I guess you are saying that since the pricing of their HEDT makes literally no difference because no one in their right mind would actually buy one of these with what AMD is offering in mainstream (3950x looks to best the 9980XE in many, if not most, scenarios including gaming) and what TR3 has on offer, then Intel must be slashing their pricing just because they just wanted to cheapen their brand in the eyes of the consumer and their shareholders. You know, because Intel is always looking for ways to cheapen their brand image in relationship to AMD - especially as a strong statement to their shareholders ... that makes sense, right?
My question that I proposed to Terry has not been answered .... why did Intel slash all their HEDT prices in half, if it wasn't to concede the victory to AMDs innovative products, and attempt to retain at least some of these sales. If Intel truly sells zero of these parts and truly doesn't care about their HEDT sales ... why did they cut prices in half when they could have left them and not cheapened their brand?
You guys aren't thinking straight ...
The answer to the above is not that Intel wants to cheapen their brand, because obviously if you look at all their actions, they avoid doing that at all and any possible cost including past illegal actions; but rather, that AMD has forced the cheapening the Intel brand with better and more innovative CPUs.
It can't be that hard to admit ... can it?
I believe it was the late 90's that Bill Gates compared the computer industry to other industries and made the point that if innovation had progressed at the same rate, a mid sized car would cost $27 and a box of cereal would cost 1 cent. The break neck pace that performance improved and prices dropped did not cheapen Intel's brand. Intel and AMD used to cut prices across the board twice a year. That practice didn't cheapen Intel's brand. When a new series was announced, the old one used to go in the bargain bin with big price cuts. Didn't cheapen Intel's brand. The simple act of dropping prices does not cheapen a brand on its own if it is in step with others in the industry.
Fast forward about dozen years to 2011 and the top of the line mainstream Sandy Bridge 2700k is released. 4 cores 8 threads, overclock ~4.8Ghz, MSRP $339. 6 years after that in 2017, top of the line mainstream Kaby Lake 7700K is released. 4 cores 8 threads, overclock ~5.0 Ghz, MSRP$339. IPC improvement from Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake is about 20-25%. That is not remotely the rate of price/performance improvement Bill Gates calculated in the late 90's. Comparatively, it's pretty much stagnant.
While AMD had their head up their ass all this time, Intel created a pricing bubble. When Intel added cores rather than dropping everything down a rung, they added an additional pricing tier at the top. Top of the line, now 6 core, 8700k was bumped slightly to $359. Top of the 9900k released, 8 cores, jumped to $499. This was taken to an extreme level in the HEDT segment, where the top of the line went from $1000 for years, then suddenly shot up as core counts increased up to $2000 for an 18 core.
Intel had to drop prices in HEDT, because you can't charge 2 to 3 times more for basically the same product that your only competitor is selling. The severe price cuts are a market correction brought on by competition from AMD, to where prices should have been had AMD been competing all along. These price cuts don't cheapen the Intel brand because they don't undercut AMD anywhere. You can still get more for less from AMD. A company cheapens their brand by consistently undercutting the competition and using that as their main advertising message. AMD has done that for decades which is why they are viewed everywhere as a bargain brand, and no one has interest in buying their products unless you get more for less than from Intel and Nvidia.
AMD still has a pretty significant price performance advantage in the mainstream with the recently released 3000 series. But it isn't to the severe gouging degree that it was in the HEDT market. Intel's only price response was to drop prices on the KF/F models which have no iGPU and absurdly didn't cost any less than their sibling model that did have the iGPU. Contrary to what you said, Intel did not drop the price on the 9900k or any model that has an iGPU:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1494...ce-cut-for-9th-generation-f-and-kf-processors
Instead they added the 9900KS which surprise surprise, increases the price of the topend mainstream even further to $513 from $339 it was at less than 3 years ago. As far as Intel is currently concerned, whatever price/performance advantage AMD currently has at the mainstream level, which is pretty significant from top to bottom, it isn't big enough for them to make any real price adjustments.
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