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The TB controller is ~$9 [0]. That should be next to nothing for a premium laptop. Yet even HP on their premium/pro Z-series went again with Intel, despite the

The TB controller is ~$9 [0]. That should be next to nothing for a premium laptop. Yet even HP on their premium/pro Z-series went again with Intel, despite the fact that the the current gen Z-series (a series that tops out at ~$10000 in the highest specced models) includes configurations like i5-8400H, Intel UHD 630 iGPU, or 8GB of RAM. Not a real "workstation" config, not high performance, no ISV certifications. Yet AMD was still left out. I think one reason is many OEMs don't want to invest in an AMD platform until they're sure AMD will be a long-term success. The second reason is probably that they don't want to annoy Intel. I'm sure there are still plenty of tricks Intel can pull to achieve the same result as in the past but without running afoul of regulators. [0] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/87742/thunderbolt-3-controllers.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/...

dannyw 7y ago
We’re seeing a much stronger resurgence this time. These transitions won’t happen overnight, but will be over many product cycles. It was a recent surprise revelation to the public how powerful the 4000 series is!
eptcyka 7y ago
What's the price of adding an extra controller on a motherboard?
- close04 7y ago
  The same regardless of CPU so I considered it irrelevant for the comparison. The difference between an OEM building Intel or AMD based systems is in the fact that the TB controller comes for free with Intel chipsets. The extra PCB complexity, ICs, and connectors are still the OEM's burden.
  - eptcyka 7y ago
    The TB controller is built into the CPU with Intel. So it's still relevant.
ksec 7y ago
>That should be next to nothing for a premium laptop. For low end to mid range laptop a BOM cost of $9 is a lot. Especially to PC manufacturers, so bad that installing crapware becomes their major source of revenue. For high end the marketing budget comes in form of Rebate. One of the major reason AMD got off to a good start from major manufactures is actually because Intel cant even provide them enough chip in the first place. And hence intel hasn't done much to push back at all because they dont have the capacity right now.
- close04 7y ago
  Which is why I said "premium laptop". I don't expect lower end laptops to include it regardless of the cost of the controller itself. There's far more than the $9 involved: greater PCB complexity, additional ICs, extra connectors, etc. But a premium line like HP's Z-series includes TB even in the lowest config (i5-8400, UHD 630 iGPU) starting at ~$3500. I'm reasonably certain that going with AMD CPUs would actually lower the BOM despite the extra $9 TB controller. Intel CPUs are not cheap.

dannyw 7y ago

We’re seeing a much stronger resurgence this time. These transitions won’t happen overnight, but will be over many product cycles. It was a recent surprise revelation to the public how powerful the 4000 series is!

eptcyka 7y ago

What's the price of adding an extra controller on a motherboard?

close04 7y ago
The same regardless of CPU so I considered it irrelevant for the comparison. The difference between an OEM building Intel or AMD based systems is in the fact that the TB controller comes for free with Intel chipsets. The extra PCB complexity, ICs, and connectors are still the OEM's burden.
- eptcyka 7y ago
  The TB controller is built into the CPU with Intel. So it's still relevant.

ksec 7y ago

>That should be next to nothing for a premium laptop. For low end to mid range laptop a BOM cost of $9 is a lot. Especially to PC manufacturers, so bad that installing crapware becomes their major source of revenue. For high end the marketing budget comes in form of Rebate. One of the major reason AMD got off to a good start from major manufactures is actually because Intel cant even provide them enough chip in the first place. And hence intel hasn't done much to push back at all because they dont have the capacity right now.

close04 7y ago
Which is why I said "premium laptop". I don't expect lower end laptops to include it regardless of the cost of the controller itself. There's far more than the $9 involved: greater PCB complexity, additional ICs, extra connectors, etc. But a premium line like HP's Z-series includes TB even in the lowest config (i5-8400, UHD 630 iGPU) starting at ~$3500. I'm reasonably certain that going with AMD CPUs would actually lower the BOM despite the extra $9 TB controller. Intel CPUs are not cheap.