News Early Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake Pricing Shines Light on Potential AMD Rivals

[Admin]

Some European retailers have already listed prices for Intel Comet Lake desktop CPUs, allowing us to line up likely AMD competitors.

Early Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake Pricing Shines Light on Potential AMD Rivals : Read more

 

[Newtonius]

The 10980XE was already outdated 6 hours after it released. Intel better pull a rabbit out a hat if they plan for the 10th gen to compete in this market. Almost every new build on this forum people have asked advice on have been AMD builds.

 

[AlistairAB]

Well you can already buy the 6 core 1600AF (14nm) or 2600 for $100 USD, so Intel has not had anything worth buying under the 9700k for quite some time.

 

[joeblowsmynose]

It appears Intel has abandoned its enthusiast family completely ... HEDT launch that impressed no one and made many laugh, no significant improvements to desktop processors in sight ...yet, rumoured prices on new lineup that looks like it won't properly compete with the competition in price/performance, R9 3950x still looks like it will be the most powerful desktop you can get ... until I suppose a 4950x launches later this year?


You know who doesn't care? The OEM market. And that's why Intel doesn't care, because there is still money to be milked from 14nm ... even if trying to milk enthusiasts doesn't work for them anymore.

Intel already indicated that chasing AMD isn't what they want to do.

 

[jimmysmitty]

The 10980XE was already outdated 6 hours after it released. Intel better pull a rabbit out a hat if they plan for the 10th gen to compete in this market. Almost every new build on this forum people have asked advice on have been AMD builds.

Because the enthusiast market is indicative of the market at large since?

Well you can already buy the 6 core 1600AF (14nm) or 2600 for $100 USD, so Intel has not had anything worth buying under the 9700k for quite some time.

Why would you buy something that would perform less though? The 2600 wont clock as high or outperform an equivalent Intel core for core. The main benefit to AMD right now is trading punches with Ryzen 3000 and higher core counts, along with PCIe 4.0 if you want to shell out for a more expensive board with a much hotter chipset.

It appears Intel has abandoned its enthusiast family completely ... HEDT launch that impressed no one and made many laugh, no significant improvements to desktop processors in sight ...yet, rumoured prices on new lineup that looks like it won't properly compete with the competition in price/performance, R9 3950x still looks like it will be the most powerful desktop you can get ... until I suppose a 4950x launches later this year?


You know who doesn't care? The OEM market. And that's why Intel doesn't care, because there is still money to be milked from 14nm ... even if trying to milk enthusiasts doesn't work for them anymore.

Intel already indicated that chasing AMD isn't what they want to do.

Chasing AMD wouldn't be worth it anyways. There are markets that are more valuable than the enthusiast market like HPC, AI and FPGAs etc.

My thoughts are that once Intel has a new node stable enough for wide release and something like Forevros is cheap enough to implement widely we will see a major shift in their desktop market platforms.

Right now though they need to, and are, focus on markets where margins are higher. The enthusiast market is easy to win back. All they would need is a chip that is on par core count, lower or equal power and higher performance at a really good price point. Other markets are harder to win back.

 

[Newtonius]

Because the enthusiast market is indicative of the market at large since?

Since AMD pulled the rabbit out their hat.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Since AMD pulled the rabbit out their hat.

The answer is never. Its never indicative of the computer market at large. Otherwise Intel wouldn't be making record profits after being matched or beaten by AMD.

In my eyes all AMD was caught up and did what they did with FX and threw more cores at the platform. Although I will give them credit for throwing real cores at the platform this time unlike with FX. But they have not blown Intel away like Athlon 64 did in most areas to earlier Pentium 4s. I think mainstream should be 8 cores, HEDT 16 and servers, well servers love cores so give them all you can. An 8 core with higher clocks would have been better, SMT is yes or no I couldn't care less for it.

But AMD does have a few problems like relying on a process tech thats not designed specifically for their CPUs but rather a broad market of companies so they are at the mercy of whoever they pick at the time for process tech (I assume it will be TSMC for the foreseen future) so if the process gets stuck, has low yields or just sucks well AMD is stuck in that same situation

Maybe Ryzen 4000 will have better more consistent clock speeds.

 

[bit_user]

No i7's or i9's? Wow, Bohemia Computers sure does live up to their name!

That said, I see that Bohemia is actually a region in the Czech Republic. The term "bohemian" was appropriated as a short-hand for the type of inhabitants for which it was known.

 

[Newtonius]

The answer is never. Its never indicative of the computer market at large. Otherwise Intel wouldn't be making record profits after being matched or beaten by AMD.

In my eyes all AMD was caught up and did what they did with FX and threw more cores at the platform. Although I will give them credit for throwing real cores at the platform this time unlike with FX. But they have not blown Intel away like Athlon 64 did in most areas to earlier Pentium 4s. I think mainstream should be 8 cores, HEDT 16 and servers, well servers love cores so give them all you can. An 8 core with higher clocks would have been better, SMT is yes or no I couldn't care less for it.

But AMD does have a few problems like relying on a process tech thats not designed specifically for their CPUs but rather a broad market of companies so they are at the mercy of whoever they pick at the time for process tech (I assume it will be TSMC for the foreseen future) so if the process gets stuck, has low yields or just sucks well AMD is stuck in that same situation

Maybe Ryzen 4000 will have better more consistent clock speeds.

True and well put, but my original comment was more or less referring to the popularity market rather than financial. Intel is and will always be miles above AMD in revenue because of their many ventures and patents, just like Amazon.

AMD While innovative and the 'people's choice' will always be at the mercy of the x86 architecture, unless they plan to go with ARM (RISC). But just like the way of their mobile CPU's and GPU's, intel is currently losing their market share of consumer grade CPU's - albeit still ahead of AMD.

 

[tslot05qsljgo9ed]

Intel is in even more trouble as AMD is now selling the Ryzen 3600X for $180 not at the $214 you state in the article. Also the Ryzen 3600 is selling for $160 not the $175 you state.


https://www.microcenter.com/product...m4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-stealth-cooler


https://www.microcenter.com/product...-am4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-spire-cooler

 

[hftvhftv]

It appears Intel has abandoned its enthusiast family completely ... HEDT launch that impressed no one and made many laugh, no significant improvements to desktop processors in sight ...yet, rumoured prices on new lineup that looks like it won't properly compete with the competition in price/performance, R9 3950x still looks like it will be the most powerful desktop you can get ... until I suppose a 4950x launches later this year?


You know who doesn't care? The OEM market. And that's why Intel doesn't care, because there is still money to be milked from 14nm ... even if trying to milk enthusiasts doesn't work for them anymore.

Intel already indicated that chasing AMD isn't what they want to do.

It truly doesn't matter how behind Intel is in desktop CPU value. If they were still selling quad core i7s at the prices they were charging for them OEMs would still be using them in their products and they still would sell to the majority of customers simply because the power behind the "i7" branding is so strong. I have talked to people who don't understand that a 8th generation Core i5U mobile processor is leaps and bounds faster than a 7th generation Core i7U processor simply because they have twice the cores.

 

[TerryLaze]

Intel is in even more trouble as AMD is now selling the Ryzen 3600X for $180 not at the $214 you state in the article. Also the Ryzen 3600 is selling for $160 not the $175 you state.


https://www.microcenter.com/product...m4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-stealth-cooler


https://www.microcenter.com/product...-am4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-spire-cooler

How would that be a problem for intel?Intel is still selling all they can make at the same prices,if AMD would be forced to reduce prices even though they only have limited production,same as intel, that would only be bad for AMD.

Microcenter decides on it's own what kind of discounts it will make and it has nothing to do with AMD's pricing and in the big picture they are just a small player and don't affect the market.

 

[cryoburner]

Intel is in even more trouble as AMD is now selling the Ryzen 3600X for $180 not at the $214 you state in the article. Also the Ryzen 3600 is selling for $160 not the $175 you state.

Why do people always mention MicroCenter CPU pricing as if it's normal for the market at large? MicroCenter is a relatively small retail chain with only 25 locations in the US. Even in the US, most people don't live anywhere near a MicroCenter. These processor deals are only available in-store, and can be thought of more like Black Friday deals. They're selling the CPUs at-cost as a means of getting people into the store, in hopes that they will pick up the rest of their components there as well. If one happens to live right near one of the handful of MicroCenter locations, then great, save an extra $20 or so off your processor, otherwise that's not really an option. And they'll likely be selling these upcoming processors for a bit less than anyone else as well, at least after the initial launch pricing settles.

It appears Intel has abandoned its enthusiast family completely ... HEDT launch that impressed no one and made many laugh, no significant improvements to desktop processors in sight ...yet, rumoured prices on new lineup that looks like it won't properly compete with the competition in price/performance, R9 3950x still looks like it will be the most powerful desktop you can get ... until I suppose a 4950x launches later this year?

This new lineup does look like it should be pretty competitive for anyone not specifically requiring very high core counts. It appears Intel will finally be roughly matching AMD in terms of cores and threads at a given price point, now that they're adding SMT across the lineup, and I imagine Intel's processors will be slightly ahead in terms of performance at most tasks compared to the 3000 series, though power draw and in turn cooling requirements will undoubtedly be higher. AMD will likely adjust prices further to stay competitive though, and will probably add more performance and perhaps higher core counts for the money with the 4000-series later in the year.

 

[joeblowsmynose]

...
This new lineup does look like it should be pretty competitive for anyone not specifically requiring very high core counts.

It'll be the same scenario at best - they will look great in gaming benchmarks, perform the same in gaming in "real world" scenarios, some improvement in multicore but not enough to topple 3950x or probably 3900x, run hot as Hades in those scenarios, and will give you a very "satisfying" OC ghz number, and still have worse bang for buck overall. Let's keep in mind Zen3 will be hot on the tails of this launch (well, probably end of Q3 (my prediction)).

The 10700k looks like it will be the star of the show though. I think that will be a very popular, and fairly well rounded chip (but it'll still be power hungry and hot). I need cores for rendering so I'm all AMD, but if I didn't, I might have my eye on the 10700k, because I also do complex 3D modeling - and that actually works best with high clocks, not cores. But because I also render, the core count takes precedence.

 

[JoBalz]

Intel is in even more trouble as AMD is now selling the Ryzen 3600X for $180 not at the $214 you state in the article. Also the Ryzen 3600 is selling for $160 not the $175 you state.


https://www.microcenter.com/product...m4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-stealth-cooler


https://www.microcenter.com/product...-am4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-spire-cooler

All true... as long as you near a brick-and mortar Micro Center Store. I just went online and checked their online catalog. Lowest prices I've seen on Ryzen CPUs, but every one was listed as "in-store pickup only." I live 4 hours from the nearest one so this isn't an option. When I lived in Dallas I liked shopping at Micro Center, and recently I was able to order a Maingear case that was at an exceptional price. Even had reasonable shipping. But about 90% of the things I would like to but are "In-Store Pickup Only", so I rarely check them out any more.

 

[escksu]

Some European retailers have already listed prices for Intel Comet Lake desktop CPUs, allowing us to line up likely AMD competitors.

Early Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake Pricing Shines Light on Potential AMD Rivals : Read more

Its still the fastest gaming CPU though (when overclocked). Ryzen oc is so sucky despite having 7nm.....

 

[spongiemaster]

It'll be the same scenario at best - they will look great in gaming benchmarks, perform the same in gaming in "real world" scenarios, some improvement in multicore but not enough to topple 3950x or probably 3900x, run hot as Hades in those scenarios, and will give you a very "satisfying" OC ghz number, and still have worse bang for buck overall. Let's keep in mind Zen3 will be hot on the tails of this launch (well, probably end of Q3 (my prediction)).

None of Intel's offerings will be $750 either. It doesn't matter what motherboard it goes in, there's no such thing as a $750 mainstream CPU. The 3950x is a halo product that's there to win mindshare. Unless you have specific needs for 16 cores, the 10900k with its much higher clock speeds will be faster for mainstream users. Though, it will be cheaper than the 3950x, it isn't likely going to win any value awards. As you pointed out, the 10700k will probably end up being the CPU of choice for price/performance.

 

[joeblowsmynose]

None of Intel's offerings will be $750 either. It doesn't matter what motherboard it goes in, there's no such thing as a $750 mainstream CPU. The 3950x is a halo product that's there to win mindshare. Unless you have specific needs for 16 cores, the 10900k with its much higher clock speeds will be faster for mainstream users. Though, it will be cheaper than the 3950x, it isn't likely going to win any value awards. As you pointed out, the 10700k will probably end up being the CPU of choice for price/performance.

Let me pick apart the standard argument "only if you need 16 cores" (or whatever core count) ... but if we look at the current existing lineup ... what if you only need 8 cores? Under that statement th e9900k seems like the best pick. The 9900k is great if you only need 4-6 cores ... but if you need to max out all 8 cores for multi tasking / multi-threaded work, the the 3800x still makes equal or more sense than the 9900k.

But if all you do is "game" or web browse or whatever, that basically only needs 2-6 cores ... then the 9900k works great (but a high price). But if you really need to use all 8 cores, then the 3800x is s better performer, and additionally the 9900k tends to lose it's all core boost after a couple minutes of load, unless you've made bios provisions or manual OC, in which you are going to have a fair bit of heat to contend with.

https://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2019/08/29121100864l.jpg

So the blanket "only if you need X cores" isn't quite what it seems. if one puts some thought into it. Just an observation, wasn't picking on your post.


10700k will be the winner of many things like, highest overclock, best at gaming, not melting down you PC as bad as 10900k, etc. ... the 10900k will be the winner of nothing ... and while it won't be $750, it won't be worth anywhere near that either, but I'll still guess the bang for buck will still be worse than AMDs.

I don't think this is a very exciting refresh at all, except maybe that 10700k.

 

[spongiemaster]

Let me pick apart the standard argument "only if you need 16 cores" (or whatever core count) ... but if we look at the current existing lineup ... what if you only need 8 cores? Under that statement th e9900k seems like the best pick. The 9900k is great if you only need 4-6 cores ... but if you need to max out all 8 cores for multi tasking / multi-threaded work, the the 3800x still makes equal or more sense than the 9900k.

But if all you do is "game" or web browse or whatever, that basically only needs 2-6 cores ... then the 9900k works great (but a high price). But if you really need to use all 8 cores, then the 3800x is s better performer, and additionally the 9900k tends to lose it's all core boost after a couple minutes of load, unless you've made bios provisions or manual OC, in which you are going to have a fair bit of heat to contend with.

https://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2019/08/29121100864l.jpg

So the blanket "only if you need X cores" isn't quite what it seems. if one puts some thought into it. Just an observation, wasn't picking on your post.

If your workflow benefits from more than 10 cores go AMD, if it doesn't, which is the vast majority of users, you need to look at specific applications that apply to you. Intel will win most of them, but will cost more, so the decision will come down to how much you are willing to spend.

I don't think this is a very exciting refresh at all, except maybe that 10700k.

Something we should all agree on. If Intel had gotten PCI 4.0 working on LGA1200, then you could rationalize buying into this platform and dropping in a 10nm CPU next year or beyond. When Intel finally does release its LGA1200 compatible 10nm CPU, you know they are going to release a revised LGA1200 platform that will support PCI 4.0. 1st gen 1200 boards are going to be lame ducks.

 

[Dsplover]

I agree and because I’m only interested in Quad Core CPU’s because my PC needs super low latency for real time apps.
Not only low latency but the fastest Single Core performance.
Intel still has that lead and is the only Quad Core CPU Im aware of.

i7 4790k/i7 7700k are strong CPUs but now the i3 10350k CPU with a base clock of 4.1GHz is going to be really fast.

Still not enough specs available but should be really fast @ 125 watts.
Bump it up to 4.4GHz and nothing will touch it.
Eventually my software will start implementing AVX512, SSE4+ better so they won’t be core locked. Until then I don’t see any 6/8 or 10 core higher latency parts In my builds.

Wish they’d stop showing everything but the 10350k.

cheerz

 

[TerryLaze]

run hot as Hades in those scenarios, and will give you a very "satisfying" OC ghz number, and still have worse bang for buck overall.

Intel's 14nm is running cooler than zen 2 even though they run slightly higher all core clocks at default settings.
They only run hot when overclocked,or in the small boost window at the start of any task,but that is what users want,you want a high boost if that means that something will finish earlier,if not if OC doesn't improve time (enough) you can keep your CPU at default you can even use IXTU to make profiles for anything where OC makes sense.
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...0x-and-ryzen-7-3900x-reviewed-red-storm-ryzen

 

[jeremyj_83]

I agree and because I’m only interested in Quad Core CPU’s because my PC needs super low latency for real time apps.
Not only low latency but the fastest Single Core performance.
Intel still has that lead and is the only Quad Core CPU Im aware of.

i7 4790k/i7 7700k are strong CPUs but now the i3 10350k CPU with a base clock of 4.1GHz is going to be really fast.

Still not enough specs available but should be really fast @ 125 watts.
Bump it up to 4.4GHz and nothing will touch it.
Eventually my software will start implementing AVX512, SSE4+ better so they won’t be core locked. Until then I don’t see any 6/8 or 10 core higher latency parts In my builds.

Wish they’d stop showing everything but the 10350k.

cheerz

There is a lot of wrong assumptions in your post. With the 9th Gen i3's Intel finally gave the chips turbo boost to help with performance, especially single threaded applications. Before that the i3's lacked turbo boost so unless you had an unlocked CPU and could overclock you were stuck at 4.0GHz for example.

Now even at 4.6GHz an i3-9350K will not perform as fast as an i9-9900K in single threaded applications just due to clock speed (4.6GHz boost vs 5GHz boost). Against the Ryzen 3700X the i3 will lose in single threaded applications as well even though it has a higher boost (4.6 vs 4.4) speed since Zen2 has a 7% IPC advantage against current Intel desktop chips. Even a Ryzen 3600 will be about the same single core performance as a stock i3-9350K even though it has a 400MHz boost clock deficiency.

Remember that for single threaded applications your CPUs will almost always stay at their top boost levels since they will be no where near their power and heat budget. While your current software cannot take advantage of more cores, having the extra cores helps make sure that anything running in the background keeps running well and doesn't slow down the rest of the system.

Another thing to consider is that the i3's don't have support for faster RAM. The 9th Gen i3's only support DDR4-2400MHz RAM vs 2666MHz on the i9 and 3200MHz for the Ryzen 3000 series. As far as I can see Intel doesn't support XPM with the i3's so you cannot get any advantage for faster RAM.

 

[joeblowsmynose]

Intel's 14nm is running cooler than zen 2 ...

No its not ...

Comparing a 12 core to an 8 core on power consumption doesn't make Intel's 14nm "run cooler".

AMD's 12 core ships with a stock air cooler that works well enough - not anywhere near the best on the market.

From Tom's 9900k review: "The 4.7 GHz all-core and a constant load are quite sufficient to make air cooling absurd. " https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-9900k-9th-gen-cpu,5847-12.html

Now add two cores and higher clocks ...

 

[TerryLaze]

From Tom's 9900k review: "The 4.7 GHz all-core and a constant load are quite sufficient to make air cooling absurd. " https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-9900k-9th-gen-cpu,5847-12.html

Intel's 14nm is running cooler than zen 2 even though they run slightly higher all core clocks at default settings.

It's nice that you only focused on the first part but I had the second part there because it has meaning.
Also the comparison I make is between the 9900k and the 3700x both of which have 8c/16t.

At default settings with load on all 16 threads the 9900k only boost to about 200w for a short period of time and then drops down to about 150 for the remainder of the time,it's a very very different thing from a constant stress test.


But ok sure, go ahead and overclock ZEN2 to 4.7Ghz all core run prime on it and prove to me that it will draw less power....

 

[bit_user]

On an unrelated note, is anyone else bothered by that photo? It makes no sense - the CPU on the right obviously doesn't fit the socket. I'm like: "well, you already picked your mobo, so I guess you're going with the CPU on the left". (facepalm)

Heh, so it's Shutterstock photo? ...more like a shudder stock photo.

Besides that, when was the last CPU that Intel even made with pins?

​

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The most recent CPU it could probably be is a Bulldozer-series AMD model. I think socket AM3+ is their last PGA socket without a gap in the middle.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM3+​

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And I don't care how bad Comet Lake is - there's no way it's worse than any AM3 CPU.

Edit: I like these pics that Anandtech uses for their CPU comparison articles. Not only is it interesting and (potentially) relevant, but original content FTW:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/9793/best-cpus​