News Core i9-13900K, Core i9-13900KS Get A Packaging Downgrade

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I wish they kept using the polyhedral boxes, of a few generations ago. I rather like the idea of having the same number of sides as the core count. Sure, it gets tricky with higher core-counts and different types of cores, but they stopped doing it before even reaching that point.

I'm not a fan of the faux "wafer" packaging they just discontinued. From the pictures, it looks too plasticy and cheap, for something meant to be "premium" or intended to be put on display. I rather they just go with the traditional packaging, as they're finally doing. Less plastic waste and saves money.
 
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... you get what you paid for .. including packaging... dont expect a ROLEX watch to have the same packaging as a Seiko watch
So, what do you do with the glamorous packaging?

Put it in a gold-leaf frame and hang it in your living room (or basement) to impress the less fortunates who bought a cheaper CPU??
 
... you get what you paid for .. including packaging... dont expect a ROLEX watch to have the same packaging as a Seiko watch
And a Rolex is purely a luxury item and a fashion statement, so presentation is more important for the customers who want one.

You don't buy a CPU just to show off your wealth or be more fashionable.

Then again, maybe you're the person who does.
 
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And a Rolex is purely a luxury item and a fashion statement, so presentation is more important for the customers who want one.

You don't buy a CPU just to show off your wealth or be more fashionable.

Then again, maybe you're the person who does.
NOT for showing off .. but when you pay for a flagship it should be a flagship in everything including the package.
 
So, what do you do with the glamorous packaging?

Put it in a gold-leaf frame and hang it in your living room (or basement) to impress the less fortunates who bought a cheaper CPU??

meh .. it is my personal collection.. not to show off. and when you pay the max you expect the max including every detail. you dont want it get the tray version
 
Honestly I'm surprised the EU and other nations don't have laws on gratuitous packaging. They yell about eWaste and yet allow unnecessarily large packaging which goes straight to the landfill.
I don't know about EU regulations, but are you sure they even used this same packaging for the EU market?

What I do know about is there's a UN treaty currently being developed, aimed at tackling the problem of pastics pollution:

 
So you're the kind of person who would not consider a computer part, even if it's the best in its class (not saying the i9 is one), because it comes in a boring, practical package?
I assume you never got a nicely wrapped gift as a kid...did your parents just throw some socks on your face?!
A nice presentation is a big part of how you perceive anything, goes for food, rolexes, persons, and also CPUs, and everything else.
Even animals go to extreme lengths to look good to potential mates so it's an universal truth that presentation matters.

Good thing has to look good.
 
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I assume you never got a nicely wrapped gift as a kid...did your parents just throw some socks on your face?!
A nice presentation is a big part of how you perceive anything, goes for food, rolexes, persons, and also CPUs, and everything else.
Even animals go to extreme lengths to look good to potential mates so it's an universal truth that presentation matters.

Good thing has to look good.
This is getting ridiculous! Are you really saying that the non-flagship CPUs are just poorly wrapped maybe even shrink - wrapped and thrown in our faces??

And if your parents, to take your example, gave you a not very extravagantly wrapped pair of socks, you'd throw a hissy fit??
 
This is getting ridiculous! Are you really saying that the non-flagship CPUs are just poorly wrapped maybe even shrink - wrapped and thrown in our faces??

And if your parents, to take your example, gave you a not very extravagantly wrapped pair of socks, you'd throw a hissy fit??
You are getting ridiculous!
I'm just saying that the way you present something has a big impact on how you recieve something.
 
I assume you never got a nicely wrapped gift as a kid...did your parents just throw some socks on your face?!
I was just glad to even get a gift most of the time.

A nice presentation is a big part of how you perceive anything, goes for food, rolexes, persons, and also CPUs, and everything else.
In the case of food, luxury items, and people, the item itself is what we, for lack of a better word, consume. You don't "consume" the packaging.

But a CPU goes in a socket and gets covered by a heat sink, never to be seen again until I have to repaste it.

Even animals go to extreme lengths to look good to potential mates so it's an universal truth that presentation matters.
And there are plenty of animals that don't care about physical appearances.

Good thing has to look good.
And I believe excess hardware packaging doesn't add anything to its value. I mean look at Apple. Practically all of their products come in a boring, cuboid box with the picture of the product on it and some text. From what I've bothered to read about their packaging, people find the experience of opening their packaging valuable.

Sure, people might've found trapezoidal game boxes, the plastic case Threadrippers came in, or Intel's polyhedron boxes to be eye catching, but does it really matter at the end of the day? If people can get a hard-on for opening a boring cuboid packaging from Apple products, then that shows we don't necessarily need unorthodox packaging.

EDIT: Another thing that I'm finding hilarious about people whining about this is the i9-13900 isn't even Intel's most expensive product. Intel has processors costing $10,000+ And while the end user may not get to unbox them, I'm pretty sure they don't come in gold plated, diamond encrusted boxes for the system builder to ooh and awe at.
 
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I assume you never got a nicely wrapped gift as a kid...did your parents just throw some socks on your face?!
The practice of wrapping presents is to keep them a secret until the occasion or moment when they are to be opened.

Even when you arrive at a birthday party with a wrapped gift, the point of it being wrapped is so the recipient can focus on one at a time. If all the gifts arrived unwrapped, their attention would immediately be drawn to the most alluring one and the rest would probably get ignored. The unwrapping process spreads out the joy and gratitude.
 
I'm not a fan of the faux "wafer" packaging they just discontinued. From the pictures, it looks too plasticy and cheap, for something meant to be "premium" or intended to be put on display.
They are fingerprint magnets, but it does look quite premium in person, I thought it was a cool way to deliver it, I had the 12900k display, magnetic clasp on the cardboard which contains the wafer, then rotate to open the wafer to retrieve the chip surrounded by quality foam. I love premium packaging, that was one of the best parts about unboxing Optane as well.

For premium products it adds little to the BOM and it is a nice luxury nod. It makes sense to discontinue as they get supplanted by Next generation CPUs.
 
I love premium packaging, that was one of the best parts about unboxing Optane as well.
LOL, my Optane P5800X arrived in a clear, plastic shell (being a non-consumer product, it only comes in OEM packaging). Either way, it'll perform the same in my windowless, aluminum case.

The nice thing about its packaging is that I could actually see the model number and confirm it's the one I ordered. Similarly, I like when CPUs are sold in boxes with a clear plastic window, so that you can actually see the heatspreader and confirm the same.
 
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LOL, my Optane P5800X arrived in a clear, plastic shell
I would take a P5800x and its performance profile in any type of packaging :)

I am just too cheap to pay the $2/gb it is still going for. I got my 905p Optane drive at $0.25/gb, was new Optane drive (I would be fine buying used as long as its not a 25% life left drive...)
 
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I would take a P5800x and its performance profile in any type of packaging :)

I am just too cheap to pay the $2/gb it is still going for. I got my 905p Optane drive at $0.25/gb, was new Optane drive (I would be fine buying used as long as its not a 25% life left drive...)
I appreciated the packaging, because I'm still not sure whether I want to use it, or just hold onto it for maybe turning a profit in a couple years. I will probably use it, though. Anyway, having clear packaging let me confirm the model was correct without having to open it.

I'm a sucker for "end of an era" products, like it. There won't be anything comparable for quite a while, but maybe NAND-backed DRAM-based CXL drives will come bursting onto the scene and prove me wrong.

Another "end of an era" product I bought was a Radeon VII, which bought at list price, but later sold for a $1k profit when the mining boom really heated up. I didn't plan to resell it, but couldn't pass up the opportunity. It's the last consumer GPU with real fp64 horsepower or HBM. Then again, the HBM aspect is moot because it only had 1 TB/s of bandwidth and the RX 7900 XTX already caught up to that with DDR6.
 
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I don't know about EU regulations, but are you sure they even used this same packaging for the EU market?

What I do know about is there's a UN treaty currently being developed, aimed at tackling the problem of pastics pollution:

According to Amazon Germany, it is the same packaging.

 
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EDIT: Another thing that I'm finding hilarious about people whining about this is the i9-13900 isn't even Intel's most expensive product. Intel has processors costing $10,000+ And while the end user may not get to unbox them, I'm pretty sure they don't come in gold plated, diamond encrusted boxes for the system builder to ooh and awe at.

... $10000 CPU ?This is not a "personal" product ... and hey get over it , even the i9 can b bought in "tray" mode , so pic what you like and we pick what we like .