Gratitude is the sign of noble souls - Aesop
|
|
|
Intel delays product after product without competition
CHIPMAKER Intel's CPU lines still dominate the performance as well as overall product spread in the PC market, from ultrabooks to supercomputers. However, the regular yearly tick-tock rhythm seems to have slowed down somewhat over the past year or two.
Remember the 2008 roadmap slides - the 2008 Nehalem was to be followed by 2009 Westmere, then 2010 Sandy Bridge and 2011 Ivy Bridge. Of course, Sandy Bridge became a 2011 product, with the flagship Sandy Bridge-E, that is, Core i7 3960X only arriving at the end of this year. The full-functionality version, the eight-core Sandy Bridge-EP or Xeon E5 2600, will be coming out in the market only at the end of first quarter of next year.
Then, the 2011 Ivy Bridge is now likely to become a May 2012 product launch even for the initial mainstream quad-core parts for the LGA1155 socket, with the flagship E/EP parts likely somewhere down the road in early 2013. Let's not even try to guess what impact it will have on the Haswell launch after that.
What is happening? Well yes, the chippery does get more complex with each new generation. The eight-core Sandy Bridge-EP stretches the limits of the 32nm process with its 20MB cache and four memory channels, while having to address a wide range of power and performance points with a single die.
The yet uncharted waters of the 22nm tri-gate process could also pose some challenges for Ivy Bridge, the first CPU to use it. You've also seen the initial teething problems of the Patsburg chipset, including its desktop version, the X79. All that takes some time to resolve.
However, no one at Intel seems to be bashing their heads against the wall over this. Well, why should they? The only x86 competitor in town at the high end, AMD, didn't exactly impress the crowds with its initial Bulldozer launch. The real meat there will have to be in the upcoming Piledriver core update, as well as more software that will be re-compiled to support Bulldozer's instruction extensions and features better, and new sockets with more memory and interconnect bandwidth to prepare for future high-end Fusion APUs as well.
Until then, even Intel's current Westmere cores at the high end, and the mainstream quad-core Sandy Bridge, do their competitive jobs more than well enough.
One thing did bother us a bit, although we have to classify it in the rumour department. Just before the Bulldozer launch, Intel was seemingly quite firm with its plan to have the first Ivy Bridge parts sometime in February. However, after that launch and the Bulldozer performance reviews came out, the updated roadmaps all over the web suddenly showed Ivy Bridge sliding towards May.
Could Intel really think there's no point in rushing that launch when the existing line can still be the king of the hill and provide safe, high ROI for a while longer? As we said, the real reasons could be many, however one can't help but raise the question.
Share this:
Share
How often have you bought a new CPU because your old CPU gave up the ghost?
How often have you bought a new CPU because your old one was hopelessly obsolete?
You're damned right Intel competes against itself; it needs to outperform older Intel CPUs or there's very little reason to buy them.
The age for the luxury CPU is over. On the portable end ARM already dominates Intel. What about servers? Most of them run heavily threaded. You don't need $1000 for CPU with 8 cores, when you can buy 8 arm chips for $10 each. For the mainstream there is Tegra 3, which costs around $20. Except high end gamers and large database servers Intel is not needed anymore. That's why it does not have to introduce an newer architecture right now. Within 5 years Intel profits will decline %50-80, so will its share price.
No competition in sight means you can invest a little more in QA and save a lot more later...Just good business.
Why rush it?
I don't buy the story that Intel is holding back because of lack of competition.
Ultimately if Intel slows its innovation then the market will slow/stagnate and they will lose out regardless of what AMD is doing. I would imagine that much of the market is comprised of customers renewing and upgrading their current hardware. If they have nothing to upgrade to or the upgrade cycles slows then the market will stagnate regardless of competition and Intel will have shot themselves in the foot.
It is not about competition with AMD or any other company. It lies within the nature of Technology to progrss and develope. If it stops, it dies. The guys at Intel ( short for intellectual maybe? ) should know this and abide by it strictly. With or without competition.
Just like DAAMIT vs nVidia, when it comes to AMD vs Intel, I will always pick the one that gives better price/performance ratio.
I have always bought Intel because they offer the best bang for the buck. Also, I never pay a premium to buy top-of-the-line hardware shortly after it has been released.
I do remember AMD's glorious days when its Athlons beat the crap out of anything Intel had.
At this point in time, AMD is simply not keeping up with Intel. I will gladly switch to AMD if it offers what I want.
I am a tech brand agnostic. We all should be. Religious-like fanaticism in tech matters is ugly.
Live and let live. Let the tech evolve.
AMD is not giving competition in CPU...but...Intel's GPU & drivers suck bigtime...Ivy Bridge is meant to offer a good GPU & minor CPU power increase & suck even less power. So it's not coz of AMD that Intel is delaying things...I don't really think Intel is even concerned with AMD...they have numerous more resources than them...the only time AMD was a threat to them was during the Prescott days...that was basically the birth of the numerous AMD fanboys you see today still saying I don't need CPU performance of i7...my AMD does what it want & other B.S. Have these people even used i3? i3 gives me usable windows 7 x64 desktop in 8 seconds on my SSD...AMD Phenom II X4 965 even with OC takes 16 seconds to give a usable win7 x64 desktop...same configuration. Yeah 8 seconds isn't much but when you sit in front of a screen/games...the moment you use any of the current Intel chips...for CPU purposes you will never go back to AMD...it's that simple...but fanboys will be fanboys, why bother.
On other tech sites, it was posted in NOVEMBER, that IB, will hit the market shelves in late april or may and has ZERO to do with BD.
You can not sell products people don't need. 99,99 % of normal users do not need the cpu power of an i7. And it does not look like that they will in the near future.
It may seem that INTEL is far ahead of AMD , but I don't believe that is true.
The expertize AMD has in the gpu department makes this even more so.
Intel has always done this before and are doing it again. CULV, thunderbolt , integrated graphics , things intel can do better and cheaper until the competition gets its act togeather. But at the same time hope they do not have design issues with ivy bridge like they had with sandy bridge which led to a mass recall of their products. It is better to do things right first time than cathing up with trial and error
This is what they did, besides charge ridiculous prices, in the 1990s, until AMD wiped their clock with their first processors.
Loyalty to intel, is like kissing the hangman's noose
Innovation goes at the speed of winning.
As Intel is at the top in the PC sector and know they don`t see any problem with this changing soon, they have probably changed their resources to their new Mobile arm of the company where their future lies. But they are definately checking what AMD is doing all the time.
Yeah...ok I admit AMD has a better product in Brazos & it's their netbook platform...BUT did you ever read the price of those things? They're priced in between an i3 & Atom laptop/netbooks...mostly everyone will spend a little extra & get the i3 if they have more cash...if they are tight they'll go Atom...Don't blame me...blame Intel for their so many marketing posters everywhere, blame AMD for their poor marketing & pricing...they can annhilate Intel in netbooks but they want maximum profit from every shit they sell...in a way AMD is worse than Intel when it comes to Intel...coz AMD doesn't have the money to throw around like Intel...so they HAVE to sell their products even if they are shitty like bulldozer otherwise they risk of going in debt. It's simple as that. APU's are great but APU priced laptops go for same price with i3 with discrete graphics card & i3 gives more battery life as well so it's a no brainer & I'm stupid? No I'm not but you do sound like a AMD fan Mr. Daryl...if u wanna talk about APU's in desktop same scenario...u throw in a $40 discrete GPU in an SB rig & those APU's graphics are worthless in front of it. You guys need to stop drinking AMD's marketing kool-aid & look at facts I run 3 computer shops in my country...I know its business too & I hate to see Intel monopolizing shit but fact is AMD is not doing shit even when they have a better product in a segment!
@Jay - I totally disagree with your statement about not buying AMD, I also disagree that Intel has better products for every market. The lower power HTPC market is one market that Intel has nothing on AMD. Both of AMD E-XXX and Llano lines are some of the best HTPC, and potential netbook platforms on the market. Although they gobble up a little more power than the Atom anyone that has used an Atom has probably wished for something a bit more power, and better graphics performance.
In my netbook I have an Athlon 64 X2 L310 1.2 Ghz which absolutely kills an Atom N330 (dual core 1.6ghz), and that only had a Radeon x1270 let alone a newer Radeon 6000 series!
I don't think they stalled their R&D rather I think it is just cheaper not to release and retool a factory.
If you have no competition there is no point in releasing a better product. Who are you competing against .... yourself?
I am not bothering to read this article because I can tell how fucking stupid it is from reading the title. Sandybridge was late and everyone knows why. Sandy E was late again because everyone knows why. Ivybridge is late because everyone knows why. I hate when regards say Intel is delaying products because of no competition. So stupid. Why would Intel stall their own products/inventions on purpose. They would be stupid to do that. They would lose a lot of money. They would get behind on R&D they would have to stall that too because they can only have so many R&D teams on stand by or stall by as this article says. So stupid. Yes some companies may stall a product once or twice in its existence for this reason but Intel wouldn't make anything good from stalling their products. Lame article.
Good article!
Anyone buying AMD now will be stupid or fanboy. Bulldozer has poor performance. 45nm parts are no more as in discontinued soon. APU's are decent but limited stock. Problems abound...Intel will MILK the consumer. Can't really blame them that's business but with the cash they have how much more do they need!? = Human Nature = Greed = Never content!
So bring on a Chinese CPU...all mobo's parts & stuff are made there anyway...bring ona china CPU which runs Windoze I'll BUY IT!