AMD Trolls Intel: Offers 16-Core Chip to Winners of Six-Core 8086K

[bit_user]

I wouldn't hold your breath regarding ARM onto high end desktop. They're currently not being designed for that market.

A Cortex A75 variant tweaked for higher clock frequencies could be a somewhat decent desktop CPU.

What about the A76? ARM is very much positioning it for laptops:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-cortex-a76-cpu-unveiled-7nm-powerhouse

The lack of a proper software engineering ecosystem outside the embedded and mobile space were cited as the two main reasons ARM decided to scrap its plans to enter the server market a few months ago.

Cited where and by whom?

At the moment though, the company isn't interested in the support effort required to break into new markets.

Source?

 

[kinggremlin]

October 17th, 2014
Current gen 6 core hyperthreaded Intel CPU (5820k) - $329
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/intel-i7-5820k-329-free-shipping.2404395/

June 19th, 2018
Cheapest current gen 6 core hyperthreaded Intel CPU (I7-8700) - $302
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117826&ignorebbr=1

I know it's not your point, but probably better info is to look at ark.intel.com for pricing and also not to neglect platform price differentials. As I'm sure you know, i7-5820K used socket-2011-3, while i7-8700K uses their mainstream socket (and includes an iGPU).

2011-3 entry point was not nearly as expensive as threadripper is. There were sub $200 boards at release, and it was pretty common to find them in the $150 range not long after release which is decently cheap by enthusiast standards. Threadripper has been out a while, and the cheapest new board at Newegg is $310 right now. The iGPU is meaningless. Ryzen doesn't have one, and no one complains about that. The only reason you'd use an iGPU with the class of CPU we're discussing is for troubleshooting purposes or because your dGPU died.

Edit
There's currently an LGA-2066 board on Newegg for $170. The entry point for Intel's HEDT platform is significantly lower than AMD's, and not much more expensive than Intel's own mainstream enthusiast chipset boards.

 

[kinggremlin]

Wow, look at the money we are saving from almost 4 years ago.

Intel doesn't exist in a vacuum anymore. You can get Ryzen CPUs with comparable performance in heavily threaded workloads for ~$100 less in the mainstream and about half the price in the HEDT/server space. Intel is still in damage-control mode on the back of AMD's surprise comeback.

Were it not for Ryzen putting looming pressure on Intel, the i7-8700k would most have either ended up being yet another 4C8T part or launching several months later as evidenced by the several months long delay between new CPUs to mainstream chipsets, incomplete launch CPU lineup and limited initial availability.

Intel doesn't care what AMD is doing. They care more about their stock price than AMD. If Intel was able to execute their roadmap, what AMD was doing would be irrelevant to them.

What was Intel's response to AMD launching Ryzen? Absolutely nothing. No new product announcements, no price drops of existing products, nothing. Read the comment sections of Ryzen reviews from a year ago. Practically every comment was how this new competition would start a price war or simply result in lower prices because of better competition. Yea, didn't happen. Intel didn't lower the MSRP of any CPU's by even dime. Remember years ago when AMD and Intel used to lower prices across the board twice a year? Intel hasn't done a top to bottom price drop in years. When they release a new line of CPU's, the old ones still don't get a price drop. They are allergic to lowering their ASP. Intel believes (and probably rightfully so), that never dropping prices gives the impression of higher quality products. Dropping prices indicates weakness and cheapens the brand. AMD has been fighting the bargain basement reputation since basically forever.

The only eventual response Intel had to the Threadripper announcement was to jack up the base clocks of Skylake-X which killed their efficiency but produced better benchmarks in reviews and introduced higher core count options at the top end with matching higher price tiers. Again, Intel didn't lower prices anywhere in the new product stack based on historical release prices of every Core based HEDT generation, they just added higher cost options at the top. Very few people benefited from an unexpected release of a $2000 18 core Skylake-X CPU.

I'm not even going to bother responding again to the theory AMD is the reason we have mainstream 6 core CPU's from Intel. It's really just brain dead theorizing with no basis in reality. Anyone who has been following Intel's roadmap over the years knows this.

 

[CRO5513Y]

They should have put 'Limited Edition' on the box of all the Threadrippers people received through this 'Limited time' trade! 😉

 

[bit_user]

October 17th, 2014
Current gen 6 core hyperthreaded Intel CPU (5820k) - $329
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/intel-i7-5820k-329-free-shipping.2404395/

June 19th, 2018
Cheapest current gen 6 core hyperthreaded Intel CPU (I7-8700) - $302
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117826&ignorebbr=1

I know it's not your point, but probably better info is to look at ark.intel.com for pricing and also not to neglect platform price differentials. As I'm sure you know, i7-5820K used socket-2011-3, while i7-8700K uses their mainstream socket (and includes an iGPU).

2011-3 entry point was not nearly as expensive as threadripper is. There were sub $200 boards at release, and it was pretty common to find them in the $150 range not long after release which is decently cheap by enthusiast standards. Threadripper has been out a while, and the cheapest new board at Newegg is $310 right now.

Edit
There's currently an LGA-2066 board on Newegg for $170. The entry point for Intel's HEDT platform is significantly lower than AMD's, and not much more expensive than Intel's own mainstream enthusiast chipset boards.

Huh. I'm still not sure exactly how or why you pivoted from talking about $/core to now apparently slamming the cost of TR, which is a higher-end platform than those entry-level 2011-3 and 2066 boards.

When the 2011-3 and 2066 platforms were introduced, they were the only way to get an Intel CPU > 4 cores. So, boards came out which didn't feature all of the potential PCIe lanes and other features you'll find on all TR boards. In fact, some of the mini-ITX Intel HEDT boards even had just dual-channel memory. So, you're not really comparing equivalent products to make... whatever point it is you were trying to make.


BTW, Intel's MSRP for the i7-5820K was $389.00 - $396.00.

https://ark.intel.com/products/82932/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-Processor-15M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz

I think comparing the cheapest-ever price you could find for an obsolete CPU with the cheapest price for an in-demand current-model is not a valid way to support your argument.

The iGPU is meaningless. Ryzen doesn't have one, and no one complains about that. The only reason you'd use an iGPU with the class of CPU we're discussing is for troubleshooting purposes or because your dGPU died.

Speak for yourself. I have a i7-2600K that I've used for about 4+ years, without ever adding a dGPU. At work, we all have i7-6700's (due to when we bought them) at our desks that don't have dGPUs.

 

[R0GG]

They should have put 'Limited Edition' on the box of all the Threadrippers people received through this 'Limited time' trade! 😉

Or "Limited Opportunity"

 

[bit_user]

Intel doesn't care what AMD is doing. They care more about their stock price than AMD. If Intel was able to execute their roadmap, what AMD was doing would be irrelevant to them.

You could probably say that of most companies. But, most companies don't exist in their "ideal world". They exist in the real world, where stuff often doesn't go to plan and there's real competition nipping at their heels and undercutting their margins and eating their market share.

The biggest threat AMD poses to Intel is eroding their average selling price & sales volume of their datacenter products. Intel recently said as much. This is a big deal, since data center is a strategic growth area for Intel.

They are allergic to lowering their ASP.

In the consumer market, they can get away with holding the line, so long as they still make the fastest chips. But, with their big OEMs and data center customers, all prices are negotiable, and having a credible alternate supplier can make all the difference.

Anyone who has been following Intel's roadmap over the years knows this.

So, when did their roadmaps ever feature a 6-core mainstream CPU?

 

[CRO5513Y]

They should have put 'Limited Edition' on the box of all the Threadrippers people received through this 'Limited time' trade! 😉

Or limited opportunity"

Or that too, just to further 'troll' Intel since the 8086K has 'Limited Edition' in bold across the box.

 

[InvalidError]

What was Intel's response to AMD launching Ryzen? Absolutely nothing. No new product announcements, no price drops of existing products, nothing.

Intel's old chips still beat Ryzen in many games and everyday tasks, especially when overclocked, so Intel had no reason to bother with pricing adjustments. Coffee Lake wasn't ready for launch at the time either, didn't even get its fully-fledged launch (complete model list and supporting chipsets) until earlier this year. If you meant price drops on older CPUs after Intel launched Coffee Lake, Intel does supply chain management, scaling down production of older models and discontinuing them before price drops become necessary to clear excess inventory. Because of that, most CPU models haven't had significant official price drops (if any) in 10+ years.

In the HEDT space, ThreadRipper did cause Intel to have to review its price points: without ThreadRipper, the i9-7920X (12C) would likely have succeeded the i7-6950X (10C) at the $1800 price point instead of landing at $1200. That's two more cores for $600 less. The i9-7960X for $1700 also provides six more cores than the i7-6950X did for $100 less. Those are huge bang-per-buck improvements over the previous generations thanks to the ThreadRipper bomb - the i9-7940X/7960X/7980XE as we know them today wouldn't have existed at all without it.

If you want to see Intel scramble, something disruptive needs to happen. Otherwise, it is business as usual. ThreadRipper did massively disrupt Intel's HEDT pricing structure for Skylake X. I'd really like to see Zen 2 do the same with mainstream CPUs next year.

 

[InvalidError]

A Cortex A75 variant tweaked for higher clock frequencies could be a somewhat decent desktop CPU.

What about the A76? ARM is very much positioning it for laptops:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-cortex-a76-cpu-unveiled-7nm-powerhouse

Forgot that was already announced, still a relatively minor tweak to the A75: moved the MUL/DIV from being separated between ALU ports to being on their own new third integer execution port.

For the rest, I misremembered. It is Qualcomm that is looking to ditch Centriq.

 

[electronicbineries]

Well at least intel is giving the CPU for Free , while AMD will not give anything for free ! they will take your CPU from you to give you another

Intel 1 : AMD 0