News Intel calls AMD's chips 'Snake Oil' for putting antiquated Zen 2 architecture in modern Ryzen 7000 mobile CPUs, but Intel also uses similar marketi...

[Admin]

Intel released a new playbook dubbed "Core Truths" that attacks AMD's latest Ryzen 7000 mobile product stack for having some products that sport AMD's older Zen 2 CPU architecture.

Intel calls AMD's chips 'Snake Oil' for putting antiquated Zen 2 architecture in modern Ryzen 7000 mobile CPUs, but Intel also uses similar marketi... : Read more

 

[cknobman]

If you can't beat them...... talk * about them

Intel mostly makes power hungry garbage these days.
Seeing an Intel sticker on a laptop is actually a disincentive to buy IMO.

 

[PEnns]

So, Intel went from disguised shenanigans to proudly slinging mud at rivals now??

 

[usertests]

Isn't the i3-14100 just Alder Lake refreshed twice?

And let's not forget the chip that's positioned against the Ryzen 5 7520U: the Core i3-N305, which somehow broke away from Intel Processor N200 and friends.

 

[btmedic04]

Let's not forget the 5 generations of skylake. Topkek

Funnily enough, Robert Hallock was amds head of technical marketing and had a role to play in the decision of the naming convention used. Guess who is now intels senior director of marketing?

 

[-Fran-]

This is funny, because this screams "I bazooka'ed my foot".

Intel, you do realize when you scritinize your rival, you will also be scrutinized as a consequence, right? At this point, they should have some semblance they're not the oppresive monster they were a few years back to whom almost no one wants to talk back to.

Man, I have my popcorn ready for this one. And right before Xmas no less! The marketing team at Intel's CPU division is in for a very extreme ride XD

Regards.

 

[HaninTH]

This is funny, because this screams "I bazooka'ed my foot".

Intel, you do realize when you scritinize your rival, you will also be scrutinized as a consequence, right? At this point, they should have some semblance they're not the oppresive monster they were a few years back to whom almost no one wants to talk back to.

Man, I have my popcorn ready for this one. And right before Xmas no less! The marketing team at Intel's CPU division is in for a very extreme ride XD

Regards.

The consumers can only hope this high school musical delivers us value. A new crop of CPUs to slap Intel around would be lovely, and the consequential price drops will be highly welcomed.

We can only hope that ARM's progression continues and the eventual inclusion of a 3rd player into the market will really shake things up, as long as Intel doesn't somehow, lock everyone down with contractual obligations again.

 

[syadnom]

I would argue that intel is so much worse than this because they've msqueraded atom chips as 'first class' laptop and desktop chips for years now. Labeling atoms at pentiums etc. These $299 laptops from best buy and walmart that have 2005 era performance are perfect examples. Worse, they have started putting 'i' labels on atom series chips more recently. Ultimate in deceptive marketing.

 

[abufrejoval]

Didn't Intel also complain about Zen being cut & paste designs with IODs and CCDs glued in a "haphazard" manner?

AMD is obviously in a quandary, because quite a lot of their cost efficiency rides on making do with the least number of actual chips and being able to cover the largest possible range of products with them.

And that leaves a lot of niches, where Intel with evidently no constraints on producing very permutation of IP blocks as a sellable product, can score a win.

If it's all about rebadging already produced chips into "new" products, that's perhaps not ideal, but given that not everyone actually needs a top performer, it's still better than putting them into a landfill.

If it's about being able to produce SKUs to match Intel's portfolio, I'm less of a fan: I just dislike intentionally crippled hardware just to plaster every possible price point imaginable. Zen 4c instead of Zen 4, I understand. Zen 3 where a Zen 4c design would have done the job, that probably could be justified with TMS fab utilization: if their 7nm (or 6nm) lines are running dry, I understand why AMD is jumping on the opportunity. Perhaps Tom's hardware could try to find out and score some points on being a real explainer?

The most important motto to follow is evidently "caveat emptor" and hopefully Tom's hardware and friends will continue to put the finger right where it needs to be, so at least the "savant emptor" won't get tripped into buying junk.

 

[NinoPino]

Sad times for Intel.

 

[helper800]

Pot calling the kettle black in the most ironic way possible considering 14nm+++++++++++++.

 

[hotaru251]

snake oil is requiring a new socket for having 2 extra pins that werent needed just to sell a new socket.


snake oils selling a "14th" gen thats a factory OC'd 13th gen. (minus the 1 specific chip that actually got core increase)

Intel is obsessed with AMD like a scorned ex.

 

[endocine]

It's sad how far intel has fallen, from a process node leader, to mudslinging and stupid quips, thought that was the domain of AMD. If intel had a great product they wouldn't need to market it, nor would they need to resort to these tactics.

 

[ivan_vy]

I would argue that intel is so much worse than this because they've msqueraded atom chips as 'first class' laptop and desktop chips for years now. Labeling atoms at pentiums etc. These $299 laptops from best buy and walmart that have 2005 era performance are perfect examples. Worse, they have started putting 'i' labels on atom series chips more recently. Ultimate in deceptive marketing.

Atom was the most over promised and under delivering CPU that was infuriating to work with, slow as mud in a cold day. AMD APUs were good for its iGPU, not great but no disappointing as Atoms.

 

[twotwotwo]

It doesn't really bother me that cheap chips are on sale--having the latest is not that important to everyone. I'd take an M1 MacBook Air at the right price. (Christmas is coming, folks.)

I do dislike the decoder-ring branding for chips. AMD's in particular is probably not going away since they just introduced it.

In general it's not going away because the model number is supposed to convey 1) the attributes the customer wants (speed, graphics, battery life, cost), 2) the segment the company has decided to market the chip to, 3) technical info on how they hit the specs (µarch, wattage/is it a repurposed desktop chip, E/4C cores, etc.).

Intel is complaining that #3, the architecture, isn't up front, and that annoys us nerds, but at least it's there, in the model number. Regular consumers probably suffer most when #2 (desired segment) is way out of sync with #1 (quality as perceived by the consumer), and someone ends up selling lemons. You'd like to have a market that punishes that; maybe competition will make that happen.

Contributing to the mess is that AMD and Intel are trying to fill every niche in the market with a lot of SKUs, leading to lots of models that are close relatives that've been binned or nerfed to one extent or another (SMT/pro features disabled, etc.). So there's more entropy to pack into a model number.

It probably isn't coincidence that Apple, with a different business model (selling machines not chips) and narrower focus (no super-cheap laptops, no separation of business and consumer products), has a simpler, more understandable lineup.

Though Apple's not immune to making things weird: the recently announced 8GB MacBook Pro seemed to leave enough folks bewildered.

 

[salgado18]

That's Intel being hypocritical and I agree, but the naming scheme of Ryzen is indeed meant to confuse rather than clarify. I'd say that it is the worst naming scheme for CPUs (worse than server parts, whoch seem totally random). How can it be clear that the third letter is the generation, the second is the tier, the fourth is something abstract and the first is totally meaningless? I saw people in these forums misinterpret the numbers, just imagine a consumer. It was an awful move of AMD, and I hope they revert sooner than later.

 

[ilukey77]

funny Intel have been sticking crappy Igpus in there cpus for years and years how long has hd770 been gracing Intels cpus for now ??

 

[salgado18]

Intel is complaining that #3, the architecture, isn't up front, and that annoys us nerds, but at least it's there, in the model number. Regular consumers probably suffer most when #2 (desired segment) is way out of sync with #1 (quality as perceived by the consumer), and someone ends up selling lemons.

#1 is the generation, it's always been like that, and it's an easy way to understand it. Ryzen 2xxx, 3xxx, 5xxx; Radeon 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx; i7 2700, 3750, 4750, 6700, 7700, 8700, 9700, 10700...

Then AMD makes the first number mean nothing (year of processor? What does it mean?), and hides the generation in the third number (notice the i7 3750? That 5 is not as important as gen 3 and tier 7, so much so that it became a 0 soon enough).

I'm searching for laptops, and it is terrible to see one with a Ryzen 5 7520U labeled as brand new, when it is in fact a Ryzen 3500U rebranded, far away from the Zen 3 and 4 models.

And I'm not excusing Intel. Try purchasing a Pentium: is it a lower i3, or is it an Atom? And their mobile i7s with two physical cores, when the desktop ones had at least 6? There are no innocents here.

 

[ilukey77]

There are no innocents here.

100% there both in it to make money the cheapest way possible ..

but throwing shade over AMD when intel are far from perfect defines hypocrisy at its best ..

we still get a crummy 2 year socket life from Intel and the 11th 14th gen

That said AMD arent exactly blameless but i dont often see them hating on another company with no substance to back them up !!

 

[spicy_cat]

Intel's Professional Marketing Obfuscator accuses AMD's Professional Marketing Obfuscator of being dishonest. Shame they didn't all take marketing advice from Bill Hicks.

 

[ilukey77]

remember I3 for coding i9 for esports .. here at intel we know the truth !!

 

[Colif]

Neither are in a safe position to say anything about the others naming schemes. They both do it.

 

[ilukey77]

Neither are in a safe position to say anything about the others naming schemes. They both do it.

I love steve he just doesnt care !!

but this shines a massive light on how scared and out of touch Intel is these days !!

 

[ingtar33]

hmmm...

the core i 5000 series through 10,000 series were the same chip
they had a new chip for the 11000 series, an "evolution" for 12000
and now have released the same chip two more times in the 13000 and 14000 series.

so.,.. since 2014, intel has released exactly 3 different chip architectures, and 7 overclocked generations of those 3 gens of chips...

this is some peak pot calling the kettle black type marketing.

 

[WorkerSoft]

Ha ha ha! Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas everybody!