Was it the Wrong Time to Buy Intel?

[ObscureParadox]

John Carmack has stated that Intel CPU's will still have the advantage, console optimisation or not and that they have the best silicon engineers in the world.
Intel are moving onto 14nm while AMD/Nvidia are still stuck at 28nm.

Would they not be able to move onto the 20nm node or the 14nm FinFet from TMSC when Excavator comes around? Also I seem to remember reading that Broadwell would be pushed back to Q3 of 2014 simply because the manufacturing process would not be ready in time.

These are all rumors of course but it seems plausible all things considered.

What I am more interested in though is the next gen CPUs from both intel and AMD and what sort of IPC increases they will actually bring with them this time around. Hopefully AMD will be able to do a little bit of catching up as they desperately need to now.

 

[David Bisset]

John Carmack has stated that Intel CPU's will still have the advantage, console optimisation or not and that they have the best silicon engineers in the world.
Intel are moving onto 14nm while AMD/Nvidia are still stuck at 28nm.

JC just loves the sound of his own voice. He dreams of when he was in touch.

No-one can tell who'll have the advantage in the future. Right now Intel CPUs are very good and there is no reason to worry about owning one. That doesn't mean future AMD CPUs won't be better than Intel ones, but owning a current AMD CPU wouldn't really help with this hypothetical scenario. Maybe a small saving on a new mobo were the socket to be the same but if this new hypothetical CPU were such a step up likely it'd be a new socket and certainly it'd be pricey so we'd all be looking at a big outlay to take advantage of it.

Edit: If its just about better use of multiple cores to be honest in many scenarios that'd also mean better use of multiple threads (OK, not all scenarios) so i7s will gain against i5s too.

Edit2: Sure, JC has done great things in the past. Doesn't mean he is an expert outwith the tech stack he knows and is comfortable with. He has shown no interest in diversifying, instead becoming increasingly irrelevant. 10 years ago his opinion was one to listen for. 5 years ago you'd give him extra time to justify his point based on his history. Now he is like everybody else - if you don't back up your statements you shouldn't expect them to be taken seriously.

 

[Random Guy]

JC just loves the sound of his own voice. He dreams of when he was in touch.

Please, JC was and will always be "in touch" since Id created Doom, to the Occulus Rift, and long long after.

Your snide remark only puts you in a poor light, making it look like you are moaning about the latest Z-list celeb instead of disparaging one of the geniuses of our age.

 

[PowerPie5000]

I personally wouldn't worry about AMD/Intel CPU performance with future console ports... I'd worry more about nVidia GPU owners as it seems more and more games are getting geared towards AMD GPUs (AMD Gaming Evolved or whatever they like to call it?).

 

[David Bisset]

Edit: never mind, its off topic.

 

[WuMyster]

Well I wouldn't say I'm concerned, more of a matter of wondering what would happen. I am running a 7950 though, more than enough for 1080p and hopefully it'll be a good contender in BF4

 

[Sin_Chase]

AMD sucks in single threaded performance DOES NOT MEAN that Intel will all of a sudden suck when games become more thread friendly.

Intel does highly threaded stuff JUST FINE and will benefit also from games coded to make full use of multi-core/threaded CPUs.

AMD will just benefit more from the disadvantaged position their CPU architecture puts them in now.

 

[kaku]

Multicore performance isn't going to magically skyrocket overnight.

It might be something that could affect your next hardware upgrade (in 3-5 years or so) but buying now for it and kidding yourself you're futureproofing seems silly.