blackkstar :
It is quite obvious Intel is doomed on desktop. Every tick and tock Intel loses overclocking headroom, which means Intel is losing potential maximum clock speed. If Intel continues on this path, it is just a matter of time until Intel has chips that can not hit the 3.5ghz base, 3.9ghz turbo established by the last few high end DT parts.
Common overclocks went like this (yes I know there are outliers, this is COMMON and basically guaranteed overclocks):
SB: high 4ghz, 5ghz
IB: 4.5ghz
HWL: 4.2ghz
Broadwell would probably have a hard time hitting 3.9ghz turbo speed required and Skylake, if this trend continues, would probably be around a 3.2ghz/3.5ghz turbo part if Intel continues focusing on mobile, power consumption, and all that stuff over actual performance (IPC AND clockspeed). The IPC gains per generation are not enough to make up for it.
Juaranga's estimations for SR performance are quite liberal as well. However if he's right it means 3m/6c part would compare to a theoretical Intel Hex without HT, 4m/8c part would wreck anything Intel has in multi-thread, and if anyone wants to believe seronx's claims of 5m/10c and even 6m/12c parts with HDL library, Intel would be completely demolished on high end DT.
The reason why I could see AMD doing this is because gaming and work DT market is still alive and well, and those are the types of folks who would buy a big rig like that. The desktops we're losing to tablets, smartphones, etc. are all for people who do casual gaming with low system specs at best. Think of your old celeron and sempron DT rigs. Those are the people going tablet/laptop/smartphone, not the people who had Core 2 Quads, high end Phenoms, etc.
Also, people love to throw around the bad 8 core numbers on Steam Hardware Survey. Just a reminder there's 54 million accounts on Steam. .28% of 54 million (which is theoretical max) is around 151,000 chips sold. That's no drop in the bucket, and I'm completely ignoring the 6 core CPU count in SHS because there's probably Intel hex mixed in there. but the number of Intel Hexs has to be a lot smaller than AMD hex phenom and FX 6000 series if you make the safe assumption cheaper things sell more.
Do not forget, AMD may not move a lot of big systems compared to APUs, but the margins on, say, an Opteron workstation with FirePro are much, much higher than the margins on a mid-range APU.
ARM for micro-servers with big, scary, steamroller cores would really put AMD in a good place. I am also assuming that AMD was trying to show us that with FX 9000 series, they don't care about power consumption or heat in a desktop system and they are not afraid to release 200w+ monster CPUs. I took that as AMD basically saying that they wouldn't be afraid to release a 6m/12c 4ghz part at 200w+ if it meant good performance.
I don't know if it'll happen, but the fact that AMD released FX 9590 and touted it as being a part of a gaming platform and all sorts of "ultimate BF3 rigs!" leads me to believe that AMD is not going to back out of this market anytime soon. It is just not the primary focus because now is a horrible time to introduce new traditional CPUs without HSA with AMD getting massive HSA design wins by getting Xbone and PS4. AMD wants gaming to stay. Intel is scared of gaming and trying to kill off dGPU. Nvidia still trying to make big, impressive dGPUs.
All signs point to the gaming DT not going anywhere for a long, long time yet there's still people who insist that it's going to disappear. If it was going to disappear naturally, Intel wouldn't care about trying to off dGPUs because the market would die out on its own. They did the same with competing against AMD and shifting their focus to ARM, not sure why Intel wouldn't just abandon a fight it didn't see worth fighting again.
EDIT: I do think AMD is staying hush because they have something massive coming. I did the math with Seronx's claims of 32nm HDL 6m/12c parts to see how big the die was and it ended up around 330mm^2, while Vishera 4m/8c is 315mm^2. If AMD did this, they would have a high end part that was smaller than 4930k and 3930k, mauled it in performance, and all of that could trickle down.
AMD could open up Intel slaughter by releasing 6m/12c chip at 330mm^2 for $499, which would wreck Intel hex in multi-thread, and then trickle that down. 5m part at 4770k price and 4m part at 4670k price, APUs fill in the rest. It would be Athlon days all over again, except AMD would have control of the software in gaming benchmarks as they have access to the source of most of the tools being used and they have the hardware for the two big consoles.
Conjectures!..
Intel is not doomed in the desktop, only they want *MOAR* for themselves and less for others. The position about mainstream is doing AIO DTs like laptops but mostly sold with Intel brand... you will buy an all intel box not only a processor + mobo, made by them, branded by them, possibly with their own most likely Linux OS endorsed distro along with windoze, with low possibilities of upgrading. The DIY at intel is to fade away for this kind of entry level systems, for performance there will be still the "extreme" CPUs and offerings (more expensive -> more lucrative)... not liking you have to stay away from them or put up with what they have to offer... see it like a strong arm contest about the market... Intel wants to be the Samsung of DT, from FAB to chips, to chipsets etc.. all made by them and sold directly by them.( in a way its a good strategy in a shrinking market, all systems sold with Intel brand CPU is all profit for them... remember this industry is all about *money* not bickering contests)
About clocks and Overclocks... all depends on Fab Processes. If AMD is to transition to an all "bulk" approach then they are caught in the same trend of Intel, they must focus on low power, perhaps do their AIO things like intel... and the BD design loses some of his advantage, don't expect to see any chip on "bulk" above the 4Ghz, or at least not much above.
We don't know any of this yet, except Kaveri first SKUs this year are made of 28nm GloFo bulk... but if the positioning follows past launches, those are to be "mobile chips" (low power anyway). In conjectures about Fab, one thing that surprised me was IBM 22nm PD-SOI ... it must be PD-SOI for that eDRAM... which opens the possibility that the 28SHP that appeared in some GloFo charts is not dead, and is PD-SOI. Better, since the 28nm FD-SOI is to be half node shrink, its possible the same litho front-end be applied to 28nm PD-SOI, its all "planar" techs, for PD-SOI AMD has already good expertize and most of the techs are already developed, meaning its possible ~40% shrink compared with 32nm (a PD FX 8350 at ~200mm² ) and better power overall.
Another development about Fab, which was rumored GloFo was concentrated on, and which is one of the main advantage of IBM to make >600mm² chips at 4Ghz, is the interconnect. IBM as by far the best Ultra lowK interconnect in the market with a merit value of 2. Current elsewhere is 2.5 or more, if AMD and GloFo could arrange a 2.2, this would open very good possibilities for high clock designs with lower power, since 30% or more of the power of a chip is wasted in the interconnect.
Putting all together 28nm PD-SOI with a ~40% shrink, and UltraLowK interconnects, AMD could have the speeds of Centurion on normal DT offerings... quite above 4Ghx... Centurion could go to 6Ghz or above on Turbo, depending if the SR design is tweaked for more clock with more pipeline stages or not. Besides it would enable to push further those big caches, and probably a chip for DT/Server will have 5 modules, or 4 modules but with 2 FlexFPUs in them, yet be below the 300mm² and clock easily above the 4Ghz staying under 125W.
Under those conditions, AMD will have the pure performance crown (they already do with Centurion http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286815-AMD-FX-9590-in-FlanK3rs-hands-and-in-review ).
So matter of fact they don't even need SR, PD tweaked and new FAB process would be enough... perhaps that is why Warsaw is PD, UltralowK and a few power oriented tweaks, like Cyclos RCM applied to all this *server* chip (RCM is not a good choice for parts intended to OC, which is not the case of server), is enough to get it with quite better perf/W than now, yet maintain the same clocks of now if not raise them a little... its all conjectures, but i tend to believe something in those lines, Warsaw is Orochi server re-done in a power tweaked mode, AM3+ is EOL, but there will be a Steamroller FX/Server with less HTT links, less RAS features, 5 modules 10 cores to battle IB/Hasfail-E, OC prone, more about DT and 1P server in a new socket, by the 2H of 2014.. and if the conjecture is any good, and if not much to ask, it will have the possibility of "combo HTX+PCIe" slots with HTT4.0, ready for hUMA/HSA with discrete parts.(edt)
IF AMD transition to an all bulk approach and clocks comes down to have noticeable better perf/W... then BD design is gonna start to look not that good (scalability potential aside where it kicks all kind of arse)... and their market share is going to shrink fast .. But Kaveri OTOH, the best for it, even for DT is FD-SOI... since FD-SOI seems clearly the best option for a GPU also. IF Hawaii would be FD-SOI (i KNOW its not) (matter of fact less expensive to fab than bulk) Nvidia dear leader would have an hearth attack lol... 1500Mhz in a GPU of that size and power would be easy...
The transition to SR MCM server parts only in 2015.