AMD Loses Value Crown - Best CPUs of 2021, December Edition

Mart82 · 18 Dec 2021 at 21:14

Cyber-Mav said:
Looks like Amd lost this year. Maybe they can try for the next

Sure if the year starts in November....
As good as the competition is for consumers it's not THAT impressive for Intel to take the crown a full 12 months after Zen 3 came out. 3d V Cache is due in the next couple of months which may very well defeat Intel for most of 2022 as well....

Twinz · 19 Dec 2021 at 03:19

I'm glad to see Intel is competing again and I hope AMD understand the situation they are in.

I think AMD *can* compete, but I'm not sure they realize that they need to.

Vulture · 19 Dec 2021 at 03:25

From what i see AMD is leading in cpue sales in every major IT retailer, money is the only thing that matters, and they are still winning in that.

Joxeon · 19 Dec 2021 at 07:29

Mart82 said:
Sure if the year starts in November....
As good as the competition is for consumers it's not THAT impressive for Intel to take the crown a full 12 months after Zen 3 came out. 3d V Cache is due in the next couple of months which may very well defeat Intel for most of 2022 as well....

We are talking value crown here right, this is something AMD have not had since Zen 3 released over a year ago and I do not think Vcache will be value for money either.

Game · 19 Dec 2021 at 09:26

if anything Vcache will be a premium product

jigger · 19 Dec 2021 at 10:32

Twinz said:
I'm glad to see Intel is competing again and I hope AMD understand the situation they are in.

I think AMD *can* compete, but I'm not sure they realize that they need to.

AMD are dominating Intel in all the markets AMD are active in. For AMD to really compete they need to grow massively, increase production and enter new markets.

In the CPU space Intel only have a handful of products that are relevant and you can’t maintain a competitive company of Intels size with a handful of products that barely yield a profit.

Twinz · 19 Dec 2021 at 12:52

Gondar said:
From what i see AMD is leading in cpue sales in every major IT retailer, money is the only thing that matters, and they are still winning in that.

Intel was leading until they weren't too. AMD must understand how this works considering they were on the other side of this dance for years.

AMD doesn't have to compete if they don't want to. Intel seems to be competing now, so I can just spend my money with them if AMD doesn't want to work for it.

jigger · 19 Dec 2021 at 13:01

Twinz said:
Intel was leading until they weren't too. AMD must understand how this works considering they were on the other side of this dance for years.

AMD doesn't have to compete if they don't want to. Intel seems to be competing now, so I can just spend my money with them if AMD doesn't want to work for it.

You can spend money with Intel to a point in subsections of the desktop market and even then Intel aren’t a great proposition.

Twinz · 19 Dec 2021 at 13:18

jigger said:
You can spend money with Intel to a point in subsections of the desktop market and even then Intel aren’t a great proposition.

If I get better performance for less money, *my position* is better.

jigger · 19 Dec 2021 at 13:32

Twinz said:
If I get better performance for less money, *my position* is better.

You might do depending what you buy, but Intel are extremely limited in what they can offer.

LePhuronn · 19 Dec 2021 at 14:04

It does make me chuckle that the "value segment" argument only came into play when Intel were on the back foot. So many people shouting "if you want the best, you have to pay for it" when defending the ludicrous prices of every single Skylake rehash, but the second AMD outright destroyed Intel at everything with Ryzen 5000 and charged accordingly (and still cheaper than Intel) everybody's crying about how AMD are taking the mickey, abandoned the value market and other such tripe.

It was fine (and valid) to extol the virtues of the 9400F, 10400F and 11400F with a B-series motherboard as a true value champion, but the 2600 and 3600 were laughed at for being exactly the same thing.

Still, Alder Lake is the first time I can remember ever when Intel have a superior product and charged less money for it, but still the diehards, blowhards, fanboys and children keep banging on about value as if the situation is black and white.

It's not.

MartinPrince · 19 Dec 2021 at 14:33

LePhuronn said:
...It was fine (and valid) to extol the virtues of the 9400F, 10400F and 11400F with a B-series motherboard as a true value champion, but the 2600 and 3600 were laughed at for being exactly the same thing.

Still, Alder Lake is the first time I can remember ever when Intel have a superior product and charged less money for it, but still the diehards, blowhards, fanboys and children keep banging on about value as if the situation is black and white.

It's not.

Now who is using "contentious language to sway a point"!

I don't know of anybody who laughed at the 3600 which was seen as a great all-round value CPU - oh, maybe one person with the name Dave but that doesn't really count.

Vulture · 19 Dec 2021 at 15:34

Twinz said:
Intel was leading until they weren't too. AMD must understand how this works considering they were on the other side of this dance for years.

AMD doesn't have to compete if they don't want to. Intel seems to be competing now, so I can just spend my money with them if AMD doesn't want to work for it.

You can spend money on anything you want, but people in general spend more money on AMD, that's why i post sales result that shows that AMD is still leading in that deparment.

cliffy · 19 Dec 2021 at 16:22

I think when 3D Cache is released it will just replace the current products in there respective price brackets and bump the current processors down a level. So maybe 5950X 3d @ £750 and 5950x @ £600. I would guess AMD have let Intel have the value crown as they just do not need to compete in that area at the moment as their sales figures clearly show. I think they probably had a value option on their internal roadmaps but due to shortages and strong sales just did not bother. I have 2 Intel and 1 AMD systems in teh house but i do not see Intel catching AMD for a few years yet, i do not count a couple months of performance crown as catching AMD. Raptor Lake and Zen4 should be out at roughly the same time, that should give us a good indicator of how far apart the 2 are

Twinz · 19 Dec 2021 at 18:24

Gondar said:
You can spend money on anything you want, but people in general spend more money on AMD, that's why i post sales result that shows that AMD is still leading in that deparment.

My point is that the market can and will move. The market moved away from Intel, and it can move away from AMD. It all depends on what the two companies do.

Intel sucked while AMD innovated and here we are. If AMD operates as if the market is set in stone with them on top, they will suffer the same fate.

It's as if we have learned nothing from Intel's downfall.

Destination · 19 Dec 2021 at 20:39

Game said:
good for them

but that has bugger all to do with how much value to me something is

Well, it rather did for about 10 months of the year, if they lose the crown at the very end, then arbitrary dates don't really mean much.
It'll be interesting to see if Intel can retain their crown against themselves when they launch their own budget 12th gen.
We might find its a case of buy 12400 or 12700 and simply forget about the rest altogether.

LePhuronn · 19 Dec 2021 at 20:46

Destination said:
We might find its a case of buy 12400 or 12700 and simply forget about the rest altogether.

That seems to be the way it's going to go. Pretty much every review has said the 12700K makes the 12900K pointless, owners on these forums echo that sentiment. If 10th and 11th gen are anything to go buy, budget-conscious price points will rule the 12600K out since it won't offer enough over the 12400F to warrant the premium.

And to be honest, I think Intel will be fine with that. The 12900K will still sell to those with cash to burn and the epeen crowd who simply must have the top SKU, and the 12600K will be the go-to SI chip for Intel systems. If the DIY space flock to the 12400F and 12700K then Intel have all bases covered.

Vulture · 19 Dec 2021 at 21:07

Twinz said:
My point is that the market can and will move. The market moved away from Intel, and it can move away from AMD. It all depends on what the two companies do.

Intel sucked while AMD innovated and here we are. If AMD operates as if the market is set in stone with them on top, they will suffer the same fate.

It's as if we have learned nothing from Intel's downfall.

I doubt AMD will make same mistake, Lisa Su is smarter than that, they can't afford being sloppy.

Joxeon · 19 Dec 2021 at 22:58

MartinPrince said:
Now who is using "contentious language to sway a point"!

I don't know of anybody who laughed at the 3600 which was seen as a great all-round value CPU - oh, maybe one person with the name Dave but that doesn't really count.

No one complained about the ryzen 3600 and 3700X as they gave consumers excellent price to performance and while Zen 3 was a step forward in performance it ended up being 2 steps back in price to performance.

LePhuronn · 19 Dec 2021 at 23:32

Joxeon said:
...and while Zen 3 was a step forward in performance it ended up being 2 steps back in price to performance.

And here's one of them I insinuated with my comment.

Nobody gave 2 hoots about price/performance with Skylake and its rehashes, but the second AMD regain dominance and compete on merit, rather than by undercutting the price of their inferior hardware, it's suddenly a serious issue.

Please stop your literal whinging over this every single time Ryzen 5000 comes up. You want the best, you pay for it. For better or worse, if it's good enough for Intel, it's good enough for AMD. End of.