News Intel hasn't sold a single Arrow Lake CPU at Germany's largest retailer — Core Ultra 200S sales stagnate after just one week

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Shocker, they’ve been on a horrible streak lately. At least the CPUs before Zen 1 weren’t self imploding. They ran hot, and sucked up a ton of power, but they’re still alive and kicking it today. This is Intel’s Zen 1 moment, they’ll have a Zen 2 moment, and hopefully by Zen 3 they’ll sort it out. Using glue to hold chips together is a lot harder than Intel must have thought.

I'd argue this is their Bulldozer moment.

 

[bit_user]

Maybe it has more to do with the fact that all of those processors currently are only listed as Tray processors, not boxed? I've been building PCs for 20 years, and I wouldn't touch a tray processor.

There's nothing inherently wrong with tray processors, as long as you understand they're warrantied by the seller and not the manufacturer.

I used a tray CPU for a prior workstation build, because the Xeon model I wanted wasn't available retail. Luckily, I found someone willing to sell me one and it worked fine for more than a decade.

Now, if I had the option of tray vs. retail boxed of the same exact model and there were only a price difference of a few %, then I'd agree it's probably not worth the risk to go with tray.

 

[YSCCC]

There's nothing inherently wrong with tray processors, as long as you understand they're warrantied by the seller and not the manufacturer.

I used a tray CPU for a prior workstation build, because the Xeon model I wanted wasn't available retail. Luckily, I found someone willing to sell me one and it worked fine for more than a decade.

Now, if I had the option of tray vs. retail boxed of the same exact model and there were only a price difference of a few %, then I'd agree it's probably not worth the risk to go with tray.

But after the RPL disaster I believe a lot will try steer clear of tray intel for quite a while. Considering it isn’t a “if it don’t work I can just throw it away” cheap product

 

[Mama Changa]

Yes launch has been a disaster, but it will get a lot better for the performance of Arrow Lake. Already yesterday JayZ2cent showed huge gaming gains with OC'd e-cores, ringbus and CuDIMM8400 memory. You do not OC the P cores as that hurst performance but E cores can go to 5.1GHz and ringbus to 4.1GHz. Also, if M$ fixes the scheduler, Intel relases fw updates that fix 24H2 performance I'll bet in 2-3 months thins will look a lot better for Arrow Lake. I don't know why anyone would race out for an all new architecture after what happened with Alder Lake release.

However JayZ also hinted that 9800X3D gaming is going to break his charts and will kick the crap out of any current cpu for gaming. But he also got the 285K gaming results abut 14% better on average and in some cases equalled the 7800X3D. Not too shabby.

 

[YSCCC]

Yes launch has been a disaster, but it will get a lot better for the performance of Arrow Lake. Already yesterday JayZ2cent showed huge gaming gains with OC'd e-cores, ringbus and CuDIMM8400 memory. You do not OC the P cores as that hurst performance but E cores can go to 5.1GHz and ringbus to 4.1GHz. Also, if M$ fixes the scheduler, Intel relases fw updates that fix 24H2 performance I'll bet in 2-3 months thins will look a lot better for Arrow Lake. I don't know why anyone would race out for an all new architecture after what happened with Alder Lake release.

However JayZ also hinted that 9800X3D gaming is going to break his charts and will kick the crap out of any current cpu for gaming. But he also got the 285K gaming results abut 14% better on average and in some cases equalled the 7800X3D. Not too shabby.

I watched that clip also, but 2 catch in mind:

1) it need to use CUDIMM, which is adding the cost even more

2) Oc is something not guaranteed to work, especially ring bus, Intel decided to regress the ringbus probably due to the RPL suicide thing, and if one OC it back up to gain the gaming performance back to competitiveness, it's at your own risk.

 

[rluker5]

These cpu with that price tag is doomed.
Motherboard another high cost.
And on Germany the eletric cost a lot more than in other parts of the world.
Here in Brazil a gammer computer can place one third of monthly income only on electricity.

It's why I love these little T cpus. 90% of time the computer is on idle.

Have you seen my occasional, excessively long posts on setting up CPU clock controls in Windows power plans? If you are gaming at 60fps nothing beats the efficiency of down clocking and after you have set up a couple custom power plans it only takes the switching of power plans to do it. I game at ~30w all the time, anybody can that has a decent, recent monolithic CPU.
I just posted that spam in the 285k review even.

 

[Pigpig]

All my friends here in Germany, who build their own PCs, prefer AMD CPUs. Also, since 2019 every PC I've built for family members has always had an AMD CPU. I feel Intel hasn't given me any reason to switch, so like the old saying, "if it isn't broke..."

Your friends maybe most are gamers or students, for office workload or 3d rendering arrow lake is good, I do have both AMd and intel pc, one gaming Use and one working use, 0 sales should be due to inventory issue

 

[Moobear]

All my friends here in Germany, who build their own PCs, prefer AMD CPUs. Also, since 2019 every PC I've built for family members has always had an AMD CPU. I feel Intel hasn't given me any reason to switch, so like the old saying, "if it isn't broke..."

Same here, amd is the smarter choice the longer mb support and efficiency are major these days.

 

[Notton]

Because my current system (AMD) is old enough to need a new motherboard anyway.


Generally, I don't upgrade the CPU within the same socket. By the time I need a new/better CPU, I need a new board as well.

And what if the mobo breaks outside of warranty period? Because I've had that happen with AM4 and replacing it was cheap and quick.

 

[Dr3ams]

Top 6 largest PC hardware retailers in Germany listed in order of net sales:

1. Amazon
2. Apple
3. Notebooksbilliger
4. Cyberport
5. Alternate
6. Mindfactory

source: Statista

 

[SyCoREAPER]

It's a lateral shift. It's both an upgrade and downgrade and makes no sense for anyone on 1700 sockets.

If Intel didnt put these on a new socket, I'm sure it would have at least been received a little better.

That said, they are on a roll. Lackluster even at the price point GPU's, Killing i9's and some i7's, This mess.

Intel, you're in trouble. AMD at least for gamers is pulling ahead. And should Qualcomm or Nvidia join the party, you may become F-Tier.

 

[artk2219]

Zen 5 at least was a minor improvement over Zen 4. Arrow lake is more of a regression, in some ways. It's almost akin to Phenom II vs Faildozer.

Its not quite that bad, its also nowhere near as bad as going from the pentium 3 to the pentium 4, its not the first time Intels been in this situation. Its just the first time they've been in this situation when they've been this weak. At least there are efficiency and ipc gains, bulldozer couldn't claim either of those, they need to work on board and cpu pricing. If they came out of the gate swinging like AMD did with Zen 1 on pricing they could probably sell quite a few of these. We'll see how much room they have to play with on their margins when they start adjusting prices, but I dont think Intel thinks they're at that point yet. For the time being though, long AMD.

 

[popatim]

I wouldn't pin it all on Intel, Mindfactory does not have a single 'Deal' on Intel CPU's but they do have about a dozen deals for AMD... usually you put the slow movers on sale to get them out the door so this smack of an unfair business practice; turning the tables on intel's history. LoL

 

[TheHerald]

Yes launch has been a disaster, but it will get a lot better for the performance of Arrow Lake. Already yesterday JayZ2cent showed huge gaming gains with OC'd e-cores, ringbus and CuDIMM8400 memory. You do not OC the P cores as that hurst performance but E cores can go to 5.1GHz and ringbus to 4.1GHz. Also, if M$ fixes the scheduler, Intel relases fw updates that fix 24H2 performance I'll bet in 2-3 months thins will look a lot better for Arrow Lake. I don't know why anyone would race out for an all new architecture after what happened with Alder Lake release.

Not gonna happen. Performance might be fixed in those few problematic titles but don't expect it to match a 14900k in gaming. Memory latency is just high, period.

Also if you overclock the chip then it might end up consuming as much as the 9950x in gaming, which is a big nono.

 

[Kondamin]

Might have something to do with the economy being what it is.
Vw shutting down plants is going to affect a heck of a lot of job further down the chain and this has been months in the making.

People don’t buy new stuff if they might loose their income.

 

[bit_user]

Have you seen my occasional, excessively long posts on setting up CPU clock controls in Windows power plans? If you are gaming at 60fps nothing beats the efficiency of down clocking and after you have set up a couple custom power plans it only takes the switching of power plans to do it. I game at ~30w all the time, anybody can that has a decent, recent monolithic CPU.

What dGPUs do you and @Amdlova have and how much power do those use, during your gaming sessions?

I'm just asking because it seems to me that CPU power usually isn't the main concern, during gaming sessions.

 

[bit_user]

We'll see how much room they have to play with on their margins when they start adjusting prices, but I dont think Intel thinks they're at that point yet.

Making everything on TSMC is really going to hurt their margins and flexibility on pricing, though.

 

[das_stig]

Another Prescott moment, time for a reboot of the reboot.

 

[TheHerald]

What dGPUs do you guys have and how much power do those use, during your gaming sessions?

I'm just asking because it seems to me that CPU power usually isn't the main concern, during gaming sessions.

4090, around 480w from the wall at the heaviest of games, around 300-320 on more modest games.

I have it power limited to 320watts though. If I run it completely stock power from the wall can hit 650 to 700 in some games.

 

[patkoscsaba]

Meanwhile, here in Romania, I cannot find a 285K to buy. Either preorders with no delivery time, or out of stock everywhere.
And regarding all the reviews and opinions about the 285K, it may not be the best for gaming, I get that, but for all the rest of us, I can't wait to update my computer. And no, I don't play on my computer. But I do software development, lots of compiling, lots of small files processing, occasional video editing and the standard media consumption. And in all these areas, in all the benchmarks I've seen, 285k is king.
And luckily for Intel, about 70% of the PC (laptops excluded) industry is not gaming, but rather office work. So yeah. Intel is for me. AMD for the gamers. No problem. I'm cool with that.

 

[-Fran-]

There's missing information I'm sure Intel won't give out so easily: shipment volume. We'll probably have to wait for PResearch to give their usual numbers for us next quarter and see how Arrow Lake is really doing, or at least provide, what I consider, an important piece of the puzzle to make a final judgement on sales.

If you ask me, since all the tiles are being made in TSMC and they're using Foveros, I'm sure in terms of volumes this is way way lower than previous gens. I could be wrong, but my intuition says otherwise.

Regards.

 

[charca]

Honestly, I think the Arrow Lake series is a good win. Slight regression/even/or even gains while consuming MUCH less power a significant amount of progress from intel. Peaking at 450w+ to <240w is a huge gain in efficiency.

So sad for intel, near same power as the 14th AND half power demand and with no fancy hyperthreading!!. Why all the blacklisting, I cannot understand.

 

[KyaraM]

I am positively convinced, that Mindfactory isn't Germany's largest retailer.

I'm not sure, they are even anywhere near the largest IT retailer in Germany.

They are certainly the one retailer in Germany, who knows how to make themselves look big, e.g. by being generally noisy and publishing their sales statistics.

Do not assume that anything they say about themselves is true just because they are saying it.
That would be like saying that tom's Hardware is the leading news publisher.

They used to lead on prices, but they paid for that via substandard service for several years.
I know because I occasionally suffered the consequences.

They seems to have adjusted both towards a median, while their logistics still suck a bit or just suffer from being in the wrong place logistically.

It kind of funny that their Danish competitors (Proshop) very often beat them on price and time-to-delivery, even though they are 400km further North.

And when it comes to service and speed of delivery, nothing beats Alternate, at least in Germany.

Just my own personal 2 cents...

They aren't. You are correct that Alternate is MUCH larger. So is NBB. And something else people here ignore, or don't know. And I say that as a long-time customer since until recently, they were also cheaper than Alternate, which they aren't anymore, either.

Mindfactory always was, and always will be, very AMD-focused. They do very few Intel-sales. They don't promote any Intel products on their mainpage, and very few Nvidia products; the only thing Intel currently on their mainpage are mainboards, not a single CPU in sight, while there are multiple AMD bundles, and the same in the current deals offers. Despite those CPUs just having launched. They are ALL about AMD. They are literally their biggest seller/promoter in Germany. A website that promotes one manufacturer over another like this simply cannot be taken as a sounding board for overall sales, sorry. It makes for an easier narrative, though. I will ask my source if Alternate sells any of their stock. He won't tell me numbers, but I should be able to tell you if any are sold there. My guess is yes, though.

Edit: An answer just came in. Only thing available are Tray Ultra 7 and 5s yet. Don't know if he can even tell me more, though. Company policy and all that.

 

[dalek1234]

If any body still owes Intel stock, dump it ASAP. Intel will announce last quarter results after market-close today.

AMD has taken more market share from Intel (AMD financial results from two days ago). On top of that, Intel now knows that Arrow Lake isn't going to sell well, so their financial projections for the future will take a hit, too.

I think that Intel is a good stock to short now.

 

[rluker5]

What dGPUs do you guys have and how much power do those use, during your gaming sessions?

I'm just asking because it seems to me that CPU power usually isn't the main concern, during gaming sessions.

With the power consumption I only meant the CPU consumption. Perhaps I should have made that more clear.
Even at a 800mv/1800MHz volt curve my 3080 runs over 200w. My monitor also takes more power than the CPU. My gen 4 NVME and Optane drive also aren't efficient. Where I live in the US power is cheap and my monthly electric, including surcharges generally costs me less than 2 hours, after taxes, of my blue collar wage.

I am not concerned over the cost. For me it is more an acoustic issue and a vanity issue. The acoustic is tangible with my open backed headphones, as my CPU cooler and most of my case fans are tied to CPU temps. And unlike my GPU undervolt, I lose no gaming performance by downclocking the CPU. If I see any stutters or extended frametimes I simply choose a plan with higher clocks. The vanity part is just a nice to have, like having more threads or ram than I need, to look at the CPU power draw and see my 13900kf consuming half the power that my 5775c needs to do the same task when it is capable.

But it is my understanding that some out there have relatively higher power costs. If they are concerned and want to do something about it they should have a choice.