News Intel Could Split 10th-Gen Comet Lake CPUs Into Two Different Sockets

Are the LGA1200 and LGA1159 sockets two faces of the same coin?

Intel Could Split 10th-Gen Comet Lake CPUs Into Two Different Sockets : Read more
Sounds like they are moving backwards. Gone are the good 'ole days of standard-clocked consumer desktop K-series chips that have tons of overclock headroom. Now are the days of super expensive, near-impossible to cool, HEDT K-series with little-to-no overclock headroom on a different platform.

I lost interest in Intel during the transition from Kaby Lake to Coffee Lake. I previously loved getting the fastest K-series CPU on a good Z-series motherboard. Now, Intel has doubled that cost. I'm no longer interested because my income has not doubled. I'm sure there are loads of other consumers just like me who would rather get all the fancy stuff from AMD's platform while also getting a CPU with more than enough cores/threads to last well into the future.

Congratulations Intel, you are deteriorating the enthusiast market and merging it with the HEDT market.
 

Crashman

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AMD won this round ... intel lowering theHEDT CPU prices to half proved that they were stealing us in the past with their overpriced per core products.

AMD for the next 5 years .. I am Very angry at intel , and even if they made a faster product I will stay with AMD , because AMD is more honest in pricing.
I don't think their profit margins were "super high", I think that at the current price they're just trying to pay the cost of keeping their fabs running until they get their die shrink to work. With all the corporate overhead, advertising, distribution and support costs, Intel should be seriously bleeding cash by now.
 
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AMD won this round ... intel lowering theHEDT CPU prices to half proved that they were stealing us in the past with their overpriced per core products.

AMD for the next 5 years .. I am Very angry at intel , and even if they made a faster product I will stay with AMD , because AMD is more honest in pricing.
This is my mindset exactly. The i7-7700K and then the i7-8700K the same year for the same price proved Intel was price-gouging old tech. That hit me personally since the first brand-new flagship CPU I ever purchased was the i7-7700K. In a way though, i can respect them for it because they allowed AMD to come up by offering such a terrible value even with the i9-9900K, which I could have afforded but I chose the Ryzen 7 instead. Now I can enjoy the nice new tech AMD has to offer without blowing a gasket with 250W power consumption and 90C temps.
 
This is my mindset exactly. The i7-7700K and then the i7-8700K the same year for the same price proved Intel was price-gouging old tech.
How exactly is this different from AMD CPUs losing 50% + value within 6-12 months of release?
Doesn't that also prove that AMD is heavily price gouging their tech?
Either that or somehow the free market works on some kind of rules that rely on supply vs demand.
 
How exactly is this different from AMD CPUs losing 50% + value within 6-12 months of release?
Doesn't that also prove that AMD is heavily price gouging their tech?
Either that or somehow the free market works on some kind of rules that rely on supply vs demand.
Yeah, I was going to follow that up by pointing out the free market, and that's what Intel is taking advantage of. Like I said, I can't blame them. They are just here to make money.

The difference being AMD's Ryzen releases were 12-15 months apart, they offered the same number of cores (higher core count up front), AND when they did offere more cores than that (3800X and up) they allowed it all on on the same AM4 motherboards that people bought 1st-gen Ryzen on.

Intel did exactly the opposite even though they didn't have to.
 

wirefire

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This is actually bad for consumers but not a "bad move" for intel. First of all consider how many people actually do drop in CPU upgrades anymore. With the exception of the AMD platform that is a little hit and miss due to bios restrictions, this was not an "intel thing" so intel took it one step further and says buy the board and CPU for each other. I remember a while back intel wanted to soldier the CPU to the motherboards... that never happened.

It could also be an OEM chip. They are going to ship those to PC manufacturers in the name of "power management". not likely but anything is possible with the intel screw up factory anymore.
 
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Intel could split it into 4, get into the soup business, etc. Intel can do whatever it wants but I personally would be more interested in hearing what they are going to do and not hearing about someone's unfounded and unconfirmed speculations.
 
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Gurg

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The lower power Intel 1159 pin variant will simply be for laptops (battery life and lower heat) and Euro models (high energy costs) where the 1200 pin higher power and frequency CPUs are primarily for desktop gaming performance and power users paired with a Corsair AIO H100i or better cooler. Gaming performance oriented PC builders will be charged a premium ( hopefully not outlandish) for the motherboard and CPUs just as they are now for the "K" variants.

The lower power and cost models will go head to head with AMD, while the overclocked higher frequency Intel "K" variants will dominate the top of the FPS gaming charts like the 9900k, 9700k and 9600k currently are in comparison reviews. AMD has surrendered saying that they can't get higher frequencies from their CPUs and wants software companies to spend millions rewriting all their program codes for more cores. Intel recognizes there is still an active (though not mass ) market for higher frequency CPUs at a slightly higher price.
 

Crashman

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FM2 is now gone. AM3 and FM2 were both replaced by AM4. Just the AM4 and TR4.
So is it that you feel that it's acceptable for users to expect their $60 board to support a Ryzen 7 3950X? Or is it the reverse, that you expect users with $60 processors to pay $250 plus for a Ryzen 7 3950X-supporting motherboard?
 

joeblowsmynose

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So is it that you feel that it's acceptable for users to expect their $60 board to support a Ryzen 7 3950X? Or is it the reverse, that you expect users with $60 processors to pay $250 plus for a Ryzen 7 3950X-supporting motherboard?

I think you may be conflating chipsets with sockets. You only mentioned one socket that all Ryzen CPUs will work in (partially chipset dependent)

And many B350 boards will support Ryzen 9, so why wouldn't it be acceptable as long as you were aware of the differences in chipset?

Different chipsets, I understand, but a different socket? I understand his complaint that Intel is making two distinct platforms out of mainstream that are not cross compatible, whereas AMD ensured to maintain that compatibility (almost magically considering the difference between zen, zen+, and zen2).

The only thing I can think of why Intel would do this is to not force people to pay more than they "need" to for a mobo (a 125wTDP aka 250w power consumption will require a much more robust power delivery system than needed for an i3 for example, and thus higher cost).

Some complained about high mobo proces with X570, except with the X570 you didn't "need" an X570, unless you "require" PCI-e 4.0, or was a competitive overclocker, which is almost no-one, so there's no real issue with compatibility.

I can think of no other reason why Intel would do this, except to try to create stronger pricing separation at the mobo level between i3 needs and i9. This is a direct result of them trying to be performance competitive at 14nm - they need to get off 14nm yesterday.

Another thought is maybe LGA1200 will be forward compatible with newer CPUs while LGA1159 will not ... ? Probably unlikely though ...

Of course, we're commenting on speculations here ... :)
 
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Crashman

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I think you may be conflating chipsets with sockets. You only mentioned one socket that all Ryzen CPUs will work in (partially chipset dependent)

And many B350 boards will support Ryzen 9, so why wouldn't it be acceptable as long as you were aware of the differences in chipset?

Different chipsets, I understand, but a different socket? I understand his complaint that Intel is making two distinct platforms out of mainstream that are not cross compatible, whereas AMD ensured to maintain that compatibility (almost magically considering the difference between zen, zen+, and zen2).

The only thing I can think of why Intel would do this is to not force people to pay more than they "need" to for a mobo (a 125wTDP aka 250w power consumption will require a much more robust power delivery system than needed for an i3 for example, and thus higher cost).

Some complained about high mobo proces with X570, except with the X570 you didn't "need" an X570, unless you "require" PCI-e 4.0, or was a competitive overclocker, which is almost no-one, so there's no real issue with compatibility.

I can think of no other reason why Intel would do this, except to try to create stronger pricing separation at the mobo level between i3 needs and i9. This is a direct result of them trying to be performance competitive at 14nm - they need to get off 14nm yesterday.

Another thought is maybe LGA1200 will be forward compatible with newer CPUs while LGA1159 will not ... ? Probably unlikely though ...

Of course, we're commenting on speculations here ... :)
Right, but if you're splitting the motherboards between those that do and those that don't support more than X-number of cores, having a common socket between them isn't very helpful.
 

joeblowsmynose

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Right, but if you're splitting the motherboards between those that do and those that don't support more than X-number of cores, having a common socket between them isn't very helpful.

There's always the option of not splitting sockets and just going with one that supports all core ranges, like AM4 does - but Intel appears to have been sufficiently motivated to not do this, likely due to the greater disparty in power requirements needed at 14nm as suggested by the article.

Its not a requirement, but a choice; and one that will draw ire of some enthusiasts (but shouldn't really be surprising). I'm sure non-enthusiasts won't care, and will appreciate the less expensive motherboards for their i3's.

I suppose another reason Intel might do this is they wanted to add some extra "features" late in the design (or pull some features back into these high end CPUs from a future design for competitiveness reasons), that only the i9s will get, and to do that it was cheaper to add a design with a new socket than try to scrap the entire design mobo vendors already sunk a lot of money into, which would tick them off royally. ... hmm that could be it too.

(Edit: no it can't be that since the LGA1200 appears to be the earlier established design - but maybe the mobos were just getting too expensive (or they noticed the cost complaints and low sales of the expensive X570 boards) so they created the lower tier as the after thought)

Regardless, I'm sure they didn't do it for fun. Anyway ... too much speculation on speculation. :)
 
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AMD won this round ... intel lowering theHEDT CPU prices to half proved that they were stealing us in the past with their overpriced per core products.

AMD for the next 5 years .. I am Very angry at intel , and even if they made a faster product I will stay with AMD , because AMD is more honest in pricing.

AMD more honest? Well when you have less than 20% of the market and you don't quite have 100% dominant performance you tend to price accordingly.

I guess you were not around when AMDs K8 was top of the crop. I can tell you it was not priced "honest". Hell when they came out with the QuadFX, it was not priced "honest" considering a CPU for less than half the price from Intel killed it in every way.

No, not at all really. FM2+ was AMD's mistake that they learned from and moved away from. It also seems to be the marketing strategy Intel chose to adopt. AM4 and sTR4 are all great and have more going for them than any of Intel's recent sockets.

Yet AMD was the company who threw HEDT level cores at the mainstream market. I have yet to see a scenario where 16 cores is beneficial to enthusiasts. To this day Bulldoze/Excavator is still not better than Core i 2K series and well behind what Intel had out during it.

Now short of needing PCIe lanes memory bandwidth or amounts, why would you buy sTR4? You can get 16 cores for much cheaper.

How exactly is this different from AMD CPUs losing 50% + value within 6-12 months of release?
Doesn't that also prove that AMD is heavily price gouging their tech?
Either that or somehow the free market works on some kind of rules that rely on supply vs demand.

Its not different but remember Intel is the big corporation and AMD is the under dog, or champion of the people.

No matter what happens even if AMD pulls the same things as Intel its always worse if Intel does it because big corporations = bad and smaller corporations = good even if they are both controlled by share holders.

The sad thing is that AMD will absolutely price gouge if they can. If Intel continues to flounder in this market they will price accordingly. They are a company after all and in order to keep going they need profits. They may not have to put money into process tech anymore but they still need to come up with new designs and make them work on whatever process TSMC has at the time and that ain't cheap.
 
AMD more honest? Well when you have less than 20% of the market and you don't quite have 100% dominant performance you tend to price accordingly.

I guess you were not around when AMDs K8 was top of the crop. I can tell you it was not priced "honest". Hell when they came out with the QuadFX, it was not priced "honest" considering a CPU for less than half the price from Intel killed it in every way.



Yet AMD was the company who threw HEDT level cores at the mainstream market. I have yet to see a scenario where 16 cores is beneficial to enthusiasts. To this day Bulldoze/Excavator is still not better than Core i 2K series and well behind what Intel had out during it.

Now short of needing PCIe lanes memory bandwidth or amounts, why would you buy sTR4? You can get 16 cores for much cheaper.



Its not different but remember Intel is the big corporation and AMD is the under dog, or champion of the people.

No matter what happens even if AMD pulls the same things as Intel its always worse if Intel does it because big corporations = bad and smaller corporations = good even if they are both controlled by share holders.

The sad thing is that AMD will absolutely price gouge if they can. If Intel continues to flounder in this market they will price accordingly. They are a company after all and in order to keep going they need profits. They may not have to put money into process tech anymore but they still need to come up with new designs and make them work on whatever process TSMC has at the time and that ain't cheap.

I wasn't around for the K8. But while AMD is offering the better value while Intel raises their prices, I will sing AMD's praises and let everyone know what I think about Intel (on rare occasion.) If the tables turn, then I suspect my opinion will as well.

The market, supply and demand, works both ways.
 

alextheblue

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Kind of like AMD with its FM2+, AM4, and sTR4 eh?
Why would you mention AM4 in the same breath as FM2+? That's just silly. AM4 is the socket that unified everything beneath true HEDT. FM2+ is an old dead socket. So yes, AMD did pull this stupid stunt, but it wasn't in the AM4 era (today). It was back during the AM3+ days. sTR4 as mentioned is true HEDT and would not compete with this hypothetical LGA1200. LGA1200 (if it exists) would slot BETWEEN the regular consumer chips and HEDT, and Intel would thus still need an HEDT platform (a third socket). They would only be splitting the CPUs that compete with AM4 chips among two sockets, as simple as that.

Again, AMD did it before and it was an unpopular decision, I wouldn't recommend Intel do the same.
 

alextheblue

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So is it that you feel that it's acceptable for users to expect their $60 board to support a Ryzen 7 3950X? Or is it the reverse, that you expect users with $60 processors to pay $250 plus for a Ryzen 7 3950X-supporting motherboard?
I don't feel that it is acceptable for those building a system to be total idiots, no. It happens, but I don't think it's acceptable. Nor would I anticipate anyone building their own system around a $60 chip would actually be incompetent enough to think they need a $250 board. I'd much rather have a unified socket for all mainstream desktop chips than to have a supposedly idiot-proof (it's not, some idiot will try and cram an LGA1200 into an LGA1159 board) two socket lineup.
 
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bit_user

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Kind of like AMD with its FM2+, AM4, and sTR4 eh?
No. FM2+ is irrelevant. It's only for legacy systems and ultra-low-end stuff. It's not comparable to what is being discussed, here, which is for chips not even yet released.

As for sTR4, that's just akin to LGA-2066 or whatever. So, no, I don't think you can say AMD is meaningfully subdividing their mainstream, like that.

Are you okay, dude?
 
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bit_user

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I don't think their profit margins were "super high",
Some of their current-gen HEDT chips are literally about 50% the price of the previous-gen counterparts. Since we know Intel wouldn't sell these a at a loss, it means their gross margins were well over 50%. I don't know what's your definition of "super high" margins, but I'm sure that's what most people would call it.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=198017,189126

I think that at the current price they're just trying to pay the cost of keeping their fabs running until they get their die shrink to work.
As demand is still outpacing their 14 nm production, they could've just kept selling the old HEDT SKUs and focused their capacity elsewhere. They didn't have to create new demand by rev'ing a new HEDT series and dropping the price, unless it were actually still quite profitable to do that.

With all the corporate overhead, advertising, distribution and support costs, Intel should be seriously bleeding cash by now.
Intel's last reported quarter set record revenue, though gross margins were down to 58.8%, from 64.5% a year ago. Yes, bleeding indeed. And crying all the way to the bank, wiping its tears with fist-fulls of newly-earned cash.


You know, it's not hard to find companies' financials. You can search out any of these guys on Google Finance.
 
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