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What companies COULD release vs. what they DO release?

B

BigToque

Lifer
I often hear people talking about how Intel could release something that is 10-100x better than what is already available on the market. Other things include hard drive makers being able to offer terabyte storage on a single drive, etc.

Now I've always firmly believed that the companies always have more than what is being released, but I don't think it's as far ahead as people think. I mean sure they might have higher clocked processors, but they are still going to be made like everything else. I mean, they wont have perfectly working CPU's running on .65um or lower already right?

What do you guys think?
 
I think you wouldn't see products with flaws if they already had refined stuff 100x better then what they are releasing. That's like someone pwning in calculus and screwing up on addition.
 
doubtful. but is it theoretical that they COULD come out with something 10x better tomorrow? possible. i mean almost anything is possible. however:

1. it would be damn expensive and have a limited market(and the average consumers wouldn't buy it)

2. it would probably be pretty huge(as in having to put multiple processors on one chip). maybe something similar like Text

3. and damn hot and require some kind of fancy cooling rig(i'm thinking it would need its own mini-a/c cooling device)
 
They will have better things in their labs but i dont think theres anything like 10x better than whats out. But it prolly wouldnt be so great anyways as the 10ghz P4 with 2ghz fsb and 2 mb L1 cache with super duper mega extra good HT tech would prolly burn out rreeeal fast without liquid nitrogen or freon being pourned on it through a hole in the side of the case.

Also theres no real point in releasing somthing thats better if its not needed, we dont need a 10 ghz monster (might want one though) but it wouldnt be needed as if they were to realease somthing like that then the g-card manufacturers and ram makers and all the rest of the component maker people would have to release their new tech extra good stuff to make the monster cpu useful. Wheres the point in a 10 ghz p4 when your sitting with a 9800 pro? or pc3200? Everything would need to be better.
 
Not heaps better no way. Of course they would have some nifty stuff hanging around their labs but all beta hardware and nothing uber advanced. Like for instance while ATI is finalizing the R420 line of GPUs they probably have some VERY early designs for the R500. But not something they could release tomorrow.
 
The toaster, Prescott, pretty much proves Intel doesn't have anything better. More like they are desparate to pre-launch prescott.
 
You really need to think. Imagine that YOU had a legitamate product that you could sell that is 3x, 5x, 10x, 100x times better than what others are selling. Would you sit back and earn squat by selling the same stuff as your competition? Or would you start selling that fantastic item and completely blow your competion away earning hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars profit? Really sit and think about it. Then come back and post your answer.

Yes companies always have things that have some really good features in their labs. But they aren't ready for market for one reason or another.

Suppose AMD had something that is 3x as fast. If they released it now for a reasonable price, Intel would be no longer. Do you really think AMD wants to be as they are now (rarely breaking even and most often losing money each quarter), or do you think AMD wants to be like Intel (raking in money, lots of money). Duh, of course they want to be the market leader. So why don't they release a 3x faster chip? It isn't ready for market. Maybe it has a high failure rate, or maybe it costs far too much to build, or maybe the technology isn't available yet to mass produce it, or maybe it is untested and possibly has calculation errors, etc. AMD doesn't want to sit back and withhold processors and lose money each quarter. They have to sit back and wait for the products to be economically feasible to sell.

AMD's last dozen quarters NET profit/loss per share:
-$.05
-$.54
-$.05
-$.03
-$.54
-$.74
-$2.49
-$.42
-$.40
-$.09
$.12
$.12
Look at those numbers and tell me that AMD is just sitting around and NOT selling their good products.
 
Originally posted by: dullard
You really need to think. Imagine that YOU had a legitamate product that you could sell that is 3x, 5x, 10x, 100x times better than what others are selling. Would you sit back and earn squat by selling the same stuff as your competition? Or would you start selling that fantastic item and completely blow your competion away earning hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars profit? Really sit and think about it. Then come back and post your answer.

Yes companies always have things that have some really good features in their labs. But they aren't ready for market for one reason or another.

Suppose AMD had something that is 3x as fast. If they released it now for a reasonable price, Intel would be no longer. Do you really think AMD wants to be as they are now (rarely breaking even and most often losing money each quarter), or do you think AMD wants to be like Intel (raking in money, lots of money). Duh, of course they want to be the market leader. So why don't they release a 3x faster chip? It isn't ready for market. Maybe it has a high failure rate, or maybe it costs far too much to build, or maybe the technology isn't available yet to mass produce it, or maybe it is untested and possibly has calculation errors, etc. AMD doesn't want to sit back and withhold processors and lose money each quarter. They have to sit back and wait for the products to be economically feasible to sell.

AMD's last dozen quarters NET profit/loss per share:
-$.05
-$.54
-$.05
-$.03
-$.54
-$.74
-$2.49
-$.42
-$.40
-$.09
$.12
$.12
Look at those numbers and tell me that AMD is just sitting around and NOT selling their good products.
Click to expand...


IF they had processors 3x faster then releasing them wouldnt really mean extra profit. e.g. Say intel are sitting nicely on 3ghz and they have a working 4ghz in their lab, no problems with cooling alls fine and the average user would benefit from it. What they would do instead of just releasing the 4ghz is release the 3.2 ghz, let it sell for a while then the 3.4, 3.6....3.8 and then finally 4 ghz now overall they would have made more profit from releasing the diffrent speeds gradually rather than throwing their best out there and hoping for good results, also by this time theyve cooked up the 5 ghz with extra added tech that they can do the same with 🙂

I Suppose AMD may actually be throwing their best out there with the A64 just to stay in the game as the XP was getting pasted by the P4, also the early introduction of 64 bit tech to attract extra buyers? AMD needs the sales and intel dont so AMD do their best and release their new stuff ASAP, whereas intel can get away with screwing people over with things like prescott that runs slower than its predecessor 🙁 and still make profit and continuing its speed bumps of 200 mhz every so often. (im pretty sure prescott wasent intels best and they just retaliated to the launch of A64 by releasing prescott, all they need is a new label to put on processors and mobos like "Prescott ready now!" and other such stuff, the below average performance isnt much of a concern for intel)
 
I don't think they have perfect 65nm CPUs yes. I have a feeling they have slower samples of their designs in .13u and 90nm, and are tweaking and working out the kinks. I think they keep doing this until they can produce them in the hundreds of thousands with some ease.
Kinda like the 800MHz Hammer samples...For a good ahwile I bet they couldn't get them to even 1.4GHz (x40), but they could see the potential they had, and having done this for several generations of chips, know what they are getting into.
 
That sort of thinking is conspiratorial nonsense. Why would they not release any better stuff they had? To spite their customers? To incur an extra R&D cost and then not try to recover that cost? It just makes no sense.

Remember when Intel released the 1.13Ghz P3 but then had to take it off the market when it was shown to not be stable enough? Or how about the NV30 which was taken off the market after only a few hundred were sold and the NV35 rushed into production? If anything, companies are cutting corners and rushing stuff to market before it's ready.
 
Originally posted by: Macro2
The toaster, Prescott, pretty much proves Intel doesn't have anything better. More like they are desparate to pre-launch prescott.
Click to expand...

prescott wasn't a total flop. some site OCed a 2.4 to 3.6 on stock cooling/voltage. pretty impressive if you ask me.

-Vivan
 
Zeph:

No there is some reality to this, but not exactly in the manner you would think. Technology breaks do come in multiples. Its probably very likely Prescott ran at 4GHz off the bat. But Intel releasing/manufacturing it right away is a concern to their marketing tier structure.

Other things that are collecting dust before their release:
SATA everything: sure it exists but who was going to buy a SATA DVD drive a year ago before anyone had SATA?
16X DVD buners: Yep they exist. But there is no media so we can make more money releasing 8X drives for now
500GB hard drives: Yep, but no one is going to pay a grand for it yet so we can release 400GB hard drives for the time being and then release the 500gb drives for $300.

Things that are NOT collecting dust before their release:
DDR1 that can run at 667; it just takes a lot of tweaking
DDR2 that can run at 667; ditto
OLED monitors
Video cards

Remember companies exist to make money, not to make you feel good. Making you feel good about your purchase might be encouraged internally to get you to buy more products, but thats about it. If company A can increase their profits by 20% by releasing an intermediate stepping then they will do it.

Kristopher
 
I worked for a different semiconductor company back in 96' and I can say that the OP is pretty close to what is going on. We were selling 200Mhz mm? cpu's yet most of the final test yields were binning in the 500Mhz plus (there was no bin for higher yet) range yet they went to 233Mhz next. Like someone above said it is all about the money.

AMD is the reason CPU prices are so low and that is good for the consumer. On the other hand Intel is in a position to pounce given the opertunity so lets hope that does not happen.
 
KristopherKubicki: yes, you're right. To an extent, companies to hold stuff back and they definitely time products for maximum profits at times. (but I wouldn't consider the 500GB hard drive an example of this because as you mention yourself, it's held back more by high cost than anything else.) (I also think it's held back by lack for demand for something that big.)
 
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