Intel Pentium lineup now split into two: Pentium Gold and Pentium Silver...

kwalkingcraze

Senior member
Jan 2, 2017
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Starting with Kaby Lake refresh, Intel will be dividing Pentium into two separate lineup, Pentium Gold and Pentium Silver. So, Pentium G4560's successor will be called Pentium Gold G45##, while Pentium Silver will be all plain dual-core, assuming.

https://segmentnext.com/2017/10/04/pentium-kaby-lake-processors-rebranded-as-pentium-gold/
https://www.techspot.com/news/71258-intel-rebrands-kaby-lake-pentiums-pentium-gold.html

With the new Pentium Gold name, G4560's successor will see its new MSRP increasing from $64.99 to $84.99 (estimating), while a new Pentium Silver dual-core to replace G4400 will stay at $59.99 MSRP or under.

A new Pentium Bronze lineup is in talks too, possibly for Apollo Lake.

Good or bad idea? So, we now have Celeron, Pentium Silver, Pentium Gold, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9, a total of 7 groups to choose from (or 8 with Pentium Bronze). More confusion than ever before.
 
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mohit9206

Golden Member
Jul 2, 2013
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A good blanket way to increase prices for Pentiums.
AMD doesn't have anything under $100 so Intel has complete monopoly there so why sell 4T Pentium for $65 when you can get away with selling for $85?
$50 2T Pentium goes up to $65 as well.
Don't blame Intel for this. Blame AMD for lack of competition down in the bottom segment.
 
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R0H1T

Platinum Member
Jan 12, 2013
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A good blanket way to increase prices for Pentiums.
AMD doesn't have anything under $100 so Intel has complete monopoly there so why sell 4T Pentium for $65 when you can get away with selling for $85?
$50 2T Pentium goes up to $65 as well.
Don't blame Intel for this. Blame AMD for lack of competition down in the bottom segment.
Yeah that's BS 101, if you aren't crediting AMD for hex or octa cores going below 400$ then it's just not on. It's you the buyer, it's totally on you!

It's like saying DJT's election was down to the competition being poor, you know how that argument goes!
 

mohit9206

Golden Member
Jul 2, 2013
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Yeah that's BS 101, if you aren't crediting AMD for hex or octa cores going below 400$ then it's just not on. It's you the buyer, it's totally on you!

It's like saying DJT's election was down to the competition being poor, you know how that argument goes!
They say competition is a wonderful thing.
 

Bouowmx

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2016
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Previously, the differentiation was Pentium G (standard architecture) vs J or N (low-cost architecture). I guess Pentium [G]old vs Silver (J or N) is a bit more self-apparent. Bronze would just make things unnecessarily confusing.
 

kwalkingcraze

Senior member
Jan 2, 2017
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Pricing gap between Pentium G4400 and G4560 is very substantial and divided, so Intel creates a separate lineup to avoid any confusion. 2C/4T can no longer sell at the same price with 2C/2T.

I think I support this new separate lineup decision, at least I know I will look into Pentium Silver only. Originally, I did not know G4560 was a 2C/4T processor at launch, and many consumers did not know that too. It took 1/2 year to reach out this info, and sales increase dramatically.
 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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Blame AMD for lack of competition down in the bottom segment.
Well, given that they've released Bristol Ridge, finally, into the DIY market, it's not that there isn't competition, just that the competition isn't that great.

Granted, I have both G4560 rigs, and A8-9600 rigs (OCed to 3.9Ghz), and the Pentium is faster. But the A8-9600 is on AM4, which has an upgrade path.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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I just thought that using pentium (given the whole pentium 4 ht days I even think the brand is somewhat associated with HT still) for the ones with HT and celeron for the ones without it made sense!?

price increase without any substantial gain compared to the g4560/g4600 is sad, if the "gold" at least had the multiplier unlocked it would be nice.
 

coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
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I think Celerons and Pentiums should not be things.
It would have been great had they confined Atom cores to the Celeron brand and used only bigger cores on the Pentium. I can see how this second branding tier (Gold/Silver/Bronze) makes sense in the B2B space, but consumers should be spared of yet another SKU paradigm.

I can't wait for Celeron Platinum though - the bottom of the barrel premium CPU. :)
 

StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
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Atom
Core i3,5,7,9
Xeon

The end. I guess Intel want to keep the Pentium brand because it is "famous" (probably the only CPU name the average joe knows) but it's time to move on, Intel.
 
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Qwertilot

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Nov 28, 2013
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Think that's probably better - small, cheap, fanless things with more than enough performance for the under i3 market should be very achievable, and that requires something like Atom.

Of course it'd be a much better idea if they could make Atom half decent...... That or can it and sell CoreM down in its place, but that would be a huge admission of failure.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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I think that Intel should have a "toy" overclocker's chip, the "Pentium OC", aka "Pentium K" as it is known to mobo makers, in EVERY generation of CPUs.

Of course, you could argue, that starting with Haswell (G3258), skipping Skylake (although they did have the non-K OC), with a Kaby i3 that was unlocked, and now the CFL i3-8350K unlocked i3, which happens to be a 4C/4T CPU like the prior-gen i5-7600K.

So, there have been budget overclocker chips available for the last few generations, at least.

I would like to see these become a fixture, for the "budget ricer" crowd, "budget gamer" (but only if it has enough threads for current games), etc.

If nothing else, to keep the "fun" of desktop PCs, and with that, the enthusiasts and overclocking crowd interested.

I mean, if some 14-year-old kid wants to buy his first desktop PC and overclock, unless he's got a really good job, I don't think that he would be able to afford the top-end "true enthusiast" (using Intel's marketing definitions, as someone buying PC parts with money to burn), so it would be nice if there were some starter "budget enthusiast" parts available to work with.

Maybe Intel should introduce desktop Atom boards (once they get high enough IPC?), that are at least slightly overclockable? Would that be a viable alternative? (I think of how entry-level AM1 overclocked. Not really well, due to PCI-E/SATA bus issues, but it did marginally OC.)
 
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Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
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The people who are in the market for Pentiums will figure out the new lines just fine. It's not like the GXXX nomenclature was particularly good to distinguish between those parts, other than relative performance comparisons.
 

UglyDuckling

Senior member
May 6, 2015
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I see nothing wrong with keeping the Pentium name alive, the thing that bothers me a little is that intel seem to like over taking their other CPU's by allowing such a thing to exist and under cut the next CPU line up's low to mid range chips, for instance the Pentium G 3 AN edition was so good it literally made no point to buy any i3's unless it was the top tier one with a decent base clock.
 

SPBHM

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Sep 12, 2012
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that problem was solved the moment they made the i3s have 4 cores, starting with 4c 3.6GHz for $120, the G4560 for its launch price makes more sense now, increasing the price and adding "gold" without changing anything else doesn't.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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that problem was solved the moment they made the i3s have 4 cores, starting with 4c 3.6GHz for $120, the G4560 for its launch price makes more sense now, increasing the price and adding "gold" without changing anything else doesn't.
Intel saw a money grab, seeing AMD's under $100 budget CPU lineup weakness, and went for it.

Kind of shameful, because the only reason that prices went so high on that CPU, because Intel intentionally held back production, and thus caused prices to rise, then discontinued that CPU, then re-introduced it with re-branding at that newer higher price. Talk about shenanigans from team Blue.

It remains to be seen, if they will pull something similar with the i3-8100. But I figure that's where they dump all of their failed 6-core dies.