Intel CEO says the industry should stop using benchmarks

[krooton]

There was also really no need for a 6 or 8 core gaming CPU back in 2012 as games simply weren't developed with multiple cores or threads in mind.

Which in itself could be a chicken/egg scenario, did Intel inadvertently slow game development by having the market-share and keeping everything in the realm of 4 cores?

 

[Semple]

I think it's a classic case of a company getting complacent because of a monopoly. Intel have basically become a marketing led company designed to make as much money as possible with incremental updates, rather than the engineering powerhouse from a couple of decades back. The lack of any serious competition has helped Intel's complacency. As you say, they've barely innovated, merely copied other people's inventions that have become industry standards.

That's fine if you've got great products being developed and ready to go behind the scenes, your competitors aren't executing, and you're still making a lot of cash. However, when someone like AMD pulls out a better product that's cheaper to make and sold for less, then you are stuffed. Intel has been hit by a perfect storm. AMD with a cheaper, better product, Intel design failures effectively making Intel chips slower or less secure (take your pick), Intel hitting process walls and unable to transition to 10/7 nm. Intel have been caught with their pants down because they didn't look to the future and plan for it, they just kept thinking that people would have to buy what they made because there were no other alternatives, and that just seems to be hubris that will catch you out, sooner or later.

This does sum it up quite nicely.

I am surprised that half of intels board aren't basically stating this.

 

[valerislysander]

Which in itself could be a chicken/egg scenario, did Intel inadvertently slow game development by having the market-share and keeping everything in the realm of 4 cores?

I would say not because of Intel as the majority of the gaming market is on console and so consoles are what limits/progresses game development. In those days PS3 was made with a heavily customised IBM cell chip compared to the x86 machines now as consoles are built much closer to PCs its exciting for PC games development to see 8-core Zen2 in the new consoles.

 

[valerislysander]

@valerislysander You're just parroting Intel marketing in your defence of Intel, there are a lot of 5820K owners out there looking at "high end 4 core gamers" who sure are glad they didn't listen to Intel.

4 Cores CPU's are really cheap to make, that's why Intel tell you you don't need more than that.

True 4 cores are cheaper to make especially back 5-10 years ago and so why make CPUs with more cores that will be vastly more expensive for a mainstream market mainly buying dual or quad cores at that time. And that's my point they did make other CPUs with more cores but the 5820k was a core X release on socket 2011-v3 which I think was the HEDT range of CPU and vastly more expensive to buy compared to the mainstream range. Gaming performance was pretty much the same as the 4 core i7-4770k.

 

[Darujhistan]

Not suprised by anything any company would do or say these days...the vast majority of people arenlt informed enough not to get taken for a ride with most things they buy, especially with tech.

Tried to advise a young lad at work to to consider Ryzen over Intel, knowing full well I'd be wasting my time, just to gauage his reaction first look on his face was "AMD not cool though" which he then vocalized as "Last AMD CPU I bought was crap" I asked when that was it was so long ago he couldn't remember - I said you'll get a lot more bang for your buck and better platform going forward, not stuck on years old tech and 14nm, so he bought a i5 9600K on 14nm, on a low end, dead-end MOBO just because of perception. Could have had an 8 core 3600X for the same price.

You can imagine how the AMD/NV conversation went...so he ended up overpaying for a 2070 as GPU prices are through the roof right now, and with new cards round the corner from both camps, best bit is two weeks after building it he's hardly touched it yet...still NV is faster he says, of course without any context or nuance taken into account.

Can't beat that mindshare/cool factor...

 

[Gerard]

How totally unsurprising, the only metric they barely squeak ahead is low resolution gaming...hence their big focus on gaming in the reviewer kits for the Lava Lake cpu's.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

"AMD not cool though"

I don't understand this uncool image that AMD seem to have.

When I think of Intel I picture corporate board meetings and middle aged businessmen in suits.

When I think about AMD I picture cool and trendy young gamers. You only have to look at their website and YouTube channel to get that impression.

Even the Intel tune in the adverts sounds corporate and clinical.

 

[humbug]

I don't understand this uncool image that AMD seem to have.

When I think of Intel I picture corporate board meetings and middle aged businessmen in suits.

When I think about AMD I picture cool and trendy young gamers. You only have to look at their website and YouTube channel to get that impression.

Even the Intel tune in the adverts sounds corporate and clinical.

A surprising number of people are simply incapable of using their own intelligence to draw their own conclusions and need others to tell them what to think. the 95% follow the 5%.

 

[Darujhistan]

I don't understand this uncool image that AMD seem to have.

When I think of Intel I picture corporate board meetings and middle aged businessmen in suits.

When I think about AMD I picture cool and trendy young gamers. You only have to look at their website and YouTube channel to get that impression.

Even the Intel tune in the adverts sounds corporate and clinical.

I can only go on experience I have had talking to young uns at work about gaming, AMD is like a bad smell to them, they don't like being associated with what they consider the ALDI brand, I don't think VFM even comes into it, it's very much peer and image led. Very much the same thing with NV. One of them said NV ews faster for gaming and that Quadro and Titan cards proved it, AMD was nowhere near, which at the extreme end and the halo 2080ti they're right, one said he'd rather pay £100 more for a 2070S than an XT even if performance is near-as-makes-no-difference the same.

I just buy whatever is best VFM but I think that's much more an appealing concept as you get older over what whatever "cool" seems to be when you're younger.

 

[Troezar]

Hardware always leads software. With no competition Intel held back slowing the progression of software. Iirc back in the day AMD were pushing more cores, introducing 64bit processors and now really pushing multi core CPU's for cheap. If they hadn't done all this how was anyone supposed to develop software that could utilise the extra resources?

AMD have been innovators, they've made mistakes. Intel have been sharper businessmen, better marketeers, larger and more ruthless. That kept them ahead, in an age of greater transparency and a smarter AMD Intel are struggling to break out of their torpor. I would give their engineers free rein and fire half the marketing people!

 

[smilertoo]

Intel have always been the safe option, their size meant that anything new would run on intel.

 

[McstylisT]

It’s a very strange comment from him. Although I agree it’s not real world performance, like actually doing tasks on the PC, it’s a bit of a cop out in my comprehension.

 

[NinjaCool]

Intel Afraid of Benchmarks, Corsair PSU Recall, Incognito Mode Data Tracking

"Intel wants you to base your judgment of a product on how magical it is and how it makes you personally feel as if emotions affect the performance of the product"

 

[Stu999]

Intel marketing people will be beside themselves this morning. I bet they’ll walk back this statement in the next week.

Fairly ridiculous thing for the guy to come out with.

 

[holdin09]

A friend of mine recently upgraded his PC and isn’t very knowledgable about hardware, he had an i7 7700 (non k) and 1070. He never even considered AMD until I suggested it, which shows intel still has mind share.

But thanks to my recommendation he now has Ryzen 3800x and couldn’t be happier with it and saving some money. The 3800x destroys anything intel and especially for price. No wonder the CEO is saying this.

 

[~>Dg<~]

the problem is statements made bias or unbiased make many things lean one way or the other. often different from reality.

for eg above. my mate had a 7700. its a non k but a 7700k overclocked in 99 percent of games will still beat anything amd at the moment.

the 3800x destroys anything intel has for the price. no it doesnt and is actually slower than some intel cpus at the same price. this is why you just do your research and just be happy with what you buy for your purpose.

 

[holdin09]

the problem is statements made bias or unbiased make many things lean one way or the other. often different from reality.

for eg above. my mate had a 7700. its a non k but a 7700k overclocked in 99 percent of games will still beat anything amd at the moment.

the 3800x destroys anything intel has for the price. no it doesnt and is actually slower than some intel cpus at the same price. this is why you just do your research and just be happy with what you buy for your purpose.

The 7700k may clock higher but it doesn’t beat it in 99% of games like you say. Also I was talking about a non k.

 

[Phixsator]

I can only go on experience I have had talking to young uns at work about gaming, AMD is like a bad smell to them, they don't like being associated with what they consider the ALDI brand, I don't think VFM even comes into it, it's very much peer and image led. Very much the same thing with NV. One of them said NV ews faster for gaming and that Quadro and Titan cards proved it, AMD was nowhere near, which at the extreme end and the halo 2080ti they're right, one said he'd rather pay £100 more for a 2070S than an XT even if performance is near-as-makes-no-difference the same.

I just buy whatever is best VFM but I think that's much more an appealing concept as you get older over what whatever "cool" seems to be when you're younger.

The last young person I talked to was a guy I sold my LG 34uc88 to on the used market. He couldn't have been more than 18-19. However, when I showed him the monitor in action including the specs through Radeon Settings he went: "AMD? Solid choice". Now I'm sure he was referencing my r5 3600 and not my Vega 64 however I was still flabbergasted

 

[~>Dg<~]

The 7700k may clock higher but it doesn’t beat it in 99% of games like you say. Also I was talking about a non k.

a 7700k overclocked will in majority of games still be quicker than anything amd out now. thats not including new cpus like 8700ks 8086k 9700ks they all faster. then you got 9900ks and quicker. as said this is the problem .

amd cpus are basically same as single core performance 8700 non k version. the thing is 7700s normally clock a lot more. so anything amd is behind though in games. thats not a debate its just true.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

anything amd is behind though in games. thats not a debate its just true.

Surely it's games that are behind for not properly supporing AMD's high core count. Ryzen is the better product and thats not a debate its just true.

Intel needs much higher frequency to beat AMD in single threaded workloads due to AMD's higher IPC.