Intel's LCC on HEDT Should Be Dead

[FIVR]

How do 7820x buyers feel about this? I can imagine being pretty upset that intel releases this $500 chip they claim is the pinnacle of their 8 core die line and then AMD forces them to release the 8700k a few months later, basically making your brand new 7820x worth <$300 instantly. Seems like Skylake-X buyers got scammed.


https://www.anandtech.com/show/12814/a-thought-on-silicon-design-intels-lcc-on-hedt-is-dead

 

[dullard]

Seems like Skylake-X buyers got scammed.

Did they get a chip that met the specifications that they paid for? If so, that is not a scam.

 

[jpiniero]

Bet he's hinting at the Skylake-X toasty edition that's coming.

 

[FIVR]

Did they get a chip that met the specifications that they paid for? If so, that is not a scam.

Intel advertised these as the fastest, most powerful 6-10 core processors on the market.


At the same time, they knew they might have to release the 8700k in a few months. Some posters even claim that they always planned to release the 8700k at that time and it was not a response to AMD. If so, intel knowingly screwed over HEDT buyers for a 30% higher margin by selling an 8 core die for $500-700 that gets outperformed by a 6-core $350 die.


Maybe that's not a "scam" by your definition, but if I had bought such a processor I would feel scammed.

 

[dullard]

Maybe that's not a "scam" by your definition, but if I had bought such a processor I would feel scammed.

That is not my definition. Look up the word in any dictionary (especially any legal dictionary).

It happens with all technology. Companies sell their latest and greatest right up until the moment the next latest and greatest is released. When Apple launches their next product, were all the previous version owners scammed? When AMD releases a new chip, were all the previous chip version owners scammed? No to both.

There are specifications for all products. If you buy a product with a certain specification and get a product with a different specification then you are scammed or got a lemon that should be replaced under warranty. If 7820X owners only got 6 cores when they paid for 8, then that is a scam. If 7820X owners don't get 3.6 GHz base with proper cooling, then that is a scam. Etc.

 

[UsandThem]

So if I buy something like, say a Star Wars toy from Hasbro, and it is the best looking and premium figure they make, but then they release an even better version a year later when a new Star Wars movie is released, did I get scammed by buying the first one? Obviously since Hasbro has the contract, they knew they were already doing this.

Tech is almost "outdated" the moment it's bought because something newer and better is already in the pipeline. They don't design, plan, test, and release new products in a week's time. You buy it if need it want it, and move on and not worry about it it's 'outdated". If it was a bad purchase decision, hopefully they learn a lesson for the next time.

 

[FIVR]

That is not my definition. Look up the word in any dictionary (especially any legal dictionary).

It happens with all technology. Companies sell their latest and greatest right up until the moment the next latest and greatest is released. When Apple launches their next product, were all the previous version owners scammed? When AMD releases a new chip, were all the previous chip version owners scammed? No to both.

If Apple sold the iPhone X in October then suddenly came out with the iPhone XI in December with better technology and a $700 price tag you can bet people would be screaming about how Apple scammed them. And rightfully so.


That's essentially what intel did with Skylake-X and the 8700k

 

[UsandThem]

That's essentially what intel did with Skylake-X and the 8700k

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of what "scammed" is, but as you can already see in the first comments, you're going to be in the vocal minority opinion here.

"Scammed". In a 'The Princess Bride' voice: "That word does not mean what you think it means".

 

[FIVR]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of what "scammed" is, but as you can already see in the first comments, you're going to be in the vocal minority opinion here.

"Scammed". In a 'The Princess Bride' voice: "That word does not mean what you think it means".

I agree on a legal basis that it is not grounds for a lawsuit, but as a customer I think there is a reason other companies refrain from doing this kind of thing to their customers. If Apple were to do what I described it would be totally "legal". Arguably it is even a benefit to consumers who didn't buy the iPhone X if they can buy an XI 3 months later for less. Imagine being an iPhone X buyer in such a situation... would that not feel like a scam?

 

[Nashemon]

That is not my definition. Look up the word in any dictionary (especially any legal dictionary).

It happens with all technology. Companies sell their latest and greatest right up until the moment the next latest and greatest is released. When Apple launches their next product, were all the previous version owners scammed? When AMD releases a new chip, were all the previous chip version owners scammed? No to both.

There are specifications for all products. If you buy a product with a certain specification and get a product with a different specification then you are scammed or got a lemon that should be replaced under warranty. If 7820X owners only got 6 cores when they paid for 8, then that is a scam. If 7820X owners don't get 3.6 GHz base with proper cooling, then that is a scam. Etc.

Like the NVIDIA GeForce 970 with 4 GB RAM. See sig.

If Apple sold the iPhone X in October then suddenly came out with the iPhone XI in December with better technology and a $700 price tag you can bet people would be screaming about how Apple scammed them. And rightfully so.

That's literally what they (and every other company) do every year, and no one is screaming. Everything is the newest and best until is isn't. And where did this notion of expecting new tech to hold value come from?

 

[dullard]

Fact check 1:

basically making your brand new 7820x worth <$300 instantly

Used 7820X is going for: $430. https://www.ebay.com/itm/intel-core...446213?hash=item3f9e941bc5:g:SkcAAOSwCDZbDWm3
New 7820X is going for $469: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core...647563&hash=item440993ac43:g:qyoAAOSweJ1Zz6iN
and $450: https://www.ebay.com/itm/intel-core...595540?hash=item2aaa49e394:g:MqoAAOSwBnZbCtn1

Anandtech, is $430 to $469 less than $300?

Fact check 2:

an 8 core die for $500-700 that gets outperformed by a 6-core $350 die.

Passmark (higher is better):
7820X: 18567 vs 8700K 16037
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-8700K-vs-Intel-i7-7820X/3098vs3038
Anandtech, is 16037 higher than 18567?

Solidworks Rendering (lower is better):
7820X: 127.6 seconds vs 8700K 158.7 seconds
https://www.pugetsystems.com/pic_disp.php?id=45616&width=800&height=800
Anandtech, is 127.6 seconds higher than 158.7 seconds?

Look at more multi-threaded benchmarks here (assuming someone buys an 8-core chip for multi-threaded performance):
https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2109?vs=1904
7820X wins in Office: Geekbench 4 Overall, Blender, Handbrake, LuxRender, Rodinia, CalculiX, WPCcfd, Lammps, namd, Monte Carlo, Black Scholes, Binomial, FFTW, Convolution, Kirchhoff Migration, 7-Zip, Python, SunSpider, Kraken, 3D particle movement, DigiCortex, Photoscan 1 Total, Cororna Photorealism, POV-Ray, Cinebench, AES, Physics Score, and plenty more, I got tired of typing. Does the 7820X win in all? No, but it still wins (sometimes by a lot) in many programs. So, your whole premise that the 7820X is slower is just wrong.

Fact check 3:

in October then suddenly came out with the iPhone XI in December

FIVR is using 2 month gap here where as the actual gap between the June 2017 release of the 7820X and the Oct 2017 release date of the 8700K with actual availability of around Jan 2018.

Anandtech, is FIVR exaggerating?

 

[UsandThem]

I agree on a legal basis that it is not grounds for a lawsuit, but as a customer I think there is a reason other companies refrain from doing this kind of thing to their customers. If Apple were to do what I described it would be totally "legal". Arguably it is even a benefit to consumers who didn't buy the iPhone X if they can buy an XI 3 months later for less. Imagine being an iPhone X buyer in such a situation... would that not feel like a scam?

I've lived long enough to know that if I buy anything today (maybe outside of food), there will always be something better, and cheaper tomorrow.

"There's a basic principle about consumer electronics: it gets more powerful all the time and it gets cheaper all the time". - Trip Hawkins

 

[jpiniero]

If Apple sold the iPhone X in October then suddenly came out with the iPhone XI in December with better technology and a $700 price tag you can bet people would be screaming about how Apple scammed them. And rightfully so.

If you knew your Apple history this happened... with the "new iPad" (3rd gen). It was released in March 2012. In October they released the 4th generation with the A6X which is twice as fast (336/581 vs 773/1365 in GB4). Okay so 7 months isn't exactly 3 but it was pretty sudden. And yes people were pissed.

 

[coercitiv]

FIVR is using 2 month gap here where as the actual gap between the June 2017 release of the 7820X and the Oct 2017 release date of the 8700K with actual availability of around Jan 2018.

While I'm not at all interested in the direction the OP went, I would like to confirm that actual availability for Coffee Lake was Oct 2017. I bought my 8700 on Oct 8. US had availability problems, other regions of the world were in far better shape starting with the second half of October.

is FIVR exaggerating?

Definitely exaggerating, people who bought into SKL-X knew exactly what they were buying: if anything Ryzen was available for quite some time, TR was around the corner.

 

[LTC8K6]

I bought an 8400 on October 12th.

 

[jpiniero]

Should point out that for HEDT Intel only really cares about the highest SKU (eg: 7980XE). Will the e-penis crowd pay $3K for an unlocked 300W 28 core? You betcha.

 

[FIVR]

If you knew your Apple history this happened... with the "new iPad" (3rd gen). It was released in March 2012. In October they released the 4th generation with the A6X which is twice as fast (336/581 vs 773/1365 in GB4). Okay so 7 months isn't exactly 3 but it was pretty sudden. And yes people were pissed.

I remember that now. People were upset....


Did Apple ever do it again?

 

[jpiniero]

I remember that now. People were upset....
Did Apple ever do it again?

Nothing to that extent that I can remember, but they did drop the price of the original 8 GB iPhone $200 2 months after launch (from $599 to $399 with 2-year contract, and in the US that was AT&T only).

 

[Arachnotronic]

I agree on a legal basis that it is not grounds for a lawsuit, but as a customer I think there is a reason other companies refrain from doing this kind of thing to their customers. If Apple were to do what I described it would be totally "legal". Arguably it is even a benefit to consumers who didn't buy the iPhone X if they can buy an XI 3 months later for less. Imagine being an iPhone X buyer in such a situation... would that not feel like a scam?

Most people buy computers to do stuff with them. As long as the chip does the stuff that the person wants it to, they probably don't feel bad at all.

Only people who would obsess about that sort of thing and hang out on forums would, but they are a minority and they probably wouldn't have bought Skylake-X to begin with.

 

[moonbogg]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this old circuit city commercial is worth all the works of Shakespeare for those who bought the i7 7820X. Intel should handle the situation as shown in the following video.

I said agree or disagree?
I said agree or disagree?
I said agree or disagree?

 

[coercitiv]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this old circuit city commercial is worth all the works of Shakespeare for those who bought the i7 7820X.

Let's add 2000 words to that picture - Circuit City Files for Bankruptcy

 

[Lodix]

You might disagree with the term "scam". But you can't defend intel for this. They have been milking the market for years and now they can't because of AMD coming back. Competition was needed for a healthy market.

 

[wahdangun]

Tbh it's no different than when nvdia launch GTX 260 and GTX 280, but nvdia handle it better.

 

[NTMBK]

Intel have been sandbagging on core count for years. They got to hex-core all the way back in 2010, and mainstream sockets got quad cores back in 2009. They should have moved on years ago. I bet they had a prototype hex-core mainstream socket Haswell (or at least had it on a drawing board), but AMD just weren't competitive at the time.

 

[jpiniero]

Intel have been sandbagging on core count for years. They got to hex-core all the way back in 2010, and mainstream sockets got quad cores back in 2009. They should have moved on years ago. I bet they had a prototype hex-core mainstream socket Haswell (or at least had it on a drawing board), but AMD just weren't competitive at the time.

But you have to factor in how mobile would have fared if Intel had done it then.