Is there any reason to use FX CPUs right now?

[frozentundra123456]

Not this again. I hardly see amd keeping intel cpu prices down. In fact it is quite the opposite. It is amd that repeatedly brings out new processors at a price that consumers are unwilling to pay, and has to cut prices drastically to sell the chips. Intel prices might rise moderately, but it is simply hyperbole that intel prices would go through the roof if amd did not exist. Pricing is a balance between price and sales volume, so if intel raised prices drastically, sales would plummet and they would actually make less profit, not to mention not being able to use their fabs to capacity.

 

[Ramses]

The crux is I think, how could sales plummet, if there was no alternative?
Assuming a price within reason, "reason" being a point of debate. Maybe an i3 is worth $300 if there is not alternative?

It's not completely unrealistic as an i3 would serve most users needs.

Free market being what it is, the idea is that someone else would come along with an alternative, eventually, if the sole provider is overpriced. But the older an industry and more established a seller is the harder that is to pull off I think. AMD is an established outfit and they seem to be having a hard time doing so.

Other than not upgrading of course, but one would have to know what percentage of CPU sales are for upgrades and what are for "new" systems, no? I don't believe we have that data.

I for one would really rather not run that course and see how it plays out. Hoping AMD fails is, imo, just being mean-spirited for no good reason.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Not this again. I hardly see amd keeping intel cpu prices down. In fact it is quite the opposite. It is amd that repeatedly brings out new processors at a price that consumers are unwilling to pay, and has to cut prices drastically to sell the chips. Intel prices might rise moderately, but it is simply hyperbole that intel prices would go through the roof if amd did not exist. Pricing is a balance between price and sales volume, so if intel raised prices drastically, sales would plummet and they would actually make less profit, not to mention not being able to use their fabs to capacity.

You're clearly not paying attention then. They would go back to PIII Coppermine-level prices if there was no competition from AMD. Getting an unlocked i7-4790k for $340 or 5820k for $380 isn't because that's the max the market will pay. Do you not remember how high the Qx9650 was? If AMD wasn't around they would be double the price at the minimum. It'd be a monopoly and the market would have to adjust to paying those prices for new chips. The demand for new, high end computing doesn't vanish due to price.

An unlocked i7 is great, but not more than $250 better than an FX for most uses. This is exactly where the check comes into play.

 

[escrow4]

While my professional career benefits greatly on Intel being the top IC producer (hires thousands of electricians to build fabs in Hillsboro OR), I absolutely do not want to see them be the only player in the desktop market. Prices will skyrocket. All of you who keep spelling doom and gloom for AMD will no longer be able to afford enthusiast pricing on their top tier chips. If it wasn't for AMD those i3's would be at the maximum the market would bear, which is likely around $400-600 a chip at this time. i7? You'll have to max out a couple credit cards.

As a consumer I absolutely loathe the day Intel gets a two generation lead on desktop parts over AMD. For work I know it'll help provide for thousands of us tradesmen. It's a double edge sword that if it goes in either direction will negatively impact us.

As stated long ago in the thread, AMD is relatively keeping intel honest in their pricing. I didn't have a big budget for an upgrade from my C2Q system back in August, and the only thing that had an reasonable pricing and acceptable performance on it was a $125 FX-8350. It was either that or an i3 which is not threaded well enough for what my current and projected uses.

Photoshop, 60hz gaming, heavy browser work, video editing, game streaming... their products fill everyday uses exceptionally at a very low cost. I absolutely know I'd have been fine with an i7 and most likely an i5 in 99% of cases, but the price point of an i3 vs FX in terms of performance was a no brainer.

Myth. No one would pay $600 for a poky i3, Intel would charge what the market (and the global market in mind too) would bear. AMD is struggling on and on for years now CPU wise and now Intel is dropping Broadwell and Skylake. Mobile Intel and yes, Intel's iGPU are all substantially looking up, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD folds way sooner rather later.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Myth. No one would pay $600 for a poky i3, Intel would charge what the market (and the global market in mind too) would bear. AMD is struggling on and on for years now CPU wise and now Intel is dropping Broadwell and Skylake. Mobile Intel and yes, Intel's iGPU are all substantially looking up, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD folds way sooner rather later.

People dropped $300 on minimum clocked PIIIs and $600 on lowest-PIIs because competition wasn't really there. That was when Intel was alone on the hill for a while with no actual competition. It would immediately shift right back to it. Everyone and their mother would have to pay it.

The 4790k isn't $340 out of the goodness of their hearts. They cannot charge more than that due to competition.

 

[Ramses]

I remember pentium II's for $700+. Sucked.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I remember pentium II's for $700+. Sucked.

The money my parents spent on the P2 333Mz system when I was a kid could've paid for my community college tuition if it had been invested. We had a Pentium 90Mhz and a Pentium Pro 166Mz around that time as well. The market would resume these prices if AMD wasn't providing actual competition.

Intel is seen as the premium brand and people would pay those prices if there wasn't a real competitor. That or the $1600 iMac I'm using at this moment would never sell.

 

[Ramses]

I had a buddy brought over a shiny new P2/233, an Epox 440BX board and a 128meg stick of SDRAM years ago and hid them in my closet so his parents wouldn't find it. It cost more than his car lol...

Maybe this wouldn't play out again, but I'd really not want to try it and see if given a choice. The prices of apple PC's are a good example indeed.

 

[jhu]

People dropped $300 on minimum clocked PIIIs and $600 on lowest-PIIs because competition wasn't really there. That was when Intel was alone on the hill for a while with no actual competition. It would immediately shift right back to it. Everyone and their mother would have to pay it.

The 4790k isn't $340 out of the goodness of their hearts. They cannot charge more than that due to competition.

The only real competition Intel has in the x86 space is themselves. They can't price things so high that they don't sell because the value proposition wouldn't be there.

 

[jhu]

I remember pentium II's for $700+. Sucked.

So what? I remember my dad's IBM XT was $3000. But if people bought $700 PIIs (which, compared to the XT, was a relative bargain) and regret it, that's on them. There were less expensive alternatives that worked just as well: Celerons and K6-2s.

 

[AtenRa]

The way i see it, if AMD was gone tomorrow prices would not change much.

BUT, Intel would stay at each node for 3-4 years at least, especially for Desktop SKUs. The only reason Intel would need to upgrade to smaller nodes would only be for the mobile market.

Now that i think of it, that is exactly what is happening today

 

[Gikaseixas]

Prices would marginally increase I think but yeah the biggest problem is not the price but improvement pace. We can already see that now because AMD is not pushing Intel at all. These 5-10% increases in performance suck.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

The only real competition Intel has in the x86 space is themselves. They can't price things so high that they don't sell because the value proposition wouldn't be there.

Absolutely not. Maybe in your little circles the same nonsense is parroted back and forth, but it's not like the market is 90% Intel and 10% AMD. It's 74/26 according to steam hardware survey alone, and likely closer for non-gamers.

May it be noted that finding AMD laptops are often quite hard and that's where Intel has a resounding lead. 38% of CPUs in the market are Intel and in between 2Ghz to 2.7Ghz, which lends credence that it's mobile parts. 14% of all CPUs in the market are 3Ghz and above and AMD, which shows at the minimum 54% of their CPUs are desktop class, likely much more.

3.87% of CPUs in the field are AMD and are 3.7Ghz or higher. Only 1.34% are Intel and are 3.7Ghz or higher. The overclocked speeds are calculated into the data when I've checked when I've been overclocked or underclocked in BIOS when I had my C2Q and now my FX.

This directly explains why K series chips from Intel are priced at historic lows. For every high margin i7 that's sold, 2.8 similar or higher clocked AMD CPUs are sold. This is competition from AMD keeping Intel in check. Keep your blindfolds on if you want but that's reality. Unless you can show any other real world usage numbers, that is where the market is at right now.

 

[Arachnotronic]

While my professional career benefits greatly on Intel being the top IC producer (hires thousands of electricians to build fabs in Hillsboro OR), I absolutely do not want to see them be the only player in the desktop market. Prices will skyrocket. All of you who keep spelling doom and gloom for AMD will no longer be able to afford enthusiast pricing on their top tier chips. If it wasn't for AMD those i3's would be at the maximum the market would bear, which is likely around $400-600 a chip at this time. i7? You'll have to max out a couple credit cards.

As a consumer I absolutely loathe the day Intel gets a two generation lead on desktop parts over AMD. For work I know it'll help provide for thousands of us tradesmen. It's a double edge sword that if it goes in either direction will negatively impact us.

As stated long ago in the thread, AMD is relatively keeping intel honest in their pricing. I didn't have a big budget for an upgrade from my C2Q system back in August, and the only thing that had an reasonable pricing and acceptable performance on it was a $125 FX-8350. It was either that or an i3 which is not threaded well enough for what my current and projected uses.

Photoshop, 60hz gaming, heavy browser work, video editing, game streaming... their products fill everyday uses exceptionally at a very low cost. I absolutely know I'd have been fine with an i7 and most likely an i5 in 99% of cases, but the price point of an i3 vs FX in terms of performance was a no brainer.

I get where you're coming from, but frankly, this is totally off base.

The PC market is in decline . Why? There are far more computer-like thingies for people to spend their money on than notebooks and desktops (smartphones, tablets, etc.).

And, for most users, their older PCs last longer because software just isn't soaking up all of the performance that modern CPUs bring for most people.

In a demand environment as feeble as the current one, where Intel is lucky to have PC chip shipments flat year-over-year, with growth something to cheer about, the LAST thing you want to do is to artificially inflate prices.

This would SIGNIFICANTLY hurt demand, which would run counter to what the decision-makers at Intel need to drive: growth.

So, no, if AMD dropped off the face of the planet tomorrow, Intel's CPU prices would go nowhere, give or take a few %. Intel's biggest enemy is the fundamental demand picture for PCs in general -- and it's a far more potent threat than AMD has been in years.

 

[Ramses]

There were less expensive alternatives that worked just as well: Celerons and K6-2s.

Exactly

 

[Ramses]

I get where you're coming from, but frankly, this is totally off base.

The PC market is in decline . Why? There are far more computer-like thingies for people to spend their money on than notebooks and desktops (smartphones, tablets, etc.).

And, for most users, their older PCs last longer because software just isn't soaking up all of the performance that modern CPUs bring for most people.

In a demand environment as feeble as the current one, where Intel is lucky to have PC chip shipments flat year-over-year, with growth something to cheer about, the LAST thing you want to do is to artificially inflate prices.

This would SIGNIFICANTLY hurt demand, which would run counter to what the decision-makers at Intel need to drive: growth.

So, no, if AMD dropped off the face of the planet tomorrow, Intel's CPU prices would go nowhere, give or take a few %. Intel's biggest enemy is the fundamental demand picture for PCs in general -- and it's a far more potent threat than AMD has been in years.

I don't not-believe that evaluation of the situation in a lot of ways, but they sure seem to be putting a lot of money and time and effort into desktop(ish) CPU's if that's the case. Especially in light of the software not leveraging the CPU that we already have, and have had for years (which I strongly agree with). Same with video cards and motherboards and to a lesser extent storage drives, etc. Someone is buying, and most of what Asus sells for instance isn't going in servers or what have you. I believe it's down with tabs and cells and laptops and such vying for consumers dollars and eye-time, but I wonder how much based on what I see being offered still.
As usual, we lack data to come to a real conclusion on these sort of things I think.

I still don't really want to give it a go with Intel all by their lonesome just to see if I was wrong or right or some dude on a forum was. No offence.

 

[Maximilian]

http://forums.anandtech.com/images/smilies/familiar/razz.png
http://s3.amazonaws.com/tapatalk-emoji/emoji14.png

Oh right tapatalk I see, mobile thingamajig. :thumbsup:

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I get where you're coming from, but frankly, this is totally off base.

The PC market is in decline . Why? There are far more computer-like thingies for people to spend their money on than notebooks and desktops (smartphones, tablets, etc.).

And, for most users, their older PCs last longer because software just isn't soaking up all of the performance that modern CPUs bring for most people.

In a demand environment as feeble as the current one, where Intel is lucky to have PC chip shipments flat year-over-year, with growth something to cheer about, the LAST thing you want to do is to artificially inflate prices.

This would SIGNIFICANTLY hurt demand, which would run counter to what the decision-makers at Intel need to drive: growth.

So, no, if AMD dropped off the face of the planet tomorrow, Intel's CPU prices would go nowhere, give or take a few %. Intel's biggest enemy is the fundamental demand picture for PCs in general -- and it's a far more potent threat than AMD has been in years.

If x86 really started shrinkage, it'd hurt Intel more than AMD in terms of x86. AMD could literally drop out of x86 and be alright. Intel would suffer the most dramatic change as they would have to become a fab for others more than anything. As much as I like the bay-trail netbook class, they supposedly had to pay companies to sell it with contra-revenue. AMD has their ATI offerings as well as semi-custom ARM offerings that may be a breakout-success in the near future.

With AMD having x86 CPU, GPU and ARM under one umbrella without being permanently tied to one fab, they are nimble enough to survive a market shift like that. Intel? They are at the mercy of X86 success without a huge shakeup that would aggressively change how successful their fab would be without their own products filling it.

If x86 starts going down the toilet, Intel will be in worse shape. AMD would be a rickety boat smashing against the pier, able to pull out. Intel would get beached with how big and how many of their eggs are in the x86 market. AMD thrives on niche markets and will find more. Intel's fall would be immense. If X86 is present, so is AMD.

 

[Puffnstuff]

It seems to me that most people aren't considering what intel pricing was like prior to amd bringing their cpu's to market. I remember because I used an amd 5x86 in the very first pc I built and it trounced the pentium 100 that was way overpriced. It was also my first foray away from intel in the x86 market. Because amd put pressure on intel the prices began to moderate over a period of years bringing us to where we are today. I don't want amd to go anywhere and really would like to see them make a couple of breakthroughs with their cpu performance. If you don't remember they were first to 1ghz with the slot a athlon and it would outperform the slot 1 pentium all day long. Because of amd intel was forced to change the way they conduct business and we have the performance today because of this. AMD still makes a good chip and before you bash them you might want to scrutinize your intel motherboards and see who made the components on them because you might just be surprised to see some amd ic on it.

 

[Yuriman]

I'm not convinced that Intel CPU prices would rise a lot. As has been stated, Intel has to pay to have BT-D put in phones, and Chromebooks as often as not have ARM CPUs, and seem to be selling quite well. If Intel raised prices, who would buy a new desktop with an Intel chip? We'd see A57's start to invade the desktop space in the form of Linux and ChromeOS boxes. These CPUs are beginning to provide adequate performance.

That, and due to the reduced pace of innovation, who would buy a Skylake i7 with millions of Haswell i7's still hanging around that were a fraction of the price? It was one thing when PII's were several times faster than the chips they replaced, but we're looking at 5-15% these days.

EDIT: Not that I'm arguing AMD should go away, just that I doubt it would have that effect on Intel desktop CPU pricing, at least in the next few years.

 

[mrmt]

I don't not-believe that evaluation of the situation in a lot of ways

What Arachnotronic is describing is a price curve, a tool marketing departments use to establish prices on the market. what you and Scholzpdx are describing is... something that I still couldn't figure out what it is.

If there's someone wishing to raise prices on the market it is AMD, not Intel. AMD *needs* higher prices, they are bleeding money, and they would stop that if they could. They would price their processors higher if they could.

In other words, the current situation on the market is Intel keeping the overall prices low thus forcing AMD to lower its prices. It is Intel keeping AMD prices in check, not the other way around.

With AMD having x86 CPU, GPU and ARM under one umbrella without being permanently tied to one fab, they are nimble enough to survive a market shift like that. Intel? They are at the mercy of X86 success without a huge shakeup that would aggressively change how successful their fab would be without their own products filling it.

Are they? AMD is currently bleeding money on the market despite the absence of the catastrophic market shift you are describing, a market shift of this magnitude would kill the company. AMD balance sheet is not strong enough to absorb more than a couple of quarters in a real distress situation.

 

[Idontcare]

If there's someone wishing to raise prices on the market it is AMD, not Intel. AMD *needs* higher prices, they are bleeding money, and they would stop that if they could. They would price their processors higher if they could.

In other words, the current situation on the market is Intel keeping the overall prices low thus forcing AMD to lower its prices. It is Intel keeping AMD prices in check, not the other way around.

This is the kind of accurate and true market assessment that separates the professionals from the amateurs.

If you get it, then you likely came here already knowing it to be true.

If you don't get it, then you likely find yourself in an emotionally entwined reaction to the very notion of it.

At any rate, I can recognize and appreciate, there is beauty in the sheer application of logic and reason here.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I get where you're coming from, but frankly, this is totally off base.

The PC market is in decline . Why? There are far more computer-like thingies for people to spend their money on than notebooks and desktops (smartphones, tablets, etc.).

And, for most users, their older PCs last longer because software just isn't soaking up all of the performance that modern CPUs bring for most people.

In a demand environment as feeble as the current one, where Intel is lucky to have PC chip shipments flat year-over-year, with growth something to cheer about, the LAST thing you want to do is to artificially inflate prices.

This would SIGNIFICANTLY hurt demand, which would run counter to what the decision-makers at Intel need to drive: growth.

So, no, if AMD dropped off the face of the planet tomorrow, Intel's CPU prices would go nowhere, give or take a few %. Intel's biggest enemy is the fundamental demand picture for PCs in general -- and it's a far more potent threat than AMD has been in years.

Exactly. The comparisons to sky high cpu prices in the early days are not really valid. First, as you say, cpu demand was growing, and it is much easier to raise prices in a growing market than a flat or declining one such as we have today.

Secondly, performance was growing by leaps and bounds with each generation, and that performance was needed because cpu performance was much lower than today. Neither of these conditions exists today as an incentive to upgrade.

Finally, x86 was pretty much the only game in town, whereas there is a strong alternative in ARM today.

Edit: we are getting somewhat off topic here. As to the original question, yes there are some niche scenarios in which AMD offers very good value, and it makes sense to buy FX if those are your use cases. But buying AMD to support the underdog or to supposedly keep intel in check just does not make sense to me.

 

[Idontcare]

It seems to me that most people aren't considering what intel pricing was like prior to amd bringing their cpu's to market. I remember because I used an amd 5x86 in the very first pc I built and it trounced the pentium 100 that was way overpriced. It was also my first foray away from intel in the x86 market. Because amd put pressure on intel the prices began to moderate over a period of years bringing us to where we are today. I don't want amd to go anywhere and really would like to see them make a couple of breakthroughs with their cpu performance. If you don't remember they were first to 1ghz with the slot a athlon and it would outperform the slot 1 pentium all day long. Because of amd intel was forced to change the way they conduct business and we have the performance today because of this. AMD still makes a good chip and before you bash them you might want to scrutinize your intel motherboards and see who made the components on them because you might just be surprised to see some amd ic on it.

Those were the market-growth (TAM growth) days of personal computing when the internet itself was the killer app.

Those days are gone. The market (and TAM) is saturated.

What is left is simply the replace/upgrade rate plus whatever the annual population growth rate is for the globe. Intel isn't looking at a global TAM that is 3X their current annual revenue, they are looking at a global TAM that is maybe 20% more than their annual revenue (at best) and growing at inflation + population growth rates.

Don't conflate the market dynamics from 20 years ago with those of today, lest you confine yourself to making incorrect analogies.

 

[Ramses]

I'm happy to be an amateur in this case.
Business on that level I find distasteful.