I heard from a reliable source that the Pentium-M cost less to make than their equivilant Pentium-4Ms IE a 1.6GHZ Pentium-M is cheaper to produce than a 2.4GHZ Pentium-4M. But the fact is it is more expensive in terms of price. This is a very reliable source. Intel is makig big money off the Pentium-M. Hell I even suspect the chip barly cost more then a celeron to make.
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Intel is Price Gouging on the Pentium-M/Centrino
- Thread starter VTboy
- Start date
Bateluer
Lifer
I would ask you to name your source, I would rather not just take your word for it 😛
But I would have to agree that the Centrinos cost intel less to make than the P4Ms. The P4s are huge chips with massive transistor counts, the Pentium M is not. Still, the fact is that the Pentium M is a high performance mobile solution. They cannot simply give it away.
But I would have to agree that the Centrinos cost intel less to make than the P4Ms. The P4s are huge chips with massive transistor counts, the Pentium M is not. Still, the fact is that the Pentium M is a high performance mobile solution. They cannot simply give it away.
They price it whatever the market wants to pay for it. Price gouging would be if it was the only mobile processor on the market. Since there is the Mobile Celeron, Pentium4, Pentium4M, Athlon XP, Duron, Athlon 64, Transmeta, VIA C3, you're just up for another round of flaming.
Sure, they are charging more than it costs them. They've got to pay back the r&d and retooling costs that went into it too. And remember how intel make their money -they are the company that make higher performance, higher reliability and higher price CPUs (thats the image they use, anyway). They don't really have any interest in bringing the price down on a new product.
Like mentioned before, you have to remember about the development costs. Let's say, as an example, that it just costs a penny to make a Pentium-M, you still have to remember that a ton of cash was used to design the chips and to build the machinery that makes them. The chips' designers didn't work for free and the specialized, non-mass market equipment used to make these chips is very expensive. This is just my opinion.
preslove
Lifer
Also, Intel doesn't make a whole lot of money on consumer/business pc's. The market for servers is where they rake in the cash. They are gonna try to sqeeze every last penny out of centrino because they're making a relatively little amount of $ for the loads of cash they've invested in development and initial production.
I second this, Intel put alot of money into Research and Development on this, and they took a pretty big risk as well. You may want to read up on the older centrino articles that came out pre-release as I think may of them touched on the subject (at least the ones from a financial perspective rather than pure benchmarking)
Bateluer
Lifer
Two reasons VTboy. 1) The PentiumM outperforms the P4M, a 1.7Ghz PentiumM is one of the fastest mobile chips out there. I must withhold final judgement on that statement until I see more benchmarks of the A64 DTR.
And 2) I don't think Intel thought the PentiumM would be performing as well as it does. They were expecting more of a thin and light mobile CPU. Something that ran cooler than their current mobile line and maximized battery life. The development team did an outstanding job with all that plus giving it uncomprising performance as well.
And 2) I don't think Intel thought the PentiumM would be performing as well as it does. They were expecting more of a thin and light mobile CPU. Something that ran cooler than their current mobile line and maximized battery life. The development team did an outstanding job with all that plus giving it uncomprising performance as well.
CPU cost = Cost of Research & Development + Cost of Materials + Cost of Manufacturing/Packing
Cost of R&D is very high, runs into millions whereas cost of materials and manufacturing is very cheap.
A typical modern processor such as a Pentium 4 will cost Intel about ~$30 - $40 to manufacture (depends on the die size, onboard cache etc....i think cost of a P4 CPU is ~$36 whereas an I865/I875 chipset is late 20s). But then they also have to cover up the millions of dollars that they had spent earlier on its development.
Cost of R&D is very high, runs into millions whereas cost of materials and manufacturing is very cheap.
A typical modern processor such as a Pentium 4 will cost Intel about ~$30 - $40 to manufacture (depends on the die size, onboard cache etc....i think cost of a P4 CPU is ~$36 whereas an I865/I875 chipset is late 20s). But then they also have to cover up the millions of dollars that they had spent earlier on its development.
Making big money off it? I saw a thread linking an article that states the sales have thus far been decidely slow. Speculation is that mainstream consumers are not loading on the wireless bandwagon just yet, and that they are put off by the price for such a low mhz rated based notebook as they are not informed enough to understand that performance needn't be clockspeed dependent.
The Centrino is a package that includes a mobile processor and a wifi. Since the wifi part of it is moot, its only the processor that counts.
Any number of replacements for the Centrino/Pentium-M include:
Pentium-4M
Pentium-3M (still used in some light notebooks)
Desktop Pentium 4
Desktop Celeron
Mobile Celeron
Athlon64M
AthlonXP-M
Duron-M
Crusoe Series
VIA C3 Series
Yea... Centrino sure as hell doesnt have competition.
IncredibleHutch
Member
Agreed.... Banias was created from the ground up. Design costs, research, facilities, are all part of the cost that you will pay regardless of the price it costs just to make the chip itself... That chips cost is more than the chip itself... it's the time and effort put into the chip as well. Banias truely is a one of a kind CPU for Intel. many bench marks bench it at performance levels very similar to desktop P4s. I've used some of the numbers in these benchmarks and came up with a pretty strong number... If you multiply a banias chip's clock speed by 1.6... you get the approximate clock rate of the similar performing P4. All at this power... and at the same long lasting batteries to keep you pointing and clicking for hours.
Frightcrawler
Senior member
once dothan comes out, banias should be bumped from the spotlight slightly, but it wont be gone. what will be gone is the pentium 4-m (soon to be replaced by prescott). thats why pentium-4-m's cost less than pentium-m right now, because it will be gone soon.
well, its just a theory actually.
well, its just a theory actually.
I don't believe it costs less becasue it will be replaced soon I think it costs less becasue it has been out on the market longer, and development costs have been recouperated further than the M chip. But I do agree that the 4 will be phased out after Prescott. This however will depend on several mobile specific requirements and if the Prescott is a viable chip in the mobile market. I think it will be, but we will have to wait and see what type of moblie version is designed.
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