What if AMD priced their lowest quad-core at $60. Would it kill the dual market?

[VirtualLarry]

Just hypothesizing here. Wondering if AMD will drop their entry-level quad-core prices down some. Although that might kill their ASPs. Will their new 32nm Fusion chip "llano" cost more or less than their Athlon II X4 chips? If it's 32nm, will it cost less to produce? Could they lower their price such that the bottom of the market would become quad-cores? Could they eat away at Intel's ASPs for their dual-cores, by pricing them out of the market with true AMD quad-cores? (Then again, performance-wise, it seems that Intel's dual-cores with HT can compete with AMD's entry-level quads.)

In my opinion, there's really no reason for people to be purchasing single-core or even dual-core computers anymore. Quad-core all the way.

 

[LoneNinja]

I don't think it would, people who care about power consumption will still grab the Athlon II X2 or in the future Llano X2 over an X4, not everyone will pay a premium for the efficient X4. Corporations would still be buying X2 in masses for their office computers as well.

Certainly it would severely hurt X2 sales, but I wouldn't expect them to vanish for at least another cpu generation.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Interesting idea, there are TONS of people out there that price makes all the difference in the world.

 

[Voo]

Well if we assume that the dual core would be even cheaper in return and for lots of use cases the difference between a dual and a quad core is two cores idling or not I doubt it would make much of a difference.

But then prices don't really scale on the low end, so the price difference would probably be negligible.

 

[gevorg]

Very unlikely, this will increase the wafer waste. Heck, AMD even releases 3 core CPUs to squeeze the last bit of every wafer possible.

 

[Castiel]

All depends on the IPC. Amd's A2 X4 perform's like an I3 540

 

[Stoneburner]

That would be great. I would use quad cores for low end HTPC. And dual cores for very low end HTPC's and media servers.

 

[nyker96]

you can already buy a used x4 620 for $65 on ebay. at this point I don't see the need for dual cores anymore, unless power saving is an issue where i3s still has its advantages, other than that, I'd recommend people getting a used x4 at the minimum for a new build.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i dont know whether that would make much difference in amds sales other than to bring down the prices of all their other chips. many people buy intel just for stability/compatibility

 

[cusideabelincoln]

If you assume dual core prices don't drop (or don't drop that much) and AMD implements power gating on the cores at 32nm, then yes they would put a hurtin' on dual core sales. However, like single cores now, they would probably just release a dual core that is super cheap - cheaper than the quad core. So I still see a market for dual cores.

 

[Zap]

Maybe Semprons become dual cores and everything else quads? Heck, lowest end 45nm Intel is a Celeron dual core.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I guess I was just wondering if CPU prices would go the same way as HD prices. They have gotten extremely compressed, with 1TB 7200RPM HDs going for $50, who would buy anything smaller. I mean, sure, you can save $10 by going with 500GB, but why not spring for 1TB? Likewise, if the difference in price between an X2 and an X4 is $20, why not go quad?

 

[nanaki333]

if everything was optimized for quad then maybe. i'd rather have a 3.2ghz dual than a 2.6ghz quad.

 

[exar333]

What would AMD sell their X2 and X3s for then, $30-45? Maybe a bargain-basement Athlon X4 could make this price-point, but it would definitely mix-up the product line on the low-end for AMD. I doubt Intel would really care; their 2-core SB i3 at ~$100 would still be pretty competitively priced. It would be great though, if Intel released a sweet i3-K at ~$70-80 with a low clock-speed but with the ability to overclock. Would be similar to the old e2xxx/e5xxx series they had with C2D.

 

[Texashiker]

What if AMD priced their lowest quad-core at $60

There are several AMD quad cores at $60 already, and I dont think they are killing the dual core market.

How many everyday programs actually benefit from a quad core cpu? If your video encoding, maybe so.

When my son and I play left 4 dead 2, his dual core amd 245 @2.9ghz loads the game faster then my quad core amd 620 @2.6ghz. I liked the price and speed of the 245 X2, that when my daughter needed an upgrade, that is what I got her.

My wife does picture editing for a side job, so I got her a quad core.

Towards the end of 2011, I can see phasing my son and daughters dual core cpus out and replacing them with quad cores. But that is still almost a year away.

 

[chickenIT]

My English is very weak. I'm form Asian.
Almost people only need X2 CPU. Facke book, share Video, picture, music, sometimes is play HD..
maybe, Build a CPU more speed is better than more core.
CPU many core is for special job.
p/s:10 minutes to write.

 

[soccerballtux]

Very unlikely, this will increase the wafer waste. Heck, AMD even releases 3 core CPUs to squeeze the last bit of every wafer possible.

no it's to fill pricepoints in the market, seeing as there are so many X3's that unlock to x4.

 

[f4phantom2500]

no it's to fill pricepoints in the market, seeing as there are so many X3's that unlock to x4.

i think it's both; i'm pretty sure the x3 chips were originally (possibly still?) released to make use of the x4 chips that had 1 defective core. *then* good x4 chips were sold as x3 chips with 1 core locked to meet demand. true a lot of x3's do unlock, but a lot don't. last guesstimate i read was somewhere around 50% success rate...all i know is that my x3 didn't unlock -_-.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The cost comparisons on next generation process technology always refers to per transistor. Meaning if the 32nm Llano chip is physically larger than 45nm Athlon II X4, it would be more expensive.

That said, I'm not sure if there's a need to obsolete dual cores so fast. Only the high end needs quad cores, and games are still someway between 2 and 4 cores. 4 cores everywhere would just mean there are more people using less of the CPU.

 

[OCGuy]

Nope

It would kill even more confidence that stock holders have though.

 

[LoneNinja]

There are several AMD quad cores at $60 already, and I dont think they are killing the dual core market.

How many everyday programs actually benefit from a quad core cpu? If your video encoding, maybe so.

When my son and I play left 4 dead 2, his dual core amd 245 @2.9ghz loads the game faster then my quad core amd 620 @2.6ghz. I liked the price and speed of the 245 X2, that when my daughter needed an upgrade, that is what I got her.

My wife does picture editing for a side job, so I got her a quad core.

Towards the end of 2011, I can see phasing my son and daughters dual core cpus out and replacing them with quad cores. But that is still almost a year away.

Left4Dead load time is only creditable if the hard drive and ram are identical. If I wanted to I could get Left4Dead to load a lot faster on my Phenom 9850 than my Phenom II 940 by putting a faster drive in.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

if everything was optimized for quad then maybe. i'd rather have a 3.2ghz dual than a 2.6ghz quad.

i think i agree. the dual core would be better at 90% of what you do, so the overall experience would be better. 2.5 ghz is slow these days, i can hardly stand to use my e5200

 

[Texashiker]

Left4Dead load time is only creditable if the hard drive and ram are identical. If I wanted to I could get Left4Dead to load a lot faster on my Phenom 9850 than my Phenom II 940 by putting a faster drive in.

RAM is identical between my sons computer and mine - same brand, type and size. Well, it was anyway, I since have upgraded to more memory.

My data drive is faster then my sons - his is an old 160 gig SATA drive, mine is a hitachi 1 terabyte with 32 meg cache.

Even though my data drive is faster, his games still load faster.

 

[HW2050Plus]

I think it is not a question of "if" but one of "when".

There is a transition currently going on from 2 core to 4 core and 4 core to 6/8 core. You will have constantly less sales on dual cores and at a certain point in time the companies will just stop the production of those parts (as they already stopped single core by now). That will happen not now, but I think not very far in the future. Maybe next year dual core is completly gone.

Next year we could even see 12/16 core parts (without MCM).

And all this will continue:
2005 -> 1 core
2007 -> 2 cores
2009 -> 4 cores
2011 -> 8 cores
2013 -> 16 cores
2015 -> 32 cores
2017 -> 64 cores
2019 -> 128 cores
2021 -> 256 cores - That is just 10 years from now!

You can expect always, that the previous generation (core count) will be the budget market and the generation before previous is phased out.

 

[nyker96]

I think it is not a question of "if" but one of "when".

There is a transition currently going on from 2 core to 4 core and 4 core to 6/8 core. You will have constantly less sales on dual cores and at a certain point in time the companies will just stop the production of those parts (as they already stopped single core by now). That will happen not now, but I think not very far in the future. Maybe next year dual core is completly gone.

Next year we could even see 12/16 core parts (without MCM).

And all this will continue:
2005 -> 1 core
2007 -> 2 cores
2009 -> 4 cores
2011 -> 8 cores
2013 -> 16 cores
2015 -> 32 cores
2017 -> 64 cores
2019 -> 128 cores
2021 -> 256 cores - That is just 10 years from now!

You can expect always, that the previous generation (core count) will be the budget market and the generation before previous is phased out.

you are assuming the doubling occurs every two years, but the transition from 2->4 seems to be slower than 1->2, who knows maybe this trend will slow down, probably because the software has to catch up a bit.