I would like to flip Intel the bird, a la Linus flipping off NVidia

[colonelciller]

Sorry I keep post spamming here, but thank you. I *am* a "tiny minority" - in fact I may be the only one on the thread. I want low to average CPU performance with a solid IGP. Lol. AMD gives me that, Intel *almost* does but not quite.

In for a penny, in for a pound i guess... I... just... cant... stop... commenting.

I think there is a market for the CPU you describe... it would be the ideal Home Media Server cpu.

a pentium (or even lower performing CPU) with integrated graphics (for decent performance on basic server tasks requiring GUI interface). My guess is that this is why many people go with AMD for home media servers.

 

[daveybrat]

Here's my take on this....

I sell a lot of these processors at work:

Intel Pentium G2120 Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz LGA 1155 Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80637G2120

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116777

This cpu is $79.99. NOW, if Intel offered this exact same cpu with integrated HD 4000 graphics instead of the standard 'HD Graphics', i'd gladly pay $99.99 for that same cpu.

I know i could upsell that cpu with my customer's. I know it'll never happen, but come on Intel....*sigh*

 

[Dark Shroud]

If you want to game - and I mean really game - get a dedicated GPU and an i5.*

If you don't want to game get any basic Intel CPU, even a Celeron for a basic box.

Or they can buy a quad core AMD A6 and get decent CPU performance with a better IGP. For not much more said person can buy a better quad-core A8 with a solid IGP.

Not to mention the FX-6300 is plenty respectable for budget gaming and is often on sale. Not as good as an i5 but certainly better than the i3 to pleny of people will recommend.

If you want a workstation, you probably want CUDA, so you go Nvidia anyway, or for basic video encoding, a quad is fine. GPU acceleration isn't exactly required and the quality compared to software encoding is pretty poor.

Depending on the work station needs AMD's FX chips are better for multi-threading anyway. AutoCAD and video encoding are two specific points here. CUDA requires work stations cards or Titian to have an actually performance boost. Companies like Adobe are switching to OpenCL so CUDA isn't as important as it was for a fair amount of software.

If you go AMD you are stuck with crappy CPU performance comparative to Intel but a decent iGPU, trade off for me isn't worth it. You use a PC nearly every day, the Intel $$$ difference will pay itself off in the long run.

You seem to be confused, Intel isn't cutting him a check, he's paying them. Piledriver is fast enough and AM3+ will have a Steamroller option. Not to mention AMD APU's crossfire with stand alone cards. That alone can be a real money saver, especially with the Richland refresh.

As to the whole HD 2500 vs 4000, neither are that good for gaming anyway. Get a dedicated card.*

* By dedicated card I mean something decent, like a 7850 1GB minimum.

Not everyone has the money to do that. Richland APUs are will be on the market shortly and they do have some performance improvement. They still have over clocking options as well.

More importantly they have more hybrid crossfire options. We probably won't see real gains/support until Kaveri later this year that has GCN instead of VLIW4. That doesn't change the fact that an APU with over an clocked IGP and 1866 ram will get a noticeable improvement over stock. Intel has none of this on their low end.

By all means buy AMD and a comprised chip. You are a tiny minority that doesn't really affect Intel anyway.

Oh come on, that's just sad. The performance gap is still there but closing with new multi-threaded games. Which doesn't mean much when a person has a cruddy Celeron or Pentium duel core that was recommend to them from people like you.

AMD has their Trinity refresh, Richland, out now with Kaveri coming out later this year.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Ultimately, both AMD and Intel are out for our money--nothing more. IF they could get away with merely rebadging CPUs and have crappy customer service and still make a profit, they would. They each have an entire department running simulations and scenarios: how will customers (LARGELY OEMS AND NOT ENTHUSIASTS), react to X price if the next generation Y product increases by Z% performance and W decrease in power consumption; how likely it is that they meet these goals; how much it will cost to get to a certain level of performance; how much it costs to have good customer service and how much that will impact the buying rate (in this case, enthusiasts), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. They run simulations until they reach a model that seems accurate, and then use it to see what products the market will bear at what prices.

So of course they segment their product line more and more artificially. Desktop enthusiasts are largely willing to bear the cost, because AMD is still playing catch-up in raw power. OEMs buy ever cheaper and more limited chips because the uneducated masses don't know what they're getting--the same reason you see a i7-3930K and a GTX 660 in the same overpriced Alienware box--and the "OMG-MOAR-CORES-AND-GHZ" is the only way many consumers know how to buy.

The economic machinations of companies that large are simply staggering. And all these machinations are to make them money. Why else would someone start and continue to run a for-profit business.

 

[frozentundra123456]

If you want to game - and I mean really game - get a dedicated GPU and an i5.*

If you don't want to game get any basic Intel CPU, even a Celeron for a basic box.

If you want a workstation, you probably want CUDA, so you go Nvidia anyway, or for basic video encoding, a quad is fine. GPU acceleration isn't exactly required and the quality compared to software encoding is pretty poor.

If you go AMD you are stuck with crappy CPU performance comparative to Intel but a decent iGPU, trade off for me isn't worth it. You use a PC nearly every day, the Intel $$$ difference will pay itself off in the long run.

As to the whole HD 2500 vs 4000, neither are that good for gaming anyway. Get a dedicated card.*

* By dedicated card I mean something decent, like a 7850 1GB minimum.

By all means buy AMD and a comprised chip. You are a tiny minority that doesn't really affect Intel anyway.

I agree, except your definition of a "decent" gpu is a bit high. I have a HD7770 and am happy with it. I have to compromise at 1080p, but it is far ahead of any igp.

APUs are basically in limbo or suited for a small niche. They are probably nice for HTPC uses, but I am not really into that. Otherwise, they are more than you need for everyday use for 90+ percent of users, but not really adequate for someone who wants to game or do other graphically intensive tasks.

Edit: I would not necessarily call AMDs cpu performance "crappy" either. The quad APU are adequate cpu wise, but the IGP offers no compelling reason for buying to me.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Customer satisfaction is something that company's only care about because they can make, or lose, money because of it. Customer satifaction is simply another parameter to optimize in the pursuit of profit.

That is different if you are a charity, religious organization, or otherwise just a generally swell guy who earnestly cares about the customer who came into his shop.

long-term business generally hinges on customer satisfaction. Companies only looking for short-term profit are exactly what's wrong with corporate America these days. (offshoring, etc.)

 

[DominionSeraph]

A business trying to make money? How dare they?

I've done hundreds of builds and never once has the performance of the Intel IGP factored into the equation. Even its very presence is minor for any build with a discrete GPU -- I will happily spec processors without it when the price is right. Intel fully enabling the IGP on the entire lineup would only displace low end GPUs and AMD APUs, it wouldn't compete with their own higher-end processors because you don't buy Intel CPUs for their gaming graphics.

 

[Greenlepricon]

Besides in laptops and at school I've never dealt with igpu's. There is always a discrete card in my box. With that in mind, I don't actually know anybody who owns an APU, but I know plenty with Intel's igpu option. It's definitely unimpressive to say the least. I understand that it's not free for Intel either and they like profits as much as anyone else, but come on. Haswell will hopeful knock this problem out the door.

 

[2timer]

Intel is definitely playing as a monopoly. However, in terms of price/performance, you can get a Pentium G860 for $68, and a GTS 640 for $90. You'd pay $158 total--roughly $30 more than the $130 A10 5800K Trinity, which makes for a 21.5% increase in price.

If you look at Anandtech's comparison, you see that it's a roughly 19-25% performance increase, in terms of frames per second in games, over an A10 as a combo (the single threaded performance of a Pentium G860 and an A10 is roughly equal).

So you do get what you pay for in terms of gaming performance, at least at these budget levels. I'll admit, however that the extra cores and overclocking ability of the A10 do make it a more compelling buy for most uses over the Intel + dGPU combo.

True you get a 20% increase, but so? For what games? Does the A10 make any game unplayable where the G860 + a 640 does?

You can't point out frame rate alone as the end all metric here. I would rather play a slightly smaller pool of games, and have my CPU and GPU on one small chip, than have a slightly larger pool of games and have a big desktop graphics card to mess with.

 

[meloz]

Seriously Intel, seriously? The market segmentation on your HD Graphics is appalling.

With Haswell Intel are taking first steps to sort the mess out. HD 4600 throughout the range (for desktop), there is a minor difference in clocks. The difference in clock speeds is small enough that I think that it is necessitated by binning for high yields and power consumption, and not artificial "featurizing".

It's a shame that you can't even put mid level HD Graphics on a Pentium processor. And I can't think of any reason for that, except pure greed.

Most Pentiums and Celerons you see on sale today might be chips that were not good enough to be Ivy or Sandy Bridge. Born with defects. Instead of throwing them away, Intel sell them cheaply (cheap for them, I guess) and make some money.

My guess is that, if past experience is any guide, with Haswell GT2 graphics will only be available at $125. And for that Intel, f*** you. AMD is getting my business from now on.

Good for you, us Linux users do not truly have any option since Intel is the only one with proper open source drivers. AMD and nvidia have binary blobs, every little upgrade is an adventure with them.

You have also misunderstood Linus' "F*** you". It was not because of how nvidia price or segment their hardware, which is your major gripe with Intel. It was because nvidia have went out of their way to cripple support for open source, while sucking up to Microsoft.

Intel's Linux drivers might suck bit worse than Windows, but at least they suck more or less uniformly across platforms. And they at least make effort to release official open source drivers.

 

[Sleepingforest]

True you get a 20% increase, but so? For what games? Does the A10 make any game unplayable where the G860 + a 640 does?

You can't point out frame rate alone as the end all metric here. I would rather play a slightly smaller pool of games, and have my CPU and GPU on one small chip, than have a slightly larger pool of games and have a big desktop graphics card to mess with.

You're often going from around (and these are all averages) 40-50 frames per second to over sixty in pretty much every GPU bound game, at a resolution of 768p or 1680x1050p with high settings. If you looked at the link I provided, you'd have seen this is the case--Dirt 3, Starcraft II, Crysis, and Metro 2033 all have a 20% to 40% increase in frames, often from sub-60 frames per second. More CPU-bound games, like Shogun 2, Civilization V, and Skyrim still show a small improvement (around 10%, often from 50 to 55 frames per second). It's not impacting the pool of games you can and can't play, but the quality of your visual experience.

Also, it's not a "big" graphics card. The GTS 640 is meant for HTPCs and other small form factor cases. Please, before you criticize what I say, actually look through the links (unless, of course, you just came here to shoot me down).

I am not saying that Intel is 100% superior. I'm saying that you get what you pay for. AMD offers the best gaming experience for $130--no debate from me on that. ANY low cost CPU (Intel or AMD) plus a GPU offers a roughly 20% (noticeably better, not just in benchmarks) stronger solution for 20% more money. That's a sign of competition--the quality you get scales well with how much you pay. And they do compete at the budget end.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Intel is definitely playing as a monopoly. However, in terms of price/performance, you can get a Pentium G860 for $68, and a GTS 640 for $90. You'd pay $158 total--roughly $30 more than the $130 A10 5800K Trinity, which makes for a 21.5% increase in price.

GT640?

Proper setup at the moment would be a G2020 for $64 and a 7770 for $95 after rebate with a free copy of Farcry 3.

That gives you more than double a 5800k's graphics performance.
And you shouldn't factor percentage like that. A computer doesn't work with only a CPU and video card. This would be a part of a $300-400 build, so the increase in system price is only around 10%.

 

[2timer]

With Haswell Intel are taking first steps to sort the mess out. HD 4600 throughout the range (for desktop), there is a minor difference in clocks. The difference in clock speeds is small enough that I think that it is necessitated by binning for high yields and power consumption, and not artificial "featurizing".

Let's hope so.

Most Pentiums and Celerons you see on sale today might be chips that were not good enough to be Ivy or Sandy Bridge. Born with defects. Instead of throwing them away, Intel sell them cheaply (cheap for them, I guess) and make some money.

No kidding?

That's interesting. I have to ask, though - you think all desktop Celerons and Pentiums are "defects"?

Good for you, us Linux users do not truly have any option since Intel is the only one with proper open source drivers. AMD and nvidia have binary blobs, every little upgrade is an adventure with them.

You have also misunderstood Linus' "F*** you". It was not because of how nvidia price or segment their hardware, which is your major gripe with Intel. It was because nvidia have went out of their way to cripple support for open source, while sucking up to Microsoft.

Intel's Linux drivers might suck bit worse than Windows, but at least they suck more or less uniformly across platforms. And they at least make effort to release official open source drivers.

Sir we have no quarry

I wanted my build initially to be Intel because of their rock solid support and that their graphics drivers are rolled into the Linux kernel - are you kidding me?

But I'd be running Unity 3D and multimedia stuff, and I was just afraid that the HD Graphics 2000 wouldn't give enough overhead to do everything I wanted. And I refuse to pay more than $100 for a CPU, period. That's why I said, AMD has my business. I've read that Ubuntu works quite well with Catalyst drivers, except sometimes you have to roll back because newer features may not be supported eg, Xorg 1.13 in Ubuntu 12.10.

*edit* I did feel a little sheepish to compare myself to Linus Torvalds, for the reasons you stated, but sometimes you have to sacrifice accuracy for the sake of a little dramatic flair

 

[Sleepingforest]

2timer: pretty much by definition, the lower powered chips are "rejects" that didn't make the cut as a Xeon, i7, i5, or i3 (couldn't hold the desired clockspeed at the desired voltage and TDP). Rather than waste the silicon (which is pretty expensive in large batches), they call it a Pentium or a Celeron and run it more slowly. That doesn't mean they won't work--it's just a weaker chip running at a lower setting. AMD does this for their product line as well.

 

[Rifter]

Intel is definitely playing as a monopoly. However, in terms of price/performance, you can get a Pentium G860 for $68, and a GTS 640 for $90. You'd pay $158 total--roughly $30 more than the $130 A10 5800K Trinity, which makes for a 21.5% increase in price.

If you look at Anandtech's comparison, you see that it's a roughly 19-25% performance increase, in terms of frames per second in games, over an A10 as a combo (the single threaded performance of a Pentium G860 and an A10 is roughly equal).

So you do get what you pay for in terms of gaming performance, at least at these budget levels. I'll admit, however that the extra cores and overclocking ability of the A10 do make it a more compelling buy for most uses over the Intel + dGPU combo.

I came to post exactly this, intel still offers the same performance per dollar as AMD at most price levels, and usualy with alot better power numbers as well which will save you even more in the long run.

To those saying they are ripping people off with the pentium line you are forgetting the fact that the pentium chips are just defective i5/i7 ships with core(s)/IGP disabled because it didnt make the QA checks to be fully funtional chips, they are just selling them as low end chips instead of taking a complete loss on them. AMD does the same thing why do you think you can unlock cores.

People thinking this is some kind of conspiracy need to get a reality check.

 

[2timer]

You're often going from around (and these are all averages) 40-50 frames per second to over sixty in pretty much every GPU bound game, at a resolution of 768p or 1680x1050p with high settings. If you looked at the link I provided, you'd have seen this is the case--Dirt 3, Starcraft II, Crysis, and Metro 2033 all have a 20% to 40% increase in frames, often from sub-60 frames per second. More CPU-bound games, like Shogun 2, Civilization V, and Skyrim still show a small improvement (around 10%, often from 50 to 55 frames per second). It's not impacting the pool of games you can and can't play, but the quality of your visual experience.

Also, it's not a "big" graphics card. The GTS 640 is meant for HTPCs and other small form factor cases. Please, before you criticize what I say, actually look through the links (unless, of course, you just came here to shoot me down).

I am not saying that Intel is 100% superior. I'm saying that you get what you pay for. AMD offers the best gaming experience for $130--no debate from me on that. ANY low cost CPU (Intel or AMD) plus a GPU offers a roughly 20% (noticeably better, not just in benchmarks) stronger solution for 20% more money. That's a sign of competition--the quality you get scales well with how much you pay. And they do compete at the budget end.

I see your point. The quality increase in GPU bound games scales well.

But why would I as a casual gamer want to scale, when those games in medium settings run well enough? I don't play a whole lot of big studio games. I like smaller games and indie games. I like horror games and classic games that are about ambience and imagination as much as eye candy, and those games are just as enjoyable to me.

Basically, to a casual gamer the premise is pay $30 more and have to deal with the hassle of another discrete card, or save $30 bucks and get it all rolled into one package. That's my perspective on it.

*Edit* That's the reason why AMD's APUs are ideal for casual gamers.

 

[2timer]

2timer: pretty much by definition, the lower powered chips are "rejects" that didn't make the cut as a Xeon, i7, i5, or i3 (couldn't hold the desired clockspeed at the desired voltage and TDP). Rather than waste the silicon (which is pretty expensive in large batches), they call it a Pentium or a Celeron and run it more slowly. That doesn't mean they won't work--it's just a weaker chip running at a lower setting. AMD does this for their product line as well.

Got it, thank you.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I see your point. The quality increase in GPU bound games scales well.

But why would I as a casual gamer want to scale, when those games in medium settings run well enough? I don't play a whole lot of big studio games. I like smaller games and indie games. I like horror games and classic games that are about ambience and imagination as much as eye candy, and those games are just as enjoyable to me.

Basically, to a casual gamer the premise is pay $30 more and have to deal with the hassle of another discrete card, or save $30 bucks and get it all rolled into one package. That's my perspective on it.

*Edit* That's the reason why AMD's APUs are ideal for casual gamers.

I don't disagree with you! This is why competition is important--it allows for choice and different price levels (which, critically scale well with performance). If Intel had it's way, I'm sure we would see separate OEM and enthusiast lines, and enthusiasts would be nickeled and dimed for every feature we want: voltage gating, low idle power, unlocked multipliers, cores, threads, PCIe 3.0 support, USB 3.0 support, and so on.

I think that AMD is critical to the computer landscape as we know it. The problem is, unless it quickly shapes up in AT LEAST ONE area to challenge Intel in the eyes of OEMs, average consumers, and enthusiasts all at once, it'll die once and for all, simply because many (including myself) won't cripple their own computing experience simply to bolster the underdog. I'd be perfectly happy to go AMD--as long as they offer the best solution to my problem.

 

[2timer]

I don't disagree with you! This is why competition is important--it allows for choice and different price levels (which, critically scale well with performance). If Intel had it's way, I'm sure we would see separate OEM and enthusiast lines, and enthusiasts would be nickeled and dimed for every feature we want: voltage gating, low idle power, unlocked multipliers, cores, threads, PCIe 3.0 support, USB 3.0 support, and so on.

I think that AMD is critical to the computer landscape as we know it. The problem is, unless it quickly shapes up in AT LEAST ONE area to challenge Intel in the eyes of OEMs, average consumers, and enthusiasts all at once, it'll die once and for all, simply because many (including myself) won't cripple their own computing experience simply to bolster the underdog. I'd be perfectly happy to go AMD--as long as they offer the best solution to my problem.

You make a very good point. At this point AMD's survival, and thrival, is more dependent on OEMs than on "enthusiasts" like us. Thus AMD's strategic decisions take much more into consideration than what the individual enthusiast may want. Yet in the end that is how the competition remains healthy and productive.

Given what you mentioned about competition being key to shaping choices for the enthusiasts, I'd sure be happy if AMD does good in the console market. That would be a boon for everyone. :biggrin:

 

[IntelUser2000]

I don't know how it compares with HD 2500 or HD 4000 and no one really wants to review this. I'm struggling to find reviews for it, or even the lower end Trinity chips for that matter. Chances are neither Intel nor AMD send out review samples for these..

There's no performance difference between the ones Intel brands as "HD Graphics" in the Celerons and Pentiums versus those in the HD 2500.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fusion-intel-core-i3_7.html#sect0

The HD Graphics cuts the media features out of the HD 2500, like QuickSync, ClearVideo, InTru3D, and such. Though, based on reading some user reviews, the graphics does 90% of the ClearVideo function that the HD 2500/4000 does. The 10% you don't get it something like color/constrast optimization or image stabilization sort of tech.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I'm personally hoping that the next generation of consoles will sell pretty well and allow AMD a little breathing room financially so they can double down on segements outside of the budget end.

 

[Pilum]

I think there is a market for the CPU you describe... it would be the ideal Home Media Server cpu.

a pentium (or even lower performing CPU) with integrated graphics (for decent performance on basic server tasks requiring GUI interface). My guess is that this is why many people go with AMD for home media servers.

Under what circumstances is a Pentium underpowered for home media server usage? They are powerful enough for basic gaming and certainly won't choke on normal GUI/playback tasks.

 

[Idontcare]

long-term business generally hinges on customer satisfaction. Companies only looking for short-term profit are exactly what's wrong with corporate America these days. (offshoring, etc.)

The problem is the consumers voted with their wallets and they voted that they prefer crappier customer service in exchange for slightly lower prices.

Companies responded to what the market wanted and we got what we asked for. That's why all the mom and pop businesses dried up.

Family business is a long-term business, whereas the publicly held company is usually managed by people who are themselves interested in the company as employees for only as long as they can milk the company for top compensation benefits.

As soon as they think they can milk another company for even more benefits they jump ship. Keller didn't leave AMD to go to Apple, and then leave Apple to go to AMD, for no good reason.

America isn't full of Walmarts because we value customer satisfaction. It is full of Walmarts because we don't.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I see your point. The quality increase in GPU bound games scales well.

But why would I as a casual gamer want to scale, when those games in medium settings run well enough? I don't play a whole lot of big studio games. I like smaller games and indie games. I like horror games and classic games that are about ambience and imagination as much as eye candy, and those games are just as enjoyable to me.

Basically, to a casual gamer the premise is pay $30 more and have to deal with the hassle of another discrete card, or save $30 bucks and get it all rolled into one package. That's my perspective on it.

*Edit* That's the reason why AMD's APUs are ideal for casual gamers.

If the performance of the APU is adequate for you, that is great. Personally I would not want to be that limited, but if you really dont want to play highly graphically intense games it should be adequate I guess.

The only thing I dont understand is why you think adding a discrete card to a desktop is such a "hassle". Despite playing a lot of games and being very interested in hardware, I am really not a "nuts and bolts" person, and even I can install a discrete card in just a few minutes.

 

[Pilum]

Oh come on, that's just sad. The performance gap is still there but closing with new multi-threaded games. Which doesn't mean much when a person has a cruddy Celeron or Pentium duel core that was recommend to them from people like you.

In practice, the performance gap will remain for many years. There are only a handful of games which really can make use of many threads, and these seem to be mainly (only?) shooters. If you are into strategy or RPG, Intel will likely remain the better choice for quite a while.

And apart from that, people don't play only the newest games, there are still many popular older games which rely on single-threaded performance. For those Intel is generally the better choice also.