Will Ryzen... mark the end of under-$100 CPUs?

[VirtualLarry]

The lowest Ryzen, is a 4C/4T, and it's $119 or $129.

This is actually interesting to me, if this helps to re-define "low-end CPU". If Intel follows suit, and drops anything less than a quad-core, or at least a dual-core with HT, and drops anything below around $90 in price... well, perhaps Ryzen is the best thing to happen to Intel's bottom-line in a long time.

Or possibly, Intel will continue to churn-out "budget" CPUs, for barely more than their fab / assembly / distribution costs, to maintain their brand, and the tables will turn, and Intel will become known more for being a "budget" brand than AMD, because their highest mainstream CPU is a quad-core, and they still make dual-cores, whereas AMD is all quad-core through octo-core.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

They'll keep churning out cheap CPUs. They're filling a need.

 

[disappoint]

The lowest Ryzen, is a 4C/4T, and it's $119 or $129.

This is actually interesting to me, if this helps to re-define "low-end CPU". If Intel follows suit, and drops anything less than a quad-core, or at least a dual-core with HT, and drops anything below around $90 in price... well, perhaps Ryzen is the best thing to happen to Intel's bottom-line in a long time.

Or possibly, Intel will continue to churn-out "budget" CPUs, for barely more than their fab / assembly / distribution costs, to maintain their brand, and the tables will turn, and Intel will become known more for being a "budget" brand than AMD, because their highest mainstream CPU is a quad-core, and they still make dual-cores, whereas AMD is all quad-core through octo-core.

Why do you make it seem as if the # of CPU cores is the determining factor in CPU performance? I think you know it isn't.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Why do you make it seem as if the # of CPU cores is the determining factor in CPU performance? I think you know it isn't.

Depends on what you want to do with it, but quite often it is. It is one of the factors, the others being IPC, clockspeed and whether hyperthreading is enabled. Oh and memory latency and bandwidth.

 

[whm1974]

They'll keep churning out cheap CPUs. They're filling a need.

Yes and I expect that AMD will release a 2C/4T version of Raven Ridge in the future as well. Budget Boxes do need a low cost CPU.

 

[escrow4]

Boxes at work (that I've seen) run i5 2500 non Ks with a hunk o junk spinning rust and 4GB of RAM. This is with IE (eh) running ERM software plus Adobe (more eh) and other Office (2010 eh thrice) bits in the background using up around 2.3GB of RAM on Windows 7. Other government offices I've been to are also running locked i5s. Not i3s or lower. Yes its anecdotal and all that but you stick a quad in a desktop (as you should) and it will last and last and cut through the inevitable sluggishness and crap that people accumulate. Although an SSD is near mandatory in 2017 but it hasn't filtered down to business boxes. Unfortunately.

 

[disappoint]

Depends on what you want to do with it, but quite often it is. It is one of the factors, the others being IPC, clockspeed and whether hyperthreading is enabled. Oh and memory latency and bandwidth.

There are 4C Intel CPUs faster than 8C AMD CPUs are there not?

 

[SPBHM]

AMD wants to sell the stocks of Bulldozer based parts, and probably after that they are going to sell something new sub $100.

 

[UsandThem]

I doubt it either company will abandon that market segment. Of course they will focus more on their more profitable segments, but there are still a lot of people out there who just want an inexpensive machine to email and create some documents. For them, a sub $300 PC does everything they need it to.

Every tech/PC product out there (well, except for Apple) has a low, middle, and high end product segment. For example, the best selling tablet on Amazon is not the iPad or Samsung Galaxy. It's the $49 Fire tablet.

I bet Intel never wanted to release the lower profit Celeron CPU, but both AMD and Cyrix were taking the entry-level segment, and even some of the mid-level sales because the Intel Pentium II lineup was too expensive (the Pentium II 450 launched at $669!).

I think it is smart for AMD to focus on the higher-end stuff at first and reestablish their name if the hype surrounding Ryzen is indeed accurate. It's been too many rough years for AMD on the CPU side, with Intel at one point controlling something like 88% of the market. Maybe they will just let their AM3+ CPUs be their budget line with a price cut until the retailers go through their on-hand stock.

It will be interesting real soon if AMD has a hit on their hands like they did back in the Athlon days.

 

[mxnerd]

Intel will keep releasing cheap CPUs.

No vendor is going to waste its manufacturing capacity, it's money.

 

[maddogmcgee]

Boxes at work (that I've seen) run i5 2500 non Ks with a hunk o junk spinning rust and 4GB of RAM. This is with IE (eh) running ERM software plus Adobe (more eh) and other Office (2010 eh thrice) bits in the background using up around 2.3GB of RAM on Windows 7. Other government offices I've been to are also running locked i5s. Not i3s or lower. Yes its anecdotal and all that but you stick a quad in a desktop (as you should) and it will last and last and cut through the inevitable sluggishness and crap that people accumulate. Although an SSD is near mandatory in 2017 but it hasn't filtered down to business boxes. Unfortunately.

I bought a laptop with, 2500 CPU , 4 gig ram and SSD for about 200 AUD. I don't game on it, and it is 100 percent fine for browsing forums in bed or using word. It is only dual core since it is a mobile 2500 but why would I spend more when it does everything I need perfectly?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Slightly OT, I guess... but did Intel ever release a mobile i5-2500 too? I hadn't heard of one.

Sure that you didn't get duped into buying an E1-2500 AMD APU-based laptop? I imagine that they are around that price.

http://ark.intel.com/products/series/53247/Intel-Core-i5-2500-Mobile-Processor-Series

Yeah, Intel never released a mobile i5-2500, at least not by that exact model number. That was only ever a desktop CPU, and the desktop CPU is always a quad-core.

Think that you got duped, my friend, if the salesperson said that you were getting an Intel 2500 CPU...

 

[hojnikb]

I'm sure amd will make a seperate die just for cheap devices (2C4T, 256SPs) to replace older kabini.

 

[PingSpike]

I kind of doubt it. But Intel has a really crowded and increasingly pointless mix of dual core offerings. I think AMD decided to just go to where Intel wasn't going, at least at first.

 

[ultimatebob]

PC builders will always want cheap (Pentium and Celeron, or AMD equivalent) processors for their sub $500 PC and laptop offerings.

I'm sure that AMD will have cut down dual core Zen parts at some point to fill that need, but they are in no hurry to do so. The profit margins for those parts suck, and they probably still have a warehouse of old Piledriver processors that they need to unload.

 

[philosofool]

The lack of IGP shows that AMD is looking at the mid to high end desktop market right now. Without an IGP, they would be totally noncompetitive in the budget market. AMD may just punt that market to Intel, but I suspect that not far down the road AMD will look either to build boards with budget graphics solutions (call it AM4 G300) or develop an architecture with an IGP. When they do, I expect that a sub-$100 CPU will be part of that architecture.

 

[whm1974]

The lack of IGP shows that AMD is looking at the mid to high end desktop market right now. Without an IGP, they would be totally noncompetitive in the budget market. AMD may just punt that market to Intel, but I suspect that not far down the road AMD will look either to build boards with budget graphics solutions (call it AM4 G300) or develop an architecture with an IGP. When they do, I expect that a sub-$100 CPU will be part of that architecture.

It's called Raven Ridge and AM4 boards have already the have video ports, so this will be just a drop in.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The lowest Ryzen, is a 4C/4T, and it's $119 or $129.

This is actually interesting to me, if this helps to re-define "low-end CPU". If Intel follows suit, and drops anything less than a quad-core, or at least a dual-core with HT, and drops anything below around $90 in price... well, perhaps Ryzen is the best thing to happen to Intel's bottom-line in a long time.

Or possibly, Intel will continue to churn-out "budget" CPUs, for barely more than their fab / assembly / distribution costs, to maintain their brand, and the tables will turn, and Intel will become known more for being a "budget" brand than AMD, because their highest mainstream CPU is a quad-core, and they still make dual-cores, whereas AMD is all quad-core through octo-core.

One major launch and media event at a time, man, stop worrying and love the bomb.

In a few months and you'll get your $50 APU with updated microarchitecture.

 

[Valantar]

It's called Raven Ridge and AM4 boards have already the have video ports, so this will be just a drop in.

Exactly. There's no market for iGPU-less low-end CPUs. That's why Ryzen stops where it does. As is, it represents astounding value for money for low end dGPU PCs. Why buy a $200+ i5 and pay for an iGPU you'll never use, when you can pay half and get the same performance sans GPU?

Raven Ridge will probably span the ~$40-400 segment. Or even lower. 2c4t, 2c2t, and so on. Just hope they'll step up their game in terms of iGPU performance, and at least match Iris graphics from $100 and upward. And the high end should really be decently capable of reasonable-resolution gaming this time around.

 

[Ancalagon44]

There are 4C Intel CPUs faster than 8C AMD CPUs are there not?

Yes.

As I said in my post (note bolded bit):

Depends on what you want to do with it, but quite often it is. It is one of the factors, the others being IPC, clockspeed and whether hyperthreading is enabled. Oh and memory latency and bandwidth.

Intel Core CPUs have much higher IPC than AMD's Bulldozer line, which is why they are faster despite having fewer cores.

 

[whm1974]

Exactly. There's no market for iGPU-less low-end CPUs. That's why Ryzen stops where it does. As is, it represents astounding value for money for low end dGPU PCs. Why buy a $200+ i5 and pay for an iGPU you'll never use, when you can pay half and get the same performance sans GPU?

Raven Ridge will probably span the ~$40-400 segment. Or even lower. 2c4t, 2c2t, and so on. Just hope they'll step up their game in terms of iGPU performance, and at least match Iris graphics from $100 and upward. And the high end should really be decently capable of reasonable-resolution gaming this time around.

The problem is that a high end Raven Ridge with a fairly decent iGPU would cost as much a good CPU and a dGPU would cost. Unless this is for a notebook or a Mini-PC, it wouldn't make sense.

 

[lopri]

Unlikely. AMD needs to make $$, and every imperfect die counts. There will be time enough for them to release sub-$100 models.

 

[railroadmaster]

For budget processors there is still the fx series, the prices have come down somewhat. There are also older processors like Athlons and Phenoms. Plus there are APUs, whether it be older or upcoming.
What AMD doesn't have is a product that can compete in the UMPC, Ultrabook, convertable, and tablet space. AMD doesn't have anything to compete with the Core M series, ULV Core I series or Intel Atom series.

 

[hojnikb]

What AMD doesn't have is a product that can compete in the UMPC, Ultrabook, convertable, and tablet space. AMD doesn't have anything to compete with the Core M series, ULV Core I series or Intel Atom series.

Thats where potential 2C4T part will come in play.

 

[dark zero]

Unlikely. AMD needs to make $$, and every imperfect die counts. There will be time enough for them to release sub-$100 models.

I can see it....

Ryzen 7 : 8 Core 16 Thread

Ryzen 5 : 4 Core 8 Thread / 6 Core 12 Thread

Ryzen 3: 4 Core 4 Thread

.....


Sempron : 2 Core 4 Thread - From USD 75 to USD 119

Duron: 2 Core 2 Thread - From USD 50 to USD 74