Is Intel Slowing Down in the Enthusiast Market?

[thismafiaguy]

It's been years since Intel really had to compete with AMD in the enthusiast PC market. Intel's CPUs have been heaps and bounds ahead of AMD's CPUs in terms of raw processing power. It makes sense to slow down now that there's no need to rush, and focus on other things that are potentially more profitable. I believe this is the approach Intel has taken with the new Haswell CPUs. For enthusiasts, it almost seems like Intel just sat around and did next to nothing for the past year, which is quite disappointing. But Intel opened new doors with Haswell's improved power efficiency and onboard graphics. Haswell based chips are now applicable to more devices in more markets, that's where Intel is now digging for gold.

In the PC gaming market, CPUs are already much faster than what is needed to play the latest games. Most of the gaming market in general are still made up of consoles, so developers are obviously going to develop their titles around consoles to satisfy the greater audience. It's just the unfortunate truth. PC gamers are outnumbered quite badly. Not many people would want to spend the money to build a decent gaming rig and upgrade it every other year when they can just buy a PlayStation for $400 that will last 6 years. My GTX 670 was about $400. it didn't include the rest of the system, and I don't think in 3 years it will still be well suited to play the latest games.

It's undeniably more expensive to go with PC gaming, but I do it because it's just more fun to build something I can use everyday, something that can be unique and inspire imagination like a pile of Lego. I constantly wonder about the crazy water cooling loops I can do in my dream build. I don't think I'm switching to consoles anytime soon.

Back to the topic of Intel, do you think AMD is finally beginning to catch Intel? One slow step from you is one fast step for the guy behind you. I think the upcoming Steamroller CPUs will further close the gap. I'm still trying to decide whether to go with Ivy-bridge or Haswell for my Mini-ITX build, and for some reason I just don't think either generation is worth its cost. There needs to be some AM3+ socket Mini-ITX motherboards, seriously.

 

[Lord_Kitty]

We've reach a point in CPU development where clock speeds cannot be increased further and adding more cores would not make a big difference.

Intel and AMD will have to change the way our current CPUs because we've reach a limit of what they can do with a piece of silicon.


We can't really know what will happen next. APUs might be the future. A few big cores for the tasks that need more power, smaller GPU cores for the tasks that are highly parallel. Maybe in a few years, the term GPU won't be used, especially in APUs. The new APUs that AMD will release by the end of the year, which will be in the PS4 will be able to share task between the CPU and GPU cores for better processing efficiency.

This might be the next big step in CPU evolution.

 

[phyco126]

So long as Intel (and AMD) continues to advance somewhere, I can stand a little slow down in speed advancements. Lower energy, cooler running, better integrated graphics....

What I do NOT like, is that AMD's inability (and unwillingness) to go toe to toe with Intel has allowed Intel to raise their prices for their new processors. That I hate. I remember when the E8400 came out - it was significantly less than the E6850 and still faster. Now when Intel releases a processor to trump the last one (like 3570K against 2500K, and 4670K against the 3570K) they just keep upping the price. Price cuts also seem to be taking longer as well.

 

[Mahisse]

I truly believe that APUs are going to be the future of processors. Especially when it comes to gaming. That is where we will see bigger performance steps. It will be an interesting development because AMD seems to be leading on this area.

I believe that consoles though may be moving into an area in the future to appeal to the PC gamers. If you take a look at the Steam Box (Valve's console project) there is talk about (not sure if fully confirmed) that it's hardware will be upgradeable like PCs. I am personally looking forward to that as a PC gamer.

 

[varun706]

AMD really needs to step up its game so as for a proverbial spank on Intel's behind.

Intel is turnin' lazy because it knows it's CPU's currently outmuscle it's rivals.

I really hope Steamroller brings something really tasty to the plate.

 

[Fox_]

We won't see anything good in the mainstream until Skylake probably. On the really high end, Ivy-E looks boring but Haswell-E looks exciting, but that won't be out for awhile. AMD does not seem to be catching up unfortunately.

 

[thismafiaguy]

Perhaps the next-gen consoles will begin to close the gap since CPUs can't get much faster, and we might see more advanced games that will fully utilize the hardware. I heard the PS4 will be using AMD 8-core processors? If that's the case, gaming CPUs with more than 4 cores might finally start making sense. And with Intel's new approach towards efficiency and integration, maybe someday we'll see phones with mini Core i7 chips in them. As for my Mini-ITX build, I think I may step it down to a Core i5 to remedy the cost issue.