps 90% of the world population, PC users of course do care.
Only in the states and some countries on the western tip of Europe-Asia and eastern tip of Europe-Asia probably wouldn't notice too much difference.

But it's a fact - the industry starts to realise that we should be very careful with what we produce and in what quantities - hence you don't need to upgrade so often. Just reuse what you've already got.

 

[Vayra86]

What an amazing statement. You're so close to getting it.

Point 1, made by you: Intel had no competition until recently
Point 2, made by you: Nobody does it.
Point 3, made by me: Nobody *could* do it because Intel only provided at most 1 gen of forward compat
Point 4, made by me: That makes Intel more money through chipset sales since someone going from a 6700K to an 8700K has to buy a new motherboard.
Point 5, made by you: Nobody does it because upgrading from a 6700K to a 7700K is barely an upgrade
Point 6, made by me: People would do it if the upgrades were worth having. An upgrade from a 6700K to an 8700K is much more compelling than an upgrade to a 7700K.
Point 7, made by me: People have been doing it on AM4, where the artificial limitation on being able to drop a new chip in, hasn't been a thing and the platform is slated to last another generation.

You're just making an argument that nobody does something that they've been specifically prevented from doing due to corporate greed, despite the complete absence of any technical problem in doing so. And for some reason you've decided that makes it correct to block off the consumer from having more options. It's insane.



Except that with AMD I can totally have that, and if I were a photographic professional or a video editor without the budget to go full threadripper, it'd be great to do exactly that.

Not only that, but the same would apply to intel - someone buying a 6700K in 2016/2017 would have been unable to buy better performance without going HEDT at huge extra expense.

There are lots of video editing jobs that do better on more cores, but at the time, going to 6 cores was a minimum investment of $434 plus a more expensive X99 motherboard, so let's call that a $200 premium to pay over buying a Z170 and a 6700K system.

If that person had wanted to go further up the stack, the top CPU was $1723. Plenty of small creators or even smaller businesses doing things like leveraging youtube for product demos, simply can't justify that kind of outlay, so it makes perfect sense to buy the 6700K system, which gives you most of the performance at significantly less cost.

In 2019 we got the 9900K with twice the cores of the 6700K. That business, if Intel wasn't intentionally locking off upgrades for absolutely no good reason except "sell more chipsets", could have dropped a 9900K into the same rig and gotten a colossal performance boost - and at no point, given the hardware they COULD have bought at the time each change was made, would they have been making an incorrect choice - Your argument stipulates that because they needed to upgrade, they made a wrong choice originally, but what were the choices?

They could go Broadwell-E and buy an expensive HEDT motherboard along with paying $434 for their 6 core CPU instead of a 4 Core, or $1723 if they wanted 10 cores.

And even if they had done so, they'd have been unable to leverage quicksync, which if they were editing in Adobe Premiere (Or working in Handbrake) would have been a huge performance uplift for them at zero cost due to the lack of IGP in the HEDT parts they could have bought. (Granted, Adobe didn't support quicksync until 2018, but plenty of other professional applications, like Handbrake, support quicksync for iGPU acceleration of work, and they did so earlier than Adobe did)

This whole "Blame people for buying the hardware they now want to upgrade" attitude you have is just ridiculous - it doesn't even work if you're talking about products that were the best available at the time, let alone if you're discussing people moving from say, a 1600X to a 3700X.

Look, the bottom line for you then, is simple. Buy an AMD CPU on a socket you can upgrade. The Intel CPUs simply didn't offer it, and that is the offer that was available.

If Intel sees there is a demand for same board CPU upgrades, and profit to be made, they will probably do it too. I'm not denying that Intel could do it. I'm not denying that it is a unique selling point to have the ability. The reason AMD does enable it, is because they probably see that it does make a profit for them. Or put differently, they use every USP they can find to topple the competition. That is fine too.

What I object against in your statement is simply this: 'Intel doesn't offer it, while they could, so Intel is bad'. There are a million things companies CAN offer, but don't, simply because it doesn't help their bottom line. Is Intel evil because they offered less PCIe lanes on MSDT? Are they evil because they segregate their product lines in ridiculous ways, for example wrt overclocking? Its part of the offer they make and its our task as consumers to find the offer we want and/or need. I don't need it, so I don't care.

 

[GlacierNine]

Look, the bottom line for you then, is simple. Buy an AMD CPU on a socket you can upgrade. The Intel CPUs simply didn't offer it, and that is the offer that was available.

If Intel sees there is a demand for same board CPU upgrades, and profit to be made, they will probably do it too. I'm not denying that Intel could do it. I'm not denying that it is a unique selling point to have the ability. The reason AMD does enable it, is because they probably see that it does make a profit for them. Or put differently, they use every USP they can find to topple the competition. That is fine too.

What I object against in your statement is simply this: 'Intel doesn't offer it, while they could, so Intel is bad'. There are a million things companies CAN offer, but don't, simply because it doesn't help their bottom line. Is Intel evil because they offered less PCIe lanes on MSDT? Are they evil because they segregate their product lines in ridiculous ways, for example wrt overclocking? Its part of the offer they make and its our task as consumers to find the offer we want and/or need. I don't need it, so I don't care.

So let me get this straight. You think Intel's bottom line is more important than you being offered a better product when Intel could easily have done so at essentially no extra effort?

 

[Dristun]

So let me get this straight. You think Intel's bottom line is more important than you being offered a better product when Intel could easily have done so at essentially no extra effort?

It's obviously more important for them and their accountants and strategists think that it makes sense for now to continue this way. If they decide that they're no longer competitive in markets that they value with what they have on offer - they'll change their strategy.
For him, as he stated, it's completely unimportant - he doesn't care and he has the product he wanted anyway. Intel doesn't inherently owe anyone 4-year sockets and overclocking on every chip. Audi doesn't owe anyone options on their cars that would cost sensible amounts of money. Sausage makers don't owe anyone to make just the best ones instead of tiering their offerings from cheaper meat to better meat. The list goes on. None of this makes the companies evil. They believe they are rolling out stuff that's gonna be profitable for them.
But for you having an upgrade path is important - thank Cthulhu that AMD got their shit together and pray once again that they don't lose it all again like they managed before.

 

[John Naylor]

Put another way - why would you ever want to make excuses for the fact consumers who bought good quality motherboards, that can totally support an 8 core 5GHz CPU on both an architecture and an electrical level... can't install one? What justification is there for locking that away from people when you **literally don't have to** ?

Four years later I'm anxious to get the benefits of a new chipset. Ands if Im getting a new MoBo for the chipset, really don't care whether it has a new socket.

 

[Vayra86]

So let me get this straight. You think Intel's bottom line is more important than you being offered a better product when Intel could easily have done so at essentially no extra effort?

Stop twisting my words to fit your narrative. I think I have been very clear.

 

[ARF]

It's obviously more important for them and their accountants and strategists think that it makes sense for now to continue this way. If they decide that they're no longer competitive in markets that they value with what they have on offer - they'll change their strategy.
For him, as he stated, it's completely unimportant - he doesn't care and he has the product he wanted anyway. Intel doesn't inherently owe anyone 4-year sockets and overclocking on every chip. Audi doesn't owe anyone options on their cars that would cost sensible amounts of money. Sausage makers don't owe anyone to make just the best ones instead of tiering their offerings from cheaper meat to better meat. The list goes on. None of this makes the companies evil. They believe they are rolling out stuff that's gonna be profitable for them.
But for you having an upgrade path is important - thank Cthulhu that AMD got their shit together and pray once again that they don't lose it all again like they managed before.

Intel loses sales because of the policy to limit its customers options. Imagine how many users went from i5-2500 to Ryzen 7 3700X instead of simply upgrading to a potential i9-2900/i9-3900 or similar with 6 or 8 cores.
It's a way to keep the customers in their ecosystem and prevent them from jumping the sinking ship off.

 

[Vayra86]

Intel loses sales because of the policy to limit its customers options. Imagine how many users went from i5-2500 to Ryzen 7 3700X instead of simply upgrading to a potential i9-2900/i9-3900 or similar with 6 or 8 cores.
It's a way to keep the customers in their ecosystem and prevent them from jumping the sinking ship off.

We know the DIY market is tiny. It serves a purpose but in revenue it is peanuts.

 

[ARF]

We know the DIY market is tiny. It serves a purpose but in revenue it is peanuts.

The OEM market, as well. Users can upgrade their notebooks and office workstations, too.

It could be a very nice optional service, as well.

 

[GlacierNine]

Four years later I'm anxious to get the benefits of a new chipset. Ands if Im getting a new MoBo for the chipset, really don't care whether it has a new socket.

Answer the question that was asked. I asked what justification there is for Intel not providing a better, more versatile product to the consumer. So far the only answers I have gotten are from consumers who seem to think Intel making more profit by reducing their options somehow benefits them.

That's clearly insane, so please, provide me with an answer from a consumer's perspective: How does Intel not providing a better product to consumers when they easily could, in any way benefit me or you or vayra, as consumers?

 

[Vayra86]

Answer the question that was asked. I asked what justification there is for Intel not providing a better, more versatile product to the consumer. So far the only answers I have gotten are from consumers who seem to think Intel making more profit by reducing their options somehow benefits them.

That's clearly insane, so please, provide me with an answer from a consumer's perspective: How does Intel not providing a better product to consumers when they easily could, in any way benefit me or you or vayra, as consumers?

See this is putting words in people's mouths. Nobody said that. What was said, was: they don't suffer from it.

 

[ARF]

See this is putting words in people's mouths. Nobody said that. What was said, was: they don't suffer from it.

Intel is arrogant and naive, isn't it?
We enter times when it's the end of the semiconductors manufacturing nodes shrinks, transit to quantum computing or other technologies, and Intel is in a very risky area to not be able to withstand the changes in the market. So, if Intel goes under in 10-15 years time, it will be only because of their wrong decisions today.

 

[Vayra86]

Intel is arrogant and naive, isn't it?
We enter times when it's the end of the semiconductors manufacturing nodes shrinks, transit to quantum computing or other technologies, and Intel is in a very risky area to not be able to withstand the changes in the market. So, if Intel goes under in 10-15 years time, it will be only because of their wrong decisions today.

I agree. But that is how the market works, and should work.

 

[Berfs1]

I find it rather interesting, no recent mention of the i3-10350K that was supposed to come out.... interesting...

 

[candle_86]

The OEM market, as well. Users can upgrade their notebooks and office workstations, too.

It could be a very nice optional service, as well.

no, ram is upgraded, cpu's are never upgraded except for some odd reason. The warranty isn't worth breaking to get a minor improvement. You will never see the enterprise market care at all about cpu upgradeability.

 

[ARF]

no, ram is upgraded, cpu's are never upgraded except for some odd reason. The warranty isn't worth breaking to get a minor improvement. You will never see the enterprise market care at all about cpu upgradeability.

I see people upgrading on mobile socket G2 (PGA988) from 2-core/2-thread Pentium B960 to 4-core/8-thread Core i7-3630QM.
The improvement there is gigantic, not minor

So, yes, users always upgrade notebooks.

 

[candle_86]

I see people upgrading on mobile socket G2 (PGA988) from 2-core/2-thread Pentium B960 to 4-core/8-thread Core i7-3630QM.
The improvement there is gigantic, not minor

So, yes, users always upgrade notebooks.

Small niche, the it department has zero wish, want, or even willingness to tear down laptops or desktops for cpu upgrades. Ram and storage are quick and easy the CPU on a laptop is an absolute nightmare when they are socketed, and on the desktop it's still not going to happen. The warranty matters more and when the warranty is up that machine is either sold to an employee or to a recycler.

I've done CPU upgrades once for one company, it was a nightmare but they where unable to afford more than a few computers. I upgraded about 200 Dell Vostro 260's, 270's, and Optiplex 3010's from Pentium G's to Core i5 2300/2400/2500/3450. It took me 2 months to finish and again was only done because new computers where not in the budget. Going to eBay for cpu upgrades is a sign of a dying company.

 

[ARF]

Small niche, the it department has zero wish, want, or even willingness to tear down laptops or desktops for cpu upgrades. Ram and storage are quick and easy the CPU on a laptop is an absolute nightmare when they are socketed, and on the desktop it's still not going to happen. The warranty matters more and when the warranty is up that machine is either sold to an employee or to a recycler.

I've done CPU upgrades once for one company, it was a nightmare but they where unable to afford more than a few computers. I upgraded about 200 Dell Vostro 260's, 270's, and Optiplex 3010's from Pentium G's to Core i5 2300/2400/2500/3450. It took me 2 months to finish and again was only done because new computers where not in the budget. Going to eBay for cpu upgrades is a sign of a dying company.

I don't know why you keep mentioning warranties when these warranties always expire and they never matter because the service always happens after they expire! !

Meanwhile, Intel is in a desperate situation. 13% sales share at MF.de with only around 2,500 CPU sales in February 2020.

For a comparison, AMD's top was almost 30,000 CPU sales in December 2019.

What a domination!


https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/fbz43k

 

[candle_86]

I don't know why you keep mentioning warranties when these warranties always expire and they never matter because the service always happens after they expire! !

Meanwhile, Intel is in a desperate situation. 13% sales share at MF.de with only around 2,500 CPU sales in February 2020.

For a comparison, AMD's top was almost 30,000 CPU sales in December 2019.

What a domination!


https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/fbz43k

Because warranty is all that matters to Enterprise customers. Dell and HP arnt building them with what is non going to do with our Optiplex after he buys it used, he isn't their customer, they care what Dave the it director who will buy 10,000 machines over the next year or two and what features he needs. CPU upgrades are not a feature Dave cares about because he will buy another 10,000 when the warranty expires. Your comment service happens after the warranty doesn't hold water. I've got 12 laptops and 4 desktops on my call out shelf all under warranty, we call dell after we've got about 20 systems to repair, we see them every few months.

As much as I like and, mindfactory has nothing on the amount of Intel CPUs go, Lenovo, dell sold in the last 30 days or the sheer number they bought.

 

[medi01]

Meanwhile, AMD again trounces Intel in DIY market (OEMs stand still, the likes of Dell in particular, it also takes quite a bit of digging to find AMD powered products on HP site):

http://imgur.com/a/HjqsuKL

...are you so concerned that Intel introduces new sockets each year?

I think the only people who are concerned are those who don't like being reminded about that nice "bonus" feature of staying with team blue.

Because warranty is all that matters to Enterprise customers. Dell and HP arnt building them with what is non going to do with our Optiplex after he buys it used, he isn't their customer, they care what Dave the it director who will buy 10,000 machines over the next year or two and what features he needs.

That's not how it works.
Enterprise signs "provide me with those thingies" agreement with the likes of HP and gets "notebooks/PCs/workstations/servers as a service".

Server side might be trickier, as enterprises tend to pick up configuration X and stick with it for multiple years.

Still, in this setting, both HP and Dell are more than well positioned to start using AMD chips more aggressively, but there should be certain incentives, we do not see, that stop them from doing it.
Lesser companies like MSI are simply afraid to anger Intel (as its CEO openly admitted).

 

[ARF]

Meanwhile, AMD again trounces Intel in DIY market (OEMs stand still, the likes of Dell in particular, it also takes quite a bit of digging to find AMD powered products on HP site):

http://imgur.com/a/HjqsuKL

I think the only people who are concerned are those who don't like being reminded about that nice "bonus" feature of staying with team blue.


That's not how it works.
Enterprise signs "provide me with those thingies" agreement with the likes of HP and gets "notebooks/PCs/workstations/servers as a service".

Server side might be trickier, as enterprises tend to pick up configuration X and stick with it for multiple years.

Still, in this setting, both HP and Dell are more than well positioned to start using AMD chips more aggressively, but there should be certain incentives, we do not see, that stop them from doing it.
Lesser companies like MSI are simply afraid to anger Intel (as its CEO openly admitted).

MSI are so bad. Don't buy anything from them! Punish them for the illegal activities and policies.

 

[medi01]

MSI are so bad. Don't buy anything from them! Punish them for the illegal activities and policies.

Not sure if trolling, or mental capacity issues.

 

[candle_86]

That's not how it works.
Enterprise signs "provide me with those thingies" agreement with the likes of HP and gets "notebooks/PCs/workstations/servers as a service".

as the guy who in 2 previous jobs was the guy placing the orders and picking out the computers we'd be using I will have to disagree. When i bought new XPS 13 laptops my concern was how much ram will I need today and in 2 years, and will a 2 core with hyper threading be enough or should i get the i7 with 4 cores and 8 threads. Same decision went into desktops. Does the call center need a core i5. I asked the people who supported where these computers where going to be deployed on what was needed. The XPS's sayed with i7 U series as I was told the executives didn't have any complaints about cpu power except for my boss the CTO and we got him an upgraded XPS, and the call center got i5's. I then ordered them from the Dell rep, got his invoice and sent it to accounting to pay. Warranty mattered to me and we got the 3 year extended warranty so if something goes wrong it's dell's problem and the desktop techs can focus on other tasks like keeping outlook working.

That one order was for 1500 Optiplex 5040's and 13 XPS laptops. The optiplex's went to the Call Center, Accounting, HR, warhouse inventory systems.