Intel CPU Pricing

[Hodders]

So Intel seem to be in a hard place.

Ryzen is making their performance per £ look terrible. Intel have two responses.....

1) Stick at their current price points and they will just lose market share.
or
2) Reduce prices massively.

If they take option 2 and their financial figures don't suffer to badly then surely they have been guilty of exploiting a monopoly and should be investigated by the FTC ?

 

[ubersonic]

1) Stick at their current price points and they will just lose market share.

Market share loss would be negligible, for tech savvy person who buys a Ryzen CPU there's another 50 walking into a store and buying an Intel based Dell/HP/Apple/etc. Even when those companies start offering AMD machines they will still be outsold by Intel versions that offer less value for money. This is what brand power does for Intel, it was no different when the Athlons were destroying the Pentium III/4's on value.

 

[ben90]

Not the best source I know, but looking at the Youtube comments there are still a ton of people out there buying a 7700k etc or waiting for the next gen Intel chips.

 

[AllBodies]

Not the best source I know, but looking at the Youtube comments there are still a ton of people out there buying a 7700k etc or waiting for the next gen Intel chips.

Yeah part of the problem is the 7700k is still the better CPU for the money for most people, today, right now.

Ryzen 7 is for streamers, editors, professional software usage, and people who see it as a safe bet 8 cores will be used a lot in future.

Ryzen 5 may shake this up though. We'll see.

 

[Columbo]

If they take option 2 and their financial figures don't suffer to badly then surely they have been guilty of exploiting a monopoly and should be investigated by the FTC ?

Investigated why?
Nobody is forced to buy Intel and throughout all of this AMD CPU's were available at a far lower price point. Regardless of their performance AMD's chips were more than capable of fulfilling everyday tasks more than adequately however its not just performance thats hurt AMD it's energy efficiency and power requirements.

Intel has been guilty of anti competitive practices in the past and been fined but that was intel twisting the arm of the likes of HP and Dell. It's no different to Apple with their iPhones and Macbooks that cost peanuts to makes and sell for an inordinate markup, at one point an iPhone cost $99 to make yet Apple were selling at over $600 (iirc)

If the punter is willing to pay, then the corporations will sell it at, they aren't in business to give the punter a bargain but generates profits for their shareholders.

 

[xs2man]

Also, the average punter will mostly be interested in the headline number when walking into Curry's or the like for their PC.

"Well, 4.5 GHz is faster than 4 GHz, so I'll have the cheaper blue one."

 

[Martini1991]

Yeah part of the problem is the 7700k is still the better CPU for the money for most people, today, right now.

Ryzen 7 is for streamers, editors, professional software usage, and people who see it as a safe bet 8 cores will be used a lot in future.

Ryzen 5 may shake this up though. We'll see.

The 7700K and 1700 are the same price. I absolutely can't understand anyone buying into kaby over ryzen, even with the current SMT issue.

 

[humbug]

Market share loss would be negligible, for tech savvy person who buys a Ryzen CPU there's another 50 walking into a store and buying an Intel based Dell/HP/Apple/etc. Even when those companies start offering AMD machines they will still be outsold by Intel versions that offer less value for money. This is what brand power does for Intel, it was no different when the Athlons were destroying the Pentium III/4's on value.

Pretty much, just out of interest i had a look at the Laptops in my Local supermarket, out of 12 on display 2 had AMD A4 chips in them.

AMD need to wing over a lot more mindshare and OEM's.

 

[Martini1991]

Pretty much, just out of interest i had a look at the Laptops in my Local supermarket, out of 12 on display 2 had AMD A4 chips in them.

AMD need to wing over a lot more mindshare and OEM's.

They need more than just budget crap in the laptops.

Since ryzen seems efficient, perhaps finally an AMD ultrabook and higher end tablet can finally be a reality.

 

[humbug]

They need more than just budget crap in the laptops.

Since ryzen seems efficient, perhaps finally an AMD ultrabook and higher end tablet can finally be a reality.

Yeah, they will probably be Vega + Ryzen powered APUs.

 

[Brazo]

The 7700K and 1700 are the same price. I absolutely can't understand anyone buying into kaby over ryzen, even with the current SMT issue.

We're at that difficult juncture where the vast majority of software is optimised for 4 cores and if it absolutely flies along on 4 cores there's little point in having another 4 cores sat there at idle.

If we were having this discussion in 2 years time then I might be saying the same thing but I'm all about performance for the here and now. People's needs of course do vary but I suspect there's very few in here who get involved in heavily threaded applications.

Currently 4 fast cores will beat 8 slower cores if only 4 of those 8 are being used.

 

[maonayze]

I just don't get some of the negativity in these forums against the Ryzen 7 processors. These were designed with productivity in mind and compared against the 6800 and 6900 Intel processors. Bang for buck they destroy the 68/6900. Then lots of people saying that they are no good for games. The thing is they are also good for gaming, but maybe not the best when compared to a processor that is designed to be good at it (Single thread operations). In other gaming tests some say that the Ryzen 7 processors were not the fastest but the overall experience was smoother than Intels and the 7700K suffered a bit of stutter. Personally If I wanted a productivity chip that could give me a good, smooth gaming experience then the Ryzen 7 is what I would buy. For all those who only game then wait for Ryzen 3 & 5. Don't forget that there are a lot of games out there designed with single threading in mind and not only that but they are designed with Intel processors in mind also. What AMD are slowly trying to do is widen the market and get 6/8 core processors out to more people so that game devs will have more of a reason to program for more cores. They are playing the long game and by doing this in the right areas will slowly but surely gain them marketshare.

 

[Armageus]

I just don't get some of the negativity in these forums against the Ryzen 7 processors.

Because some people will buy Intel (or equally AMD/NVIDIA/Playstation/XBOX etc) no matter what (due to brand loyalty). Equally you have the potentially smaller group, who want to buy Intel for whatever reason, but are hoping that AMD being competitive means that Intel chips will drop in price.

 

[humbug]

We're at that difficult juncture where the vast majority of software is optimised for 4 cores and if it absolutely flies along on 4 cores there's little point in having another 4 cores sat there at idle.

If we were having this discussion in 2 years time then I might be saying the same thing but I'm all about performance for the here and now. People's needs of course do vary but I suspect there's very few in here who get involved in heavily threaded applications.

Currently 4 fast cores will beat 8 slower cores if only 4 of those 8 are being used.

Its much too subjective to make blanket statements like that, if all you do is play games, watch youtube and have little interest in future proofing then a 4 core CPU will suit you fine.

However, as someone with an Intel 4 core i'm finding my hobbies which include various productivity work very hampered and extremely laborious, my gaming is also starting to suffer.

A 16 thread Ryzen CPU would be 3 times better for me than my 4690K, i have no doubt my gaming would also get a boost.

 

[Boomstick777]

The 7700K and 1700 are the same price. I absolutely can't understand anyone buying into kaby over ryzen, even with the current SMT issue.

I agree, but brand bias is what Intel have. They basically ruled the roost for past 10 years, so even with a decent alternative, AMD still have a hard time to get people to look beyond bias of Intel's strong brand image.

R7 1700 is hands down the better chip imho, I had a 6770K and now the R7 1700. I would pick the 1700 every time.

Intel's best chip now is the Pentium Kaby lake budget CPU xD The 6 - 10 core range are basically usurped for productivity by the much cheaper and powerful AMD line.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 7700K and 1700 are the same price. I absolutely can't understand anyone buying into kaby over ryzen, even with the current SMT issue.

Because if you are a gamer and that is the most intensive thing you do a Core i7 7700K or probably a Core i5 7600K is still faster especially in many MMOs which tend to be less threaded and based on older engines??

Edit!!

The main issue is AMD botched the launch when it came to gaming.

Even another month or so would have made them look somewhat better.

When a R7 1800X is barely better(or worse) than my Xeon E3 1230 V2/Core i7 3770 in some popular titles based on older engines,it is not really that great looking.

If they had launched the Ryzen 7 CPUs when the first windows patches were released,with less buggier BIOSes,better support for higher speed RAM,etc Ryzen would look much more competitive for gaming as they could gain like 10% to 20% in performance.

 

[Martini1991]

Yeah, they will probably be Vega + Ryzen powered APUs.

Been hearing that for years though about their chip at the time though

 

[humbug]

I just don't get some of the negativity in these forums against the Ryzen 7 processors. These were designed with productivity in mind and compared against the 6800 and 6900 Intel processors. Bang for buck they destroy the 68/6900. Then lots of people saying that they are no good for games. The thing is they are also good for gaming, but maybe not the best when compared to a processor that is designed to be good at it (Single thread operations). In other gaming tests some say that the Ryzen 7 processors were not the fastest but the overall experience was smoother than Intels and the 7700K suffered a bit of stutter. Personally If I wanted a productivity chip that could give me a good, smooth gaming experience then the Ryzen 7 is what I would buy. For all those who only game then wait for Ryzen 3 & 5. Don't forget that there are a lot of games out there designed with single threading in mind and not only that but they are designed with Intel processors in mind also. What AMD are slowly trying to do is widen the market and get 6/8 core processors out to more people so that game devs will have more of a reason to program for more cores. They are playing the long game and by doing this in the right areas will slowly but surely gain them marketshare.

Its all a bit wired, even in its current broken micro code, Alpha BIOS, Windows Patch needing state the performance of the chip (while not as fast in games as a 7700K) is still a very quick CPU, by not as fast i'm talking about averaging 50 FPS less out of 250, really? who runs their games on a Pascal TX @ 720P with all IQ off to get 250 FPS? in this AMD have a point, with a card of that magnitude you don't run 720P or even 1080P, you run 1440P at least,

Besides all of that its becoming clear from those who test this yes the AMD chip is smoother despite lower averages, and the minimum's are higher, isn't that what matters? what's better: 60 - 250 FPS or 90 - 200 FPS?

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Since ryzen seems efficient, perhaps finally an AMD ultrabook and higher end tablet can finally be a reality.

Carizzo seemed alright? I'd have been happy with an A12-9700P ultrabook that came in a decent chassis.
For most laptops out, there always seemed to be a cheaper/same price Intel i3/i5 option with better overall spec.
Hopefully for mobile Ryzen we see some compelling options put out by the big names.

 

[Chrisc]

That is a very good point. Id take a higher minimum any day. I cant quite understand how all of a sudden the difference in 10 or so FPS gives people the power to declare the R7 a failure, i want to believe that these people are trolling but im starting to think this isnt the case.