Shortages Plague Intel's Coffee Lake Launch

[cryoburner]

Intel only has significant gains at 1080p, and that resolutions days are numbered.

I'm not sure I'd say that "1080p's days are numbered" when fewer than 5% of Steam users currently have a resolution of 1440p or higher...

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Granted, a good chunk of these systems are likely notebooks and older systems, but more accurately, it's not whether you are at 1080p that matters, but whether your graphics hardware can push high enough frame rates to reach these CPU performance limits, and whether you have a screen that can display them. High refresh rate monitors are becoming fairly common for gaming systems, and when someone is playing on a 144Hz screen, a CPU's per-core performance can make more of a difference. Reducing graphics settings to get frame rates in excess of 100fps is also an option, even at higher resolutions, and just because today's graphics cards might have trouble hitting high frame rates in newer games at high resolutions doesn't mean that will still hold true with the cards available a year or two from now.

Certainly, Ryzen has its good points, and I would personally rather go with a Ryzen based system than Kaby Lake, but Coffee Lake makes up for Kaby Lake's biggest deficiency, which is its limited number of cores compared to AMD's processors. AMD may still offer more cores/threads at most price points, along with unlocked overclocking on its full lineup, but Coffee Lake has enough cores combined with higher per-core performance to allow it to perform better in games and many other common usage scenarios. Of course, availability is terrible right now, and it's clear that Intel launched Coffee Lake months earlier than planned, without proper stock available for a launch, so someone needing a system right now might still be more compelled to go with Ryzen. I kind of think a lot of people will be willing to wait though, particularly if they're considering high refresh rate gaming.

 

[InvalidError]

Yeah some good points in there. But I still think 1080p days are numbered. I cannot see that resolution being the dominant resolution going forward

Look at monitor prices. You have 1080p for as low as $80 and then anything above 1080p is $200+ for crappy panels and $400+ for better quality ones with UHD starting under $300, effectively squeezing out all other resolutions. The problem with UHD is that sufficient GPU-power to drive the resolution currently costs a small fortune.

1080p will remain the dominant resolution until UHD becomes even more affordable with better quality panels and sufficient affordable GPU power to drive it. If FHD display prices continue dropping at the rate they've been dropping for the past five years, resolutions between FHD and UHD will be well on their way to extinction within the next three years.

 

[Olle P]

I think some of those who were on the fence between AMD & Intel cpus and cant wait till next year will just go Ryzen now. ...

I'm sure you're correct. The thing is that some of those who can wait are more likely to do so now than if they didn't know Coffee Lake is a good option (if the price is right).