News Et Tu, Pentiums? GPU-Disabled Pentium Gold G5600F Appears

[abryant]

Intel's new practice of offering F-Series processors without integrated graphics seems to have worked its way down to the Pentium series. Read more here.

PAUL ALCORN
@PaulAlcorn
Paul Alcorn is a Senior Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage and enterprise hardware.

 

[littleleo]

Same price as model with the integrated video so what is the advantage? There is stock on them?

 

[InvalidError]

Same price as model with the integrated video so what is the advantage? There is stock on them?

Listing says "not available", so availability isn't it either. At least not yet

Intel seems really desperate to get every single salvageable die it makes on the market.

 

[littleleo]

The new Intel model "Less is More", less stock, so higher prices. Less GPUs in CPUs same high prices. What a deal! Must be the same person doing the pricing modeling for Intel & Nvidia & Microsoft. Pay a lot more for less.

 

[rhysiam]

This spate of "F" chips with no graphics is a strange move from Intel on what should be by now a very mature 14nm process with high yields. I wonder what's driving this?

The most like explanation at face value is that Intel have been binning these chips with failed graphics for a while now and their struggle to maintain supply has pushed them to release them as distinct products. I wonder, however, if there is another motivation too.

In Anandtech's in-depth10nm Canon Lake analysis article (here) Ian Cutress discusses the evidence around Intel's struggle to get graphics working on 10nm. It's notable that the few 10nm products that have emerged to date all have their integrated graphics fused off. If I understand it correctly, balancing the competing fabrication demands of a CPU and integrated graphics involves compromise and trade off. The speculation was that Intel were focusing exclusively on getting a functioning CPU on 10nm and essentially sacrificing integrated graphics. Doing so enabled them to get a partially functioning 10nm product out the door.

I wonder whether Intel is still struggling to get functioning, reliable integrated graphics on their 10nm designs. Perhaps all these "F" CPUs are paving the way for the next generation where yields and/or performance of integrated graphics will be extremely poor as result of Intel having to essential sacrifice the GPU to get functional 10nm CPUs. This is pure speculation - of course - but I'd be interested in others' thoughts.

 

[cryoburner]

The most like explanation at face value is that Intel have been binning these chips with failed graphics for a while now and their struggle to maintain supply has pushed them to release them as distinct products. I wonder, however, if there is another motivation too.

One possibility is that it could leave some room for future price drops of these "F" chips, without them needing to adjust prices on their existing parts. Right now, they still have a small per-core performance advantage over AMD's offerings, but that could potentially change in a few months when AMD launches their 7nm chips. If AMD were to manage better performance all around while still maintaining lower prices, Intel might feel the need to adjust pricing to remain competitive.

And maybe Intel is simply planning to make chips without graphics in the future, and is transitioning to that model. It costs money to dedicate a big chunk of a processor to graphics hardware, after all, and when a system has a dedicated graphics card, it might not be needed.

It's also worth keeping in mind that Intel is making a big push to get into graphics hardware. Perhaps they intend to separate the CPU and GPU portions of a processor in the future, allowing them to include multiple tiers of graphics capability built into the CPU, without having to disable hardware for the lower-end parts.

 

[rhysiam]

One possibility is that it could leave some room for future price drops of these "F" chips, without them needing to adjust prices on their existing parts. Right now, they still have a small per-core performance advantage over AMD's offerings, but that could potentially change in a few months when AMD launches their 7nm chips. If AMD were to manage better performance all around while still maintaining lower prices, Intel might feel the need to adjust pricing to remain competitive.

And maybe Intel is simply planning to make chips without graphics in the future, and is transitioning to that model. It costs money to dedicate a big chunk of a processor to graphics hardware, after all, and when a system has a dedicated graphics card, it might not be needed.

It's also worth keeping in mind that Intel is making a big push to get into graphics hardware. Perhaps they intend to separate the CPU and GPU portions of a processor in the future, allowing them to include multiple tiers of graphics capability built into the CPU, without having to disable hardware for the lower-end parts.

Indeed, they're plausible alternative explanations.

I'm not quite sold personally on "F" chips for price competitive reasons. With yields as they are (or should be at 14nm), I'm not convinced Intel would gain much price wise from disabling graphics in the long term. They can just prices on current models if they need to.

But future planning GPU-less CPUs from Intel would certainly make sense.

 

[Olle P]

Probably not a very good option compared to Ryzen 3 2200G, but possibly an upgrade path to those that now have even less on a motherboard that supports it.

 

[chickenballs]

I wonder if this cpu will work nicely with the RTX 2080 Ti in a "budget" 4K gaming pc
will be interesting to see if 2c/4t 3.9GHz is enough for 4K gaming in 2019

 

[TerryLaze]

Probably not a very good option compared to Ryzen 3 2200G, but possibly an upgrade path to those that now have even less on a motherboard that supports it.

I wonder if this cpu will work nicely with the RTX 2080 Ti in a "budget" 4K gaming pc
will be interesting to see if 2c/4t 3.9GHz is enough for 4K gaming in 2019

Quite a bit better in performance then the 2200g and does very well in 4k,sure this is only the 1080 but still,if you want to see how it would do with the faster 2080ti just check out the lower resolutions.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Pentium_Gold_G5600/15.html

 

[Olle P]

Quite a bit better in performance then the 2200g...
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Pentium_Gold_G5600/15.html

From the conclusions of that review:
"At $94, Intel finds itself unable to compete with the $99 AMD Ryzen 3 2200G in multi-threaded tests. The AMD chip not only gives you four real CPU cores, but also a significantly better integrated graphics solution, ..."
The Ryzen 3 can easily be overclocked and allows 720p gaming with the IGP, and some games can even be run at 1080p.
For a low budget build I see very little use for the Pentium.

 

[urbanman2004]

In typical Intel fashion, they're willing to deprive features from their product with no plans of selling it at a discount

 

[littleleo]

The new Intel Mantra less is more!