• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Intel to refresh its CPU line-up in Q3 2008

SideWinder said:
More CPUs? Has Intel not released enough yet? :eek:
Click to expand...

The Q9400 is replacing the Q9450 because Intel has learned releasing expensive 12mb cache quad cores when 6mb is enough for most is bad economics.

Seems to me the rush to 45nm was to counter Barcelona, which never materialised, so they are boxing the high cache beasts till they are needed.
Intel has released too much it would appear :p
 
Last edited:
When you look at the prices actually the Q9400 directly replaces the Q9300, and the Q9550 drops to the price of the Q9450.

The Q9300 and Q9450 are dropped altogether.
 
S_D said:
When you look at the prices actually the Q9400 directly replaces the Q9300, and the Q9550 drops to the price of the Q9450.

The Q9300 and Q9450 are dropped altogether.
Click to expand...

You see that makes no sense with my cache theory. I guess they are just shifting things about giving a performance bump rather then a price drop so they can maintain profits.
 
Your theory is based on the whether the chips with 6MB cache are actually different dies to those with 12MB. I thought it was most likely that they were all the same, just with half the cache disabled...

Simon
 
S_D said:
Your theory is based on the whether the chips with 6MB cache are actually different dies to those with 12MB. I thought it was most likely that they were all the same, just with half the cache disabled...

Simon
Click to expand...

I cannot quite get my head round this! Why should they disable half the cache and take less money? I presume that is what is being suggested!
 
Price positioning. They need a CPU to sell at a certain price, and it may well be cheaper to just disable half the cache rather than run a dedicated fab-line for 6mb chips.
 
Cob said:
Price positioning. They need a CPU to sell at a certain price, and it may well be cheaper to just disable half the cache rather than run a dedicated fab-line for 6mb chips.
Click to expand...

That being the case, they could make one specific chip and then say have 3 or 4 price points and lock it in such a way as it cannot be overclocked, no matter what motherboard manufacturers come up with. In fact I read somewhere (cant find the site at the moment) that is what they are doing in the very near future.
 
Last edited:
Well atm it's pretty safe to say that every wafer that comes off the line contains Q9450's, Q9550's, Q9650's, QX9770's and quite probably their 775 Xeon counterparts too. The only difference is the multiplier setting, and that's applied afterwards.
 
By the time the dust settles on the new GFX cards and the CPU prices change, I may opt for a Q9550 in my new rig rather than a Q9450... the slightly higher multi will be a nice bonus when overclocking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom