AMD 8 core RYZEN price

[ltron]

It is cheap - you are the one with the entitlement complex. Its like your mate who thinks a 4C/8T Ryzen with Broadwell level IPC(or close) is too "expensive" at £190,which is a blooming joke.

£499 for an 8C/16T CPU is cheap since there has never been a retail 8C/16T CPU at that price ever.

Basically you,your mate and another bloke here,have proven exactly what I said before:



My viewpoint is AMD is better served not bothering with enthusiasts who are more worried about E-PEEN and branding,so in the end I think they should price the chips reasonably highish if they are decent since none of you will ever put your money where your mouth is and buy any of these AMD chips.


OTH,OEMs will be quite happy to get a decent performing AMD chip for less than an Intel one.

AMD should just concentrate on the Zen APUs instead and push those to desktop instead,and only undercut Intel a small amount for enthusiasts if they have competitive IPC and overall CPU performance.

I would rather they secure more commercial and OEM contracts since it will actually improve the mindshare of the company.

This is incorrect re enthusiasts. I as an enthusiast have got two family members ready to put AMD Ryzen in their soon to be built machines if I give the word. Believe me that I will certainly do so if it's good.

Also, when AMD's 4000 and 5000 series GPUs were out and dominating Nvidia on price, performance and power efficiency (particularly the 5000 series) it was the enthusiasts who were buying them according to AdoredTV's research. The less informed consumer was buying Nvidia in droves on brand name. Hence Nvidia won those generations handily despite having inferior products.

 

[eddyr]

If Zen R7 performs the same as 6900K and is 50% cheaper then Intel will be forced to drop their prices, they'll likely just move 6950X to the £1000 mark and 6900K £500 or so. It's not like they don't have a lot of room for manouvre.

I think the trouble AMD will have is that if for whatever reason Intel are still better in some way (ie. faster clock for clock or simply overclock better) then most people at the high end will continue to purchase Intel, those who support AMD will talk about Zen R7 being the better value choice (cheaper motherboards etc) but won't put their money with their mouth is because they generally don't spend that much.

I think the 4-6 core Zen will be what decides if it is a success or not, they'll be more affordable to the masses and probably overclock better than the 8 core.

It's all specualtion at this point though because Zen performance, price, overclocking is all still up in the air.

Yup, for desktop they really need to make sure they get the 4c, or even better the 4c8t, priced right.

There is enough threaded software in common use now (that still likes strong IPC - namely games) where Intel's stagnation has left a opportunity and where AMD have struggled to convince many with their piledriver range. To go from an attempt that convinced some, to no attempt at all at capturing sales from that market is a step backwards.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is incorrect re enthusiasts. I as an enthusiast have got two family members ready to put AMD Ryzen in their soon to be built machines if I give the word. Believe me that I will certainly do so if it's good.

Also, when AMD's 4000 and 5000 series GPUs were out and dominating Nvidia on price, performance and power efficiency (particularly the 5000 series) it was the enthusiasts who were buying them according to AdoredTV's research. The less informed consumer was buying Nvidia in droves on brand name. Hence Nvidia won those generations handily despite having inferior products.

I still don't get the logic that IF(and its a big IF) AMD can get Haswell/Broadwell level IPC on the 8C/16T Ryzen,that a hypothetical £400 to £500 price point would be too much,or a £190 to £230 price point for a 4C/8T one is "too high" when both price-points are much lower anyway than the competing Intel CPUs. Plus what some here don't get,that if someone wants to upgrade from a 4C or 4C/8T Ryzen to a 6C/12T or 8C/16T one they have an upgrade path which socket 1151 lacks and even the next consumer Intel socket lacks.

This is with a pound which has cratered almost 20% since last year.

It really worries me IF(and its a big IF) AMD can deliver on the price points and performance I suggested,that enthusiasts will think Ryzen is "too expensive" and "not cheap" and then spend more on the equivalent Intel CPUs anyway.

At that point the company won't make money,unless they race to the bottom in pricing,and they are screwed. Intel will still make more money anyway and can fight a price war better than AMD will. The fact is they can build more CPUs than AMD,and that will be important leverage they can use.

The pricing I suggested is optimistic pricing if AMD wants to gain decent marketshare,because if they price the top bin any lower it compresses the entire range under it. If we look back,AMD has tended to not massively undercut Intel if they have similar performance CPUs,so my pricing is optimistic.

Plus the top bin is less likely to be available due to yields.

Nvidia releases Titan class cards not only as a Halo to promote the brand,but it also serves to kind of make the pricing levels more spread out. People argued with me about it when the first Titan was released,but we saw what happened with that.

It could be Ryzen is actually much lower IPC,than what we think and probably ends up having to be price reduced out of necessity,so I am not going to get caught up too much with the pre-release hype TBH!

I still expect I will need to budget £400ish for a mini-ITX motherboard and a new 4C/8T CPU when I replace what I have currently,so we will see what next year holds.

 

[spoffle]

Apparently you don't either and proved it:





So with no moaning you will pay like £1000 for an Intel CPU,but if AMD has something similar it needs to be under £400,ie, Core i7 6700K pricing.

It is an entitlement complex you have there - YOU want it to be under £400 yet at the same time quite happily pay much more for an Intel CPU.

Its the same entitlement as your mate - I said £190 to £230 for a Haswell to Broadwell level IPC 4C/8T Ryzen is acceptable in light of 4C/8T K series pricing of £300 to £320 and that was "too expensive".

Personally I don't need a 8C/16T Ryzen,as 4C/8T is plenty for what I do,but I don't think it will be cheaper than a Core i5 6600K/7600K unless it is meh CPU in single core performance,especially when it will be a salvage part of a chip double the size.

You are quite happily paying "Intel broken prices" yet even if AMD undercuts the equivalent Intel CPU by 50% its not enough for you.

If you hate Intel broken prices then why did you bother buying "top end" Intel CPUs at"broken prices" - you should have put your money where your mouth is and not bothered buying a new CPU since SB.

Its no point complaining about "broken Intel prices" then pay them and magically expect AMD to charge a pittance if they have a comparable CPU in many metrics.

Even my view that a Haswell/Broadwell level IPC 8C/16T Ryzen being £400 to £500 is a bit of that entitlement complex by myself too,but I am basing it on AMD trying to gain marketshare by offering a better value comparison to what Intel has.

Also,unless you are on some other planet,BOTH companies have priced relative to each other for nearly 20 years.

So,at this point AMD might as well not bother if "enthusiasts" think this way - it will a race to the bottom for them.

The only way you are going to get a sub £400 8C/16T Ryzen is if it has SB/IB IPC or AMD is feeling generous. Going from the last 10 years of AMD CPU pricing,I think some of you are going to not like the pricing and are going to still buy Intel at every pricing level anyway.

I am bored arguing with you now.

You aren't arguing, you are talking rubbish. AMD needs market share, and they need mass market share. 400 is the at the top end of what most enthusiasts will spend, and their chips need to be linearly priced because they're all on the same platform. They aren't going to get away with charging 400 for their quad core Zen CPU.

The sensible prices would be 200 tops for their quad core, 300 for the 6 core and 400 for the 8 core. The reason Intel has been able to push the price brackets up is because AMD had nothing to compete. So newer faster CPUs went into a new price bracket rather than replacing the previous ones.

You know this so I don't know what you're even moaning about. Additionally, I don't need a Zen CPU. I have a 6700K, a 5960X, a 4930K, 4x 8 core Xeons and another 4 core Xeon. I'd get A Ryzen CPU to support AMD and for fun.

But that doesn't mean I can't recognise that they absolutely must price it sensibly and not use Intel high end pricing as a factor.

Ryzens are all on the same socket and largely the same chipset. There isn't a divide like Z170 and X99. They simply cannot justify trying to aim for X99 prices when everything else is comparable to Z170 (or Z270).

You just aren't making any sense and instead of trying to think about it logically you're just attacking anyone who points out that your reasoning doesn't make sense as having an entitlement complex.

You're also completely missing the point that AMD won't be offering a platform that competes with X99. Sure the CPU might, but as a whole platform no. This puts a choke on the top end price that they can charge because it's not a premium CPU on a premium platform.

 

[bru]

You all need to remember that these Summit Ridge chips that will be the first to be released are not APU's. So that means they will effectively be going up against the £400-£1600 Broadwell E chips, hence why AMD have been showing the 8c16t chip up against the competitions 8c16t chip.

People keep talking about OEM's, just remember that not having an on board GPU discounts an awful lot of OEM contracts right from the start. It will be eth Zen APU's that will full fill that market.

 

[mid_gen]

Given the price you can get a 5820k for that'll clock well over 3ghz on the stock cooler, AMD have gotta release something pretty special to get me interested.

8 or 10 cores @ around 5820k price and a sensibly priced dual-slot motherboard offering....i know a lot of devs that'll be ditching Intel in a flash.

 

[ubersonic]

So with no moaning you will pay like £1000 for an Intel CPU,but if AMD has something similar it needs to be under £400,ie, Core i7 6700K pricing.

I'm not going to give Intel £1000 for a £500 CPU, nor will I give AMD similar.

 

[ubersonic]

Ryzens are all on the same socket and largely the same chipset. There isn't a divide like Z170 and X99.

Well in fairness the 3.2GHz 4C QX9770 and the 2Ghz 1C Celeron 440 were on the same socket and largely the same chipset. But yeah hopefully we will see a return to this and the success of Zen even forces Intel to stop introducing a new socket and five chipsets every 2 years.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not going to give Intel £1000 for a £500 CPU, nor will I give AMD similar.

Except according to some here £190 to £230 for a 4C/8T Ryzen and £400 to £500 for an 8C/16T Ryzen with Haswell/Broadwell level IPC is too much. Yet,the same lot will quite happily pay £700+ for an Intel CPU because reasons.

The same lot will spend £300 on an Intel 4C/8T CPU because reasons,etc.

Then some of you seem to not realise the pound has cratered 20% meaning a proportion of those Intel price increases are not only Intel charging more for smaller chips,but the pound being weak.

But,but Intel charge too much and then pay that price,meaning Intel has ZERO reason to charge less anyway,then if AMD comes with something competitive,they must price it at 30% to 40% of what Intel charges whilst quite happily paying over the odds for a "stupidly priced" Intel CPU.

Its typical before launch,that enthusiasts make up pie in the sky expectations for AMD products and when the AMD product does get released,start moaning the most in all the threads.

Its being done on purpose - if AMD does launch a Core i7 6900K equivalent for £500,then see all the people here saying it NEEDS to be £300 to £400,moan saying its overpriced as an excuse just to buy Intel again,and then cart out a 100s of excuses why the AMD chip isn't decent value and they should spend more on the Intel chip.

So basically reward Intel for higher prices,but penalise AMD if they actually have a decent product.

Its no point expecting AMD to charge peanuts for their CPUs IF(and its a big IF) they are competitive in performance over a wide range of software,etc.
They will be looking at what Intel is doing on the market.

They are not our mates - they want to increase margins,etc not crater them so it affects pricing to larger customers too.

If AMD can't sell a Core i7 6900K equivalent for £400 to £500 which is 40% to 50% of what Intel has charged for that class of CPU in USD for yonks,they should leave the enthusiast market,and limit production of the 8C/16T to commerical and OEM workstation builds,etc.

That will mean more for their image in a positive way.

Most OEMs will be quite happy if AMD can give them a Core i7 6900K equivalent for around half the price. They would probably be happy if AMD even charged 20% to 30% less,especially if the motherboards are cheaper too.

They should the go full speed to get some decent 4C/8T APUs out since these will be mass market and probably be cheaper to make,and AMD has a better stab at getting them into laptops,and not just the cheap crappy ones.

AMD is going to be looking at all those people quite happily buying £300 to £320 Intel CPUs with 120MM2 chips, and all those people quite happily buying £400 to £1000 Intel Core i7 6C and 8C chips.

Intel is pricing the CPUs at what the market will take for them.

Only one set of people are to blame for Intel "high prices" - its the enthusiasts who continue to use whatever justification for such pricing and then buying said products. Its the same with all the people moaning a Nvidia Titan XYZ is overpriced yet they are selling decent numbers of them and yet you see the same people buying the said card for XYZ reasons despite saying the Nvidia Titan XYZ is overpriced.

AMD is not going to drop prices to massively low levels,just because some of you want it that way - if you want prices to go down then stop buying all those expensive Intel chips or just don't upgrade for like 5 years.

In fact it would not surprise me one bit AMD does try higher pricing(but cheaper relative to Intel) and if they sell enough,they will wait for Intel to respond with any price cuts.

Unless AMD is generous,the only realistic way we will see a sub £400 8C/16T Ryzen is if it is a flop. It will be MOAR cores again.

 

[karik666]

I think most people are waiting for the ryzen 4c/8t or 6c/12t cpu,would be great if they could price the 4c/8t cpu about £180 to £200,but we will have to wait and see.

 

[spoffle]

Except according to some here £190 to £230 for a 4C/8T Ryzen and £400 to £500 for an 8C/16T Ryzen with Haswell/Broadwell level IPC is too much. Yet,the same lot will quite happily pay £700+ for an Intel CPU because reasons.

The same lot will spend £300 on an Intel 4C/8T CPU because reasons,etc.

Then some of you seem to not realise the pound has cratered 20% meaning a proportion of those Intel price increases are not only Intel charging more for smaller chips,but the pound being weak.

But,but Intel charge too much and then pay that price,meaning Intel has ZERO reason to charge less anyway,then if AMD comes with something competitive,they must price it at 30% to 40% of what Intel charges whilst quite happily paying over the odds for a "stupidly priced" Intel CPU.

Its typical before launch,that enthusiasts make up pie in the sky expectations for AMD products and when the AMD product does get released,start moaning the most in all the threads.

Its being done on purpose - if AMD does launch a Core i7 6900K equivalent for £500,then see all the people he saying it NEEDS to be £300 to £400,moan saying its overpriced as an excuse just to buy Intel again,and then cart out a 100s of excuses why the AMD chip isn't decent value and they should spend more on the Intel chip.

So basically reward Intel for higher prices,but penalise AMD if they actually have a decent product.

Its no point expecting AMD to charge peanuts for their CPUs IF(and its a big IF) they are competitive in performance over a wide range of software,etc.
They will be looking at what Intel is doing on the market.

They are not our mates - they want to increase margins,etc not crater them so it affects pricing to larger customers too.

If AMD can't sell a Core i7 6900K equivalent for £400 to £500 which is 40% to 50% of what Intel has charged for that class of CPU in USD for yonks,they should leave the enthusiast market,and limit production of the 8C/16T to commerical and OEM workstation builds,etc.

That will mean more for their image in a positive way.

Most OEMs will be quite happy if AMD can give them a Core i7 6900K equivalent for around half the price. They would probably be happy if AMD even charged 20% to 30% less,especially if the motherboards are cheaper too.

They should the go full speed to get some decent 4C/8T APUs out since these will be mass market and probably be cheaper to make,and AMD has a better stab at getting into laptops,and not just the cheap crappy ones.

AMD is going to be looking at all those people quite happily buying £300 to £320 Intel CPUs with 120MM2 chips,all those people quite happily buying £400 to £1000 Intel Core i7 6C and 8C chips.

Intel is pricing the CPUs at what the market will take for them.

Only one set of people are to blame for Intel "high prices" - its the enthusiasts who continue to use whatever justification for such pricing and then buying said products. Its the same with all the people moaning a Nvidia Titan XYZ is overpriced yet they are selling decent numbers of them and yet you see the same people buying the said card for XYZ reasons despite saying Nvidia Titan XYZ is overpriced.

AMD is not going to drop prices to massively low levels,just because some of you want it that way - if you want prices to go down then stop buying all those expensive Intel chips or just don't upgrade for like 5 years.

In fact it would not surprise me one bit AMD does try higher pricing(but cheaper relative to Intel) and if they sell enough,they will wait for Intel to respond with any price cuts.

Unless AMD is generous,the only realistic way we will see a sub £400 8C/16T Ryzen is if it is a flop. It will be MOAR cores again.

Okay, you keep saying that people are buying the CPU. They aren't, they're buying the platform. AMD isn't going to get away with charging X99 CPU prices when the platform is comparable to Z170. This is the part you are completely missing. You don't just get more cores when going to X99, this is why your examples don't work. You get quad channel RAM, more PCIE lanes, more PCIE slots and generally more features specific to that platform.

AMD are trying to push at the mainstream market, so trying to price at the high end when the only thing comparable is just the core count and IPC isn't going to work.

 

[spoffle]

Well in fairness the 3.2GHz 4C QX9775 and the 2Ghz 1C Celeron 440 were on the same socket and largely the same chipset. But yeah hopefully we will see a return to this and the success of Zen even forces Intel to stop introducing a new socket and five chipsets every 2 years.

Wasn't one socket 775 and the other 771?

 

[ubersonic]

Wasn't one socket 775 and the other 771?

You're right I meant QX9770, the QX9775 was the variant for Xeon boards wasn't it.

 

[kieran_read]

Except according to some here £190 to £230 for a 4C/8T Ryzen and £400 to £500 for an 8C/16T Ryzen with Haswell/Broadwell level IPC is too much. Yet,the same lot will quite happily pay £700+ for an Intel CPU because reasons.

The same lot will spend £300 on an Intel 4C/8T CPU because reasons,etc.

Then some of you seem to not realise the pound has cratered 20% meaning a proportion of those Intel price increases are not only Intel charging more for smaller chips,but the pound being weak.

But,but Intel charge too much and then pay that price,meaning Intel has ZERO reason to charge less anyway,then if AMD comes with something competitive,they must price it at 30% to 40% of what Intel charges whilst quite happily paying over the odds for a "stupidly priced" Intel CPU.

Its typical before launch,that enthusiasts make up pie in the sky expectations for AMD products and when the AMD product does get released,start moaning the most in all the threads.

Its being done on purpose - if AMD does launch a Core i7 6900K equivalent for £500,then see all the people here saying it NEEDS to be £300 to £400,moan saying its overpriced as an excuse just to buy Intel again,and then cart out a 100s of excuses why the AMD chip isn't decent value and they should spend more on the Intel chip.

So basically reward Intel for higher prices,but penalise AMD if they actually have a decent product.

Its no point expecting AMD to charge peanuts for their CPUs IF(and its a big IF) they are competitive in performance over a wide range of software,etc.
They will be looking at what Intel is doing on the market.

They are not our mates - they want to increase margins,etc not crater them so it affects pricing to larger customers too.

If AMD can't sell a Core i7 6900K equivalent for £400 to £500 which is 40% to 50% of what Intel has charged for that class of CPU in USD for yonks,they should leave the enthusiast market,and limit production of the 8C/16T to commerical and OEM workstation builds,etc.

That will mean more for their image in a positive way.

Most OEMs will be quite happy if AMD can give them a Core i7 6900K equivalent for around half the price. They would probably be happy if AMD even charged 20% to 30% less,especially if the motherboards are cheaper too.

They should the go full speed to get some decent 4C/8T APUs out since these will be mass market and probably be cheaper to make,and AMD has a better stab at getting them into laptops,and not just the cheap crappy ones.

AMD is going to be looking at all those people quite happily buying £300 to £320 Intel CPUs with 120MM2 chips, and all those people quite happily buying £400 to £1000 Intel Core i7 6C and 8C chips.

Intel is pricing the CPUs at what the market will take for them.

Only one set of people are to blame for Intel "high prices" - its the enthusiasts who continue to use whatever justification for such pricing and then buying said products. Its the same with all the people moaning a Nvidia Titan XYZ is overpriced yet they are selling decent numbers of them and yet you see the same people buying the said card for XYZ reasons despite saying the Nvidia Titan XYZ is overpriced.

AMD is not going to drop prices to massively low levels,just because some of you want it that way - if you want prices to go down then stop buying all those expensive Intel chips or just don't upgrade for like 5 years.

In fact it would not surprise me one bit AMD does try higher pricing(but cheaper relative to Intel) and if they sell enough,they will wait for Intel to respond with any price cuts.

Unless AMD is generous,the only realistic way we will see a sub £400 8C/16T Ryzen is if it is a flop. It will be MOAR cores again.

After reading a couple of pages like this I really don't get why people are calling you out.

I'll be upgrading in the next 2 or 3 months (Core2Duo needs to retire) i've already decided to skip Kaby Lake and get a Skylake if I go Intel because the difference is negligible and it will be cheaper than the newest chip set.

If AMD's Ryzen has negligible difference and is cheaper ill get that.

Frankly I think I have the most common mindset sure Intel has the brand power at the moment but they wont get my sale if they are priced so much higher than AMD. If Intels top is £1000 and AMD comes in at £800 and the performance is the same. LET ME STRESS SAME, not similar people would still buy Intel. Quite simply those people are morons.

Those people however are the blind enthusiasts I don't think even the majority of Enthusiasts are like that, if Ryzen ends up being 1% slower but is 20% cheaper at £800 I would expect MOST enthusiasts would go for that rather than paying £200 more for a extra 1fps in a game or whatever.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Okay, you keep saying that people are buying the CPU. They aren't, they're buying the platform. AMD isn't going to get away with charging X99 CPU prices when the platform is comparable to Z170. This is the part you are completely missing. You don't just get more cores when going to X99, this is why your examples don't work. You get quad channel RAM, more PCIE lanes, more PCIE slots and generally more features specific to that platform.

AMD are trying to push at the mainstream market, so trying to price at the high end when the only thing comparable is just the core count and IPC isn't going to work.

You might want to look at what commercial markets 8C/16T Ryzen is being developed for - its not enthusiasts. Its primarily a server chip being shoehorned into a consumer socket.

Enthusiasts are probably going to get the dribbles of what is leftover,just the same as what all those i7 6800 and 6900 series are. Your examples don't work at all since you don't really know with any authority what the exact specs of the higher end AM4 motherboards will be outside of them being dual channel and quad channel RAM for a lot of what enthusiasts on this forum are buying the CPU for is not adding much - its a holdover from the commerical origins of the chip.

The mainstream CPUs are the Zen APUs being launched sometime at the end of next year. IIRC,they are Zen+(or I could be wrong).

I expect they will eventually displace the 4C and 4C/8T Ryzen CPUs in the lineup.

After reading a couple of pages like this I really don't get why people are calling you out.

I'll be upgrading in the next 2 or 3 months (Core2Duo needs to retire) i've already decided to skip Kaby Lake and get a Skylake if I go Intel because the difference is negligible and it will be cheaper than the newest chip set.

If AMD's Ryzen has negligible difference and is cheaper ill get that.

Frankly I think I have the most common mindset sure Intel has the brand power at the moment but they wont get my sale if they are priced so much higher than AMD. If Intels top is £1000 and AMD comes in at £800 and the performance is the same. LET ME STRESS SAME, not similar people would still buy Intel. Quite simply those people are morons.

Those people however are the blind enthusiasts I don't think even the majority of Enthusiasts are like that, if Ryzen ends up being 1% slower but is 20% cheaper at £800 I would expect MOST enthusiasts would go for that rather than paying £200 more for a extra 1fps in a game or whatever.

Yeah,thanks,not sure either - might be that time of year!

 

[mmj_uk]

The market for 8 cores is tiny which is why Intel charge outrageous prices for 6900K, okay you can argue about FX8350 being cheap but those are baby cores by comparison - they can barely compete with 4c Intel and suffer heavily in lightly threaded situations so there are big drawbacks.

According to Steam 46% of users are on dual core and 48% are on quad core, that's 94% of users on 4 cores or less. There are as many people still running single core than hex core and octa core combined! The bulk of Intel's sales are clearly i3/i5.

When benchmarks come out and people see that 4-6c Zen offers the same performance in 99% of tasks as the 8c that's where the majority are going to be spending their money. Zen 8c might be considerably cheaper than 6900K but it isn't intended to be a mainstream product any more than the 6900K is.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is why I personally think if AMD Ryzen has Haswell/Broadwell level IPC,includes the Wraith cooler(which is more like a £20 to £30 aftermarket cooler),and prices 4C/8T Ryzen at £190 to £230,or basically around Core i5 6600K/7600K level pricing it will do fine. They can even use the PR bumpf you can upgrade to MOAR cores if required.

OFC,its assuming we see Haswell/Broadwell level IPC on average,if it hits more like SB or IB level they will definitely need to use MOAR cores as an argument under £300.

 

[kieran_read]

The market for 8 cores is tiny which is why Intel charge outrageous prices for 6900K, okay you can argue about FX8350 being cheap but those are baby cores by comparison - they can barely compete with 4c Intel and suffer heavily in lightly threaded situations so there are big drawbacks.

According to Steam 46% of users are on dual core and 48% are on quad core, that's 94% of users on 4 cores or less. There are as many people still running single core than hex core and octa core combined! The bulk of Intel's sales are clearly i3/i5.

When benchmarks come out and people see that 4-6c Zen offers the same performance in 99% of tasks as the 8c that's where the majority are going to be spending their money. Zen 8c might be considerably cheaper than 6900K but it isn't intended to be a mainstream product any more than the 6900K is.

I disagree that the market for 8c is tiny.

8c is just priced out of what 99% of the market would pay.

Soon as they fall in price they will be the main market.

5 year sago you could have said the market for Quad Core is tiny now as per your own post they are in 48% of computers.

 

[SiDeards73]

AMD need Market share, they have targeted an aggressive 50% market share. You dont get that by being inferior and the same price as your rival, just does not happen.

If your product is better you can charge similar prices, we believe its not going to be better, ergo then we think the price should be cheaper.

Its simple really...

Now if AMD want to be clever they can turn the CPU market on its head with 1 move, they can beat Intel in core count at every price point.

Intel offer i3, AMD offer an 4/8
Intel offer i5, AMD offer 6/12
Intel offer i7, AMD offer 8/16

If they bring the tiers in like this, if the performance is close enough, if the chips OC well enough, people will buy them. If i said to you, here i can give you a 4770k, or for roughly the same price i can give you double the cores and pretty much the same single threaded performance, what are you likely to buy? only a fool will buy the 4770k.

AMD could really shake the market up here, they could potentially make Intels current line up fairly irrelevant for many people, obviously OEM's who want a IGPU will still need to go Intel until AMD get their APU out, but the i3, i5 and i7's will all be losing mass sales to AMD equivalent chips that offer similar performance and twice the core count.

It did not work with Bulldozer, sure, but everyone knows that Bulldozer was an epic fail, Ryzen so far looks to be a much superior chip.

Of course all of this theorycrafting and speculation is irrelevant if AMD do not have a decent enough chip to be within spitting distance of current Intel offerings.

 

[DragonQ]

I still doubt many would go for 8 cores even if the price was reasonable. Gamers for sure would generally benefit from 4 or 6 faster cores than 8 slower cores right now, with 6 cores probably being the sweet spot for the next few years. It totally depends on how high each SKU can clock. If the 6 cores can get to 4.4 GHz and the 8 cores only get to 3.8 GHz then there's a decision to make. On the other hand, if the 8 core can get to 4.2 GHz then it's pretty much a moot point and all comes down to cost.