Question What does it mean, when the *lowest* CPU in your (consumer/mainstream) lineup is $300+? Yes, looking at you AM5. But this is really a larger question.

[VirtualLarry]

What if Intel, in pursuit of "the fastest consumer desktop CPU", stopped selling their designed-for-laptop "desktop" CPUs, and only started selling their HEDT line for consumer desktops, starting at $500 for an 8-core desktop CPU?

Where does this arm-race end?

I mean, I get it, R&D is expensive, and gamers dominate the DIY Desktop PC market, and surveys show that they often purchase towards the top-end chip, but is Intel 12th-Gen going to be "the last" generation of consumer CPUs available around the $100-110 price-point? (Speaking of the 12100F here.)

AMD's 4100 is no-where to be found.

Is this the beginning of the end for "cheap chips for all"?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

For gaming when the 9700K was released, it was more than enough to get you firmly GPU limited in pretty much every game at high details. When it was on fire sale after the 10th gens were released, I tried to buy one for ~$200 from MicroCenter. Unfortunately, my motherboard did NOT like it (failed on boot, auto recovered shipping bios every time I installed it). The release MSRP was crazy high for what it was, but, when it was later in life, it was still a good purchase.

That's not what those review sites were saying when it released. It is not what I was reading in forums less than 4yrs ago either. It is revisionist history, to say its price was too high at launch. You and I may have thought that at the time. But it was not the general consensus.. It wasn't until Zen 3 that everyone suddenly got price sensitive for flagship performance. I wonder why that was?

 

[VirtualLarry]

It wasn't until Zen 3 that everyone suddenly got price sensitive for flagship performance. I wonder why that was?

Interesting observation...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Interesting observation...

It was rhetorical of course. Anyone not wearing blue or red tinted shades knows how this industry works. It is all part of the game. That members are hotly debating if AMD or Intel will have the best CPUs coming out indicates how much better things have gotten. Proponents of each have switched sides. The ones shouting productivity is more important, are now suddenly gaming enthusiasts. And vice versa. One day Cinebench doesn't matter. The next, it is THE most important metric. All part of the game.

I don't play the game.



Since Intel stopped cheesing on how many threads you were allowed to have without crazy money, I don't think you can go wrong with either company.

 

[Leeea]

That's not what those review sites were saying when it released. It is not what I was reading in forums less than 4yrs ago either. It is revisionist history, to say its price was too high at launch. You and I may have thought that at the time. But it was not the general consensus.. It wasn't until Zen 3 that everyone suddenly got price sensitive for flagship performance. I wonder why that was?

A number of reasons I imagine.

I think one was people started looking at it as a CPU + GPU buy, and moving $ from the CPU to the GPU typically would yield better performance. GPU prices started skyrocketing near that time.


AMD was always about price to performance. People perceived they would be able to buy top tier performance at a discount from AMD, and AMD was not up for that.


The 1000 series was a bargain, the 2000 series also. The 3000 series was priced very nicely to undercut Intel. The 5000 series beat Intel and suddenly AMD wanted Intel money. Shocked the market.

 

[Markfw]

It was rhetorical of course. Anyone not wearing blue or red tinted shades knows how this industry works. It is all part of the game. That members are hotly debating if AMD or Intel will have the best CPUs coming out indicates how much better things have gotten. Proponents of each have switched sides. The ones shouting productivity is more important, are now suddenly gaming enthusiasts. And vice versa. One day Cinebench doesn't matter. The next, it is THE most important metric. All part of the game.

I don't play the game.

View attachment 67245

Since Intel stopped cheesing on how many threads you were allowed to have without crazy money, I don't think you can go wrong with either company.

For me, its whose the best. Now that includes performance, and not of one core, and price and power usage. Right now Intel loses in all but single core.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The 1000 series was a bargain, the 2000 series also. The 3000 series was priced very nicely to undercut Intel. The 5000 series beat Intel and suddenly AMD wanted Intel money. Shocked the market.

That's my problem with it. That we call it Intel money. It is best in class money. Calling it Intel money is what the shills came up with to bash it. When Intel is on top, they say hey teh best will cost you. When AMD is on top it's How dare they! It's the game, and the game sucks quite frankly.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

For me, its whose the best.

Yup. For your use case, a damned worthy one BTW, the choice is pretty obvious.

But we don't all have the same use case. Intel hits on plenty of bang for buck points for me. It is the constantly changing platform that puts me off now. AM4 is the best long term low budget platform my damaged brain can recall.

 

[Markfw]

Yup. For your use case, a damned worthy one BTW, the choice is pretty obvious.

But we don't all have the same use case. Intel hits on plenty of bang for buck points for me. It is the constantly changing platform that puts me off now. AM4 is the best long term low budget platform my damaged brain can recall.

12400 is good, except for the platform cost. That being the case, its am4 for low end and am5 for high end.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Being the good guy never pays. You offer to help someone with an affordable price, they think your services/product MUST be inferior. They go to the bad guy coz he charges higher. Never mind the quality. The money ensures you got quality which must ONLY come at a significant cost. Now if the previously good guy tries to get what's fair under prevalent market conditions, he is looked at suspiciously, for trying to be shady and slippery like a snake. Humans are inherently dumb. The ratio of dumb to smart people is staggeringly high. We are on the planet of the apes.

 

[FangBLade]

How accurate is his prediction about AMD? I think his second prediction tell us everything:

 

[DAPUNISHER]

12400 is good, except for the platform cost. That being the case, its am4 for low end and am5 for high end.

For a budget banger you can build a 12400 system for a good price now. But you give up overclocking and high end CPU support to hit the sweet spot on price. Not a problem if a gamer decides to use it for the next 4-5yrs and only swap GPUs.

With AM4 you can overclock on every B or X board. XMP is almost universal. Price and selection of boards is unmatched when considering upgrade path. And thanks to competition being stiff, AMD dropped prices on CPUs and APUs enough to make it a compelling choice again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Being the good guy never pays. You offer to help someone with an affordable price, they think your services/product MUST be inferior. They go to the bad guy coz he charges higher. Never mind the quality. The money ensures you got quality which must ONLY come at a significant cost. Now if the previously good guy tries to get what's fair under prevalent market conditions, he is looked at suspiciously, for trying to be shady and slippery like a snake.

That right there is the succinct epitome of my computer-building business experience.

 

[Abwx]

Being the good guy never pays. You offer to help someone with an affordable price, they think your services/product MUST be inferior.

Long ago i knew a guy that had a general store for electronic items, and he we selling 100 CRT monitors per month for say 200€/unity.

One day he had the idea of ordering a huge quantity to crush the price to 150€ thinking that he would eat all the local market, but unexpectedly his sales collapsed for the reason that consumers assumed that anything below 200€ was forcibly crap, he did reset the price at 200€ and sales came back to previous levels...

 

[Markfw]

For a budget banger you can build a 12400 system for a good price now. But you give up overclocking and high end CPU support to hit the sweet spot on price. Not a problem if a gamer decides to use it for the next 4-5yrs and only swap GPUs.

With AM4 you can overclock on every B or X board. XMP is almost universal. Price and selection of boards is unmatched when considering upgrade path. And thanks to competition being stiff, AMD dropped prices on CPUs and APUs enough to make it a compelling choice again.

a $80 motherboard is not bad for a $200 CPU(12400), but a $50 motherboard with a $160 cpu(5600) $280 vs $210 is better for a budget build.

 

[Ranulf]

That's my problem with it. That we call it Intel money. It is best in class money. Calling it Intel money is what the shills came up with to bash it. When Intel is on top, they say hey teh best will cost you. When AMD is on top it's How dare they! It's the game, and the game sucks quite frankly.

Eh, I prefer the term Intel Tax which has been around for 15+ years. It comes with the territory of them being the leading performer in the market. I've been critical of Intel's prices for a long time and when AMD played the same game, I gave them the same treatment. Sure the marketing shills and fanboys will jump on in because it serves their faith.

AMD asking $100 less 4yrs later, for a CPU that destroys it in every way is now a cause for criticism. Would that the GPU market had seen that kind of performance increase for 25% less money in the last 4 yrs.

But that proves my point. The 8700k was a far better deal at $350 and has 12t vs 8t. The 8th gen stuff is the cutoff generation where you're going to get 5+ years of i7 goodness before even thinking of upgrading, for most users but especially gamers. The problem both AMD and Intel have is that with the tech advancing at a decent 1-2 year pace again, the value proposition of these chips becomes more of a considertion when upgrading. For most gamers, the mid range is the place to go because the tech will improve so much in 1-2 generations that you might want to upgrade in 3-4 years now instead of having a 4-5 year old mid range 5 series chip or 5+ 7 series.

I'm also tired of people citing inflation so much simply because they do so every generation now. For the first time in years where inflation is clearly a major part of the cost increases, those people are finally correct. During say, 2018 and the Turing RTX gpu price increases, not so much.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

@Ranulf

I commented to another member that due to the trend of console targets, that I think we have reached the point where 12 threads for $300 may be a little overpriced. When you commented to me, I started playing devil's advocate, and took the other side of the argument. Regardless, I concede you made a good point.

My unvarnished opinion as I previously suggested, is that $300 is too much for 12 threads this late in '22. 9th gen i7 is a perfect example of why. It was hailed as the best gaming CPU. The shine came off that penny far too quickly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Look at where the 9400F ended up. 6C/6T didn't age all that well. In fact, I think in most games, the 12th-gen 12100F 4C/8T out-classes it.

 

[In2Photos]

My unvarnished opinion as I previously suggested, is that $300 is too much for 12 threads this late in '22. 9th gen i7 is a perfect example of why. It was hailed as the best gaming CPU. The shine came off that penny far too quickly.

Agreed! I have an i7-920 system that I still use today. I built it in 2009. It is 4C/8T. I realize that there are massive improvements in IPC and clock speeds since then, but it still baffles me that 13 years later core counts are still similar expect for high end. I also realize that most software can't really take advantage of the extra cores, it still just baffles me.

 

[Thunder 57]

Yup. For your use case, a damned worthy one BTW, the choice is pretty obvious.

But we don't all have the same use case. Intel hits on plenty of bang for buck points for me. It is the constantly changing platform that puts me off now. AM4 is the best long term low budget platform my damaged brain can recall.

I'd have to go back to AM2, where I went from a single core to a dual core to a quad core all on the same motherboard! Or Socket/Super 7. Talk about versatile.

 

[Asterox]

Look at where the 9400F ended up. 6C/6T didn't age all that well. In fact, I think in most games, the 12th-gen 12100F 4C/8T out-classes it.

The people who bought that CPU probably belonged to some sort of minor sect .Intel, more Desktop sockets than socks and underpants.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs. Intel Core i5-9400F: Mainstream Titans Clash

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www.techspot.com

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- 129 000 sold

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- 82 000 sold

Isn't it nice, when you have sales figures and you can see the true reality.

 

[Just Benching]

. . .

. . .

If your at 1 unit per minute, and it takes 10 minutes to complete the task, you will have made 10 units.

If you are 50% slower, you are making 0.5 units per minute, and it takes 20 minutes to complete 10 units

75% slower, 0.25 units / minute, 40 minutes

90% slower, 0.10 units / minute, 100 minutes

99% slower, 0.01 units / minute, 1,000 minutes

100% slower, 0 units / minute, infinite minutes to complete


The key here is you used the word "slower". This implies speed, or the rate of something being done.

Still wrong. In my context we are talking about 1 unit, which is basically the bios update. If it takes you 1 day to get the bios update and im 100% slower, did it take me 0 days to get the bios update?

I don't know why you people keep moving goalposts just to not accept im right. This is ridiculous...

 

[cmdrdredd]

No.

It takes you 10 minutes to finish a task, and im 100% slower. Does that mean i finished in 0 minutes?

You have it backwards there.

Say you drive 100mph and someone is 95% slower that would be 5mph no?

In your example slower = longer time, not shorter time.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Still wrong. In my context we are talking about 1 unit, which is basically the bios update. If it takes you 1 day to get the bios update and im 100% slower, did it take me 0 days to get the bios update?

I don't know why you people keep moving goalposts just to not accept im right. This is ridiculous...

Simply because your math is backwards when you talk about % slower. Slower = increased time not decreased.

 

[Just Benching]

Offtopic,

 

[cmdrdredd]

Why are you changing the example instead of talking about the ACTUAL thing I said. It takes you 1 day to get the bios update and it took me 2 days. Am I not 100% slower? As in, you finished 100% of the work required in 1 day, I only finished 50% of the work required in the same 1 day.

You said you finish in 0 time...I don't think you understand who is changing what but ok.

The original comment I was responding to insinuated that going slower decreases the time which is wrong.