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I'm a bit dubious. If they have such an amazing part why is it being sold for so cheap? Why not 80% of the price of the comparable Intel part? Selling it at 50%

by Asooka 10y ago

I'm a bit dubious. If they have such an amazing part why is it being sold for so cheap? Why not 80% of the price of the comparable Intel part? Selling it at 50% or even less raises some heavy alarm bells for me.

snovv_crash 10y ago
Probably because of their contract with GlobalFoundries which requires them to pay penalties if they don't move a specific volume.
masklinn 10y ago
> If they have such an amazing part why is it being sold for so cheap? Because they get exploded in single-threaded performances, so they have to pit their 8-core parts against Intel's 4 cores. The 1700X will be competing against the $350 7700K more than the $1100 6900K (which incidentally is a Broadwell-E part not a Skylake part despite de 6 prefix)
- dstaley 10y ago
  The linked benchmarks are putting the $350 1700X about on par with the $1100 6900K when it comes to both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance. Both of those processors are 8-core/16-thread chips. Also the 1700K is a 95W TDP compared to the 6900K's 140W TDP.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - masklinn 10y ago
    Again, the 6900K is a two years old µarch, and not one which was considered a great release in the first place. The 1700X will not be competing against the 6900K because nobody gives a rat's ass about the 6900K, the 1700X will be competing against the 7700K and its ilk.
    - mrb 10y ago
      The IPC difference between Broadwell (6900K) and Kaby Lake (7700K) isn't that big. 5-10%. The only redeeming quality of the 7700K is that Intel was able to raise the turbo freq to 4.5 GHz, while the 1700X only boosts to 3.8 GHz. So yeah single-threaded perf will be higher with Intel.
      - edvinbesic 10y ago
        Isn't the IPC difference basically 0 and the 7 series only has slightly higher frequencies due to the optimization cycle? So clock for clock 6 and 7 series CPU should yield the same performance. I should add that the above is the main reason the kaby lake release is so lackluster. There is very little reason to upgrade your desktop to a 7 series (laptops get power optimization and 4k playback support). It's also the main reason why AMD might look appealing, lack of worthwile upgrade from Intel while AMD delivers twice the cores/threads for not a gread deal more then a 7600K.
        masklinn 10y ago
        > Isn't the IPC difference basically 0 and the 7 series only has slightly higher frequencies due to the optimization cycle? So clock for clock 6 and 7 series CPU should yield the same performance. You're talking about Skylake 6-series, the 6900K is Broadwell-E not Skylake despite being 6-branded.
    - kllrnohj 10y ago
      Kaby Lake and Skylake are indistinguishable in terms of IPC. Kaby Lake only brought GPU & video decoding improvements to the table, that's it. CPU performance is otherwise identical to Skylake.
      - ac29 10y ago
        You're right, except 6900K is a Broadwell-E part [0], not Skylake, despite the part number. [0] http://ark.intel.com/products/94196/Intel-Core-i7-6900K-Processor-20M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/94196/Intel-Core-i7-6900K-Proc...
- 2bluesc 10y ago
  > Because they get exploded in single-threaded performances, so they have to pit their 8-core parts against Intel's 4 cores. I assume that they are getting blown out of the water on single core performance and hence picked up an i7-7700k. We'll see if I made the right choice on March 2nd when real benchmarks surface.
  - IAmGraydon 10y ago
    You would be wrong. They are even or slightly faster than Intel in single threaded performance.
    - wmf 10y ago
      A 4.0 GHz Ryen is faster than a 4.5 GHz Intel in single thread? At this point we might as well wait for the embargo to expire.
- IAmGraydon 10y ago
  They are equal, if not a bit faster than Intel in single-thread performance.
tadfisher 10y ago
There are a few obvious possibilities: - AMD have optimized for die size, at 44mm^2 vs Broadwell-E at 246mm^2. This will result in an order of magnitude better yields and margin improvements. - Intel prices high in the >= 8-core space because: they can; there is no current competition; and the aforementioned yield/margin issue. - The Intel parts have more advanced and expensive features aimed at professional markets; i.e. quad-channel memory controller, more PCIe lanes, and in newer architectures, integrated Thunderbolt controllers, to name a few.
- wmf 10y ago
  The Ryzen die is more like >100 mm^2; a single CCX is 44 mm^2.
CoolGuySteve 10y ago
Intel relies more on price discrimination. On the Skylake wikipedia page, I count 30 desktop and 11 server SKUs. So Intel's "-E" enthusiast line isn't really the optimal price point in terms of generating revenue via volume, it's just the high end of a sliding scale.
Retric 10y ago
Expect Intel to do a huge price drop if the chip is competitive. In the end few people buy 500+$ chips so this is all just marketing.
washadjeffmad 10y ago
Feature parity and market penetration. FP and AVX are middling, no iGPU, fewer PCIe lanes, and they've got keep firm hold of that budget build bracket. In case you were also wondering why Intel's pricing has been so obscene, it's to do with AMD's underwhelming pre-Zen microarchitectures and having had no serious competition in the past decade until now.
- solotronics 10y ago
  do we think Intel will drastically drop prices on middle and high end chips?
  - emn13 10y ago
    My guess: Not right away. It's going to take a while for AMD to gain trust; and if intel massively drops prices that will if anything accelerate that effect. A dramatic price drop would tell your clients that you indeed gouged them and that AMD's chip is a serious competitor. I'd expect them to make token gestures in MSRP and quietly make larger drops in practice; and to accelerate new models so it appears as if those new models are better price/perf wise due to their great new design. Oh and of course, intel's 7700k is still quite a bit faster per-core, and there's AVX, so intel can play those cards loudly. I'd argue that even today almost all people are best served by a few fast cores than many slightly slower ones; there;s just so much poorly scaling software around. And where multicore works really well trivial the GPU is often just around the corner... For servers the story may be different.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    The capitalist playbook suggests that street prices won't see the same price drop as important OEMs threatening to launch a big AMD line. That way, Intel sells to those OEMs not only the hardware but also the promise that end customers will think that the parts were more expensive.
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    They might play dirty games instead (again). Intel loves incentivising its distributors with bonuses and deal combos. Sell top Intel CPU + expensive motherboard with top Intel chipset = receive free Intel SSD etc. Of course distributors are free to do what they like with those rewards, consumers almost never even know about it = bigger hidden margins for pushing hiend models.
mrb 10y ago
"Why not 80% of the price of the comparable Intel part?" 1. Because Intel is about to significantly drop their prices in response to Ryzen. 2. Because AMD really wants to immediately hurt Intel's revenues as badly as possible. 3. Because AMD has such an uphill battle to regain mind share that it really needs to release a product that makes people realize that AMD now has the superior perf/$ product, beyond any doubt. If Ryzen was only priced 20% lower than Intel, many people/OEMs/etc would not be motivated enough to go AMD.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  3bis now Intel looks like a customer milking company with mild progress posturing as 'best effort'.
  - untoreh 10y ago
    I am pretty sure after six iterations of "more of the same" most people realized this by now, we didn't need amd to know this, but surely to change the status quo in the cpu market...
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      It's hard to say when CPU's are approaching 10nm .. I've seen reports about how crazy hard it is to shrink silicon at that point so it was plausible.
amunicio 10y ago
If history is of any reference (see the Hammer architecture), AMD needs to build a large ecosystem of EOMs and partners to be able to cover with enough SKUs all different segments of the market. If they price their CPUs anywhere near Intel, even if they are marginally better, OEM and partners will be shy and slow in creating new lines of products. They will only modestly deep their toes on AMD waters. Intel can hold the line for a couple of years by offering OEMs large rebates/discounts for keeping volumes of sales in line with what they bought pre-Zen. AMD has no choice but build market share and ecosystem by pricing way below Intel. Otherwise, history will repeat itself and they won't be able to capitalize long term on the Zen architecture as happened with the Hammer architecture.

by Asooka 10y ago

snovv_crash 10y ago

Probably because of their contract with GlobalFoundries which requires them to pay penalties if they don't move a specific volume.

masklinn 10y ago

> If they have such an amazing part why is it being sold for so cheap? Because they get exploded in single-threaded performances, so they have to pit their 8-core parts against Intel's 4 cores. The 1700X will be competing against the $350 7700K more than the $1100 6900K (which incidentally is a Broadwell-E part not a Skylake part despite de 6 prefix)

dstaley 10y ago
The linked benchmarks are putting the $350 1700X about on par with the $1100 6900K when it comes to both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance. Both of those processors are 8-core/16-thread chips. Also the 1700K is a 95W TDP compared to the 6900K's 140W TDP.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- masklinn 10y ago
  Again, the 6900K is a two years old µarch, and not one which was considered a great release in the first place. The 1700X will not be competing against the 6900K because nobody gives a rat's ass about the 6900K, the 1700X will be competing against the 7700K and its ilk.
  - mrb 10y ago
    The IPC difference between Broadwell (6900K) and Kaby Lake (7700K) isn't that big. 5-10%. The only redeeming quality of the 7700K is that Intel was able to raise the turbo freq to 4.5 GHz, while the 1700X only boosts to 3.8 GHz. So yeah single-threaded perf will be higher with Intel.
    - edvinbesic 10y ago
      Isn't the IPC difference basically 0 and the 7 series only has slightly higher frequencies due to the optimization cycle? So clock for clock 6 and 7 series CPU should yield the same performance. I should add that the above is the main reason the kaby lake release is so lackluster. There is very little reason to upgrade your desktop to a 7 series (laptops get power optimization and 4k playback support). It's also the main reason why AMD might look appealing, lack of worthwile upgrade from Intel while AMD delivers twice the cores/threads for not a gread deal more then a 7600K.
      - masklinn 10y ago
        > Isn't the IPC difference basically 0 and the 7 series only has slightly higher frequencies due to the optimization cycle? So clock for clock 6 and 7 series CPU should yield the same performance. You're talking about Skylake 6-series, the 6900K is Broadwell-E not Skylake despite being 6-branded.
  - kllrnohj 10y ago
    Kaby Lake and Skylake are indistinguishable in terms of IPC. Kaby Lake only brought GPU & video decoding improvements to the table, that's it. CPU performance is otherwise identical to Skylake.
    - ac29 10y ago
      You're right, except 6900K is a Broadwell-E part [0], not Skylake, despite the part number. [0] http://ark.intel.com/products/94196/Intel-Core-i7-6900K-Processor-20M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/94196/Intel-Core-i7-6900K-Proc...
2bluesc 10y ago
> Because they get exploded in single-threaded performances, so they have to pit their 8-core parts against Intel's 4 cores. I assume that they are getting blown out of the water on single core performance and hence picked up an i7-7700k. We'll see if I made the right choice on March 2nd when real benchmarks surface.
- IAmGraydon 10y ago
  You would be wrong. They are even or slightly faster than Intel in single threaded performance.
  - wmf 10y ago
    A 4.0 GHz Ryen is faster than a 4.5 GHz Intel in single thread? At this point we might as well wait for the embargo to expire.
IAmGraydon 10y ago
They are equal, if not a bit faster than Intel in single-thread performance.

tadfisher 10y ago

There are a few obvious possibilities: - AMD have optimized for die size, at 44mm^2 vs Broadwell-E at 246mm^2. This will result in an order of magnitude better yields and margin improvements. - Intel prices high in the >= 8-core space because: they can; there is no current competition; and the aforementioned yield/margin issue. - The Intel parts have more advanced and expensive features aimed at professional markets; i.e. quad-channel memory controller, more PCIe lanes, and in newer architectures, integrated Thunderbolt controllers, to name a few.

wmf 10y ago
The Ryzen die is more like >100 mm^2; a single CCX is 44 mm^2.

CoolGuySteve 10y ago

Intel relies more on price discrimination. On the Skylake wikipedia page, I count 30 desktop and 11 server SKUs. So Intel's "-E" enthusiast line isn't really the optimal price point in terms of generating revenue via volume, it's just the high end of a sliding scale.

Retric 10y ago

Expect Intel to do a huge price drop if the chip is competitive. In the end few people buy 500+$ chips so this is all just marketing.

washadjeffmad 10y ago

Feature parity and market penetration. FP and AVX are middling, no iGPU, fewer PCIe lanes, and they've got keep firm hold of that budget build bracket. In case you were also wondering why Intel's pricing has been so obscene, it's to do with AMD's underwhelming pre-Zen microarchitectures and having had no serious competition in the past decade until now.

solotronics 10y ago
do we think Intel will drastically drop prices on middle and high end chips?
- emn13 10y ago
  My guess: Not right away. It's going to take a while for AMD to gain trust; and if intel massively drops prices that will if anything accelerate that effect. A dramatic price drop would tell your clients that you indeed gouged them and that AMD's chip is a serious competitor. I'd expect them to make token gestures in MSRP and quietly make larger drops in practice; and to accelerate new models so it appears as if those new models are better price/perf wise due to their great new design. Oh and of course, intel's 7700k is still quite a bit faster per-core, and there's AVX, so intel can play those cards loudly. I'd argue that even today almost all people are best served by a few fast cores than many slightly slower ones; there;s just so much poorly scaling software around. And where multicore works really well trivial the GPU is often just around the corner... For servers the story may be different.
- usrusr 10y ago
  The capitalist playbook suggests that street prices won't see the same price drop as important OEMs threatening to launch a big AMD line. That way, Intel sells to those OEMs not only the hardware but also the promise that end customers will think that the parts were more expensive.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  They might play dirty games instead (again). Intel loves incentivising its distributors with bonuses and deal combos. Sell top Intel CPU + expensive motherboard with top Intel chipset = receive free Intel SSD etc. Of course distributors are free to do what they like with those rewards, consumers almost never even know about it = bigger hidden margins for pushing hiend models.

mrb 10y ago

"Why not 80% of the price of the comparable Intel part?" 1. Because Intel is about to significantly drop their prices in response to Ryzen. 2. Because AMD really wants to immediately hurt Intel's revenues as badly as possible. 3. Because AMD has such an uphill battle to regain mind share that it really needs to release a product that makes people realize that AMD now has the superior perf/$ product, beyond any doubt. If Ryzen was only priced 20% lower than Intel, many people/OEMs/etc would not be motivated enough to go AMD.

agumonkey 10y ago
3bis now Intel looks like a customer milking company with mild progress posturing as 'best effort'.
- untoreh 10y ago
  I am pretty sure after six iterations of "more of the same" most people realized this by now, we didn't need amd to know this, but surely to change the status quo in the cpu market...
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    It's hard to say when CPU's are approaching 10nm .. I've seen reports about how crazy hard it is to shrink silicon at that point so it was plausible.

amunicio 10y ago

If history is of any reference (see the Hammer architecture), AMD needs to build a large ecosystem of EOMs and partners to be able to cover with enough SKUs all different segments of the market. If they price their CPUs anywhere near Intel, even if they are marginally better, OEM and partners will be shy and slow in creating new lines of products. They will only modestly deep their toes on AMD waters. Intel can hold the line for a couple of years by offering OEMs large rebates/discounts for keeping volumes of sales in line with what they bought pre-Zen. AMD has no choice but build market share and ecosystem by pricing way below Intel. Otherwise, history will repeat itself and they won't be able to capitalize long term on the Zen architecture as happened with the Hammer architecture.