Is Intel screwing us over

[Rusty Shackleford]

so if you have been looking to buy a new cpu lately (or any time for that matter) you probably noticed there are not alot to choose from (unless you are looking for a server processor). i know what your probably thinking there are plenty of cpu to choose from which is true but have you ever thought about why you only find intel and amd processors when looking to buy a new processor. well a brief explination for those of you who dont know is that intel has total control over the x86 license which makes them the only company that can manufacture and sell processors for pc. and i know what your thinking amd makes processors for pc so how can intel be the only one with the license well this is because of a court ruling saying that intel couldnt be the sole producer of cpus which would mean they would dominate the market (causing there already high prices to skyrocket) if they had not made this ruling intel would have surely run amd out of buisness. so how is intel screwing us over? well by them having the only license to produce cpus for pc (other than amd) they eliminate a fair market for the consumer because they are forced to choose between intels expensive cpu or amds more budget cpu which causes us to spend more when if other companies such as asus, gigabyte, or msi for example where able to produce processors to sell for pc then we would have much more affordable options as well as the same quality. let me know what you guys think about this.

 

p.s. this is a non biased opinion because if have no prefrence between if amd or intel is better

[Guest]

Wouldn't we have tons of different sockets and chipsets if other companies made CPUs?

[Godlygamer23]

ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI do not make chips. They make circuit boards and solder components onto them. People are already overwhelmed by the choices - if we had more CPU companies, they would become even more overwhelmed and programmers would have to take into consideration so many different architectures.

[DarkBlade2117]

I sure hope Zen will do something for AMD so they can teach Intel a lesson about pricing...

[Godlygamer23]

I sure hope Zen will do something for AMD so they can teach Intel a lesson about pricing...

AMD only prices CPUs the way they do because they must. Remember the 9590? $1,000 chip upon release.

[Sakkura]

License or not, the barrier of entry to the x86 market is huge. I doubt we'd see major competition for Intel/AMD even if it was open to all.

[Swndlr]

I dont really think so, but I see where youre coming from.

[mikat]

I sure hope Zen will do something for AMD so they can teach Intel a lesson about pricing...

AMD is kicking butt with that Fury X, so that Zen thing should be pretty good

[DarkBlade2117]

AMD only prices CPUs the way they do because they must. Remember the 9590? $1,000 chip upon release.

That's what makes AMD good though. Yeah Intel Kindda forces them but dang look at the 5960x, a $1000 8-Core monsters that could easily be sold for $700. Like who buys the 5930k? What purpose does it serve for the average consumer when you can overclock it?

[mikat]

That's what makes AMD good though. Yeah Intel Kindda forces them but dang look at the 5960x, a $1000 8-Core monsters that could easily be sold for $700. Like who buys the 5930k? What purpose does it serve for the average consumer when you can overclock it?

it is a handy test bench processor, you can do 4 way sli without swapping cpus and still costs 300$ less than the 5960X

[C0LL0SS0S]

Well Intel researched a lot, I guess they are already done researching till 2020, and because they invested billions into it they can now claim their place as the best CPU OEM on earth, don't quote me on that you know what I mean. Also, I am quite honest, 250$ for the i5 is not bad, especially with Broadwell and the better iGPU

[ImBleu]

Well Intel researched a lot, I guess they are already done researching till 2020, and because they invested billions into it they can now claim their place as the best CPU OEM on earth, don't quote me on that you know what I mean. Also, I am quite honest, 250$ for the i5 is not bad, especially with Broadwell and the better iGPU

 

Even though they're cutting back majorly on their Research & Development from this month onwards, it's very true.

[jscho]

so if you have been looking to buy a new cpu lately (or any time for that matter) you probably noticed there are not alot to choose from (unless you are looking for a server processor). i know what your probably thinking there are plenty of cpu to choose from which is true but have you ever thought about why you only find intel and amd processors when looking to buy a new processor. well a brief explination for those of you who dont know is that intel has total control over the x86 license which makes them the only company that can manufacture and sell processors for pc. and i know what your thinking amd makes processors for pc so how can intel be the only one with the license well this is because of a court ruling saying that intel couldnt be the sole producer of cpus which would mean they would dominate the market (causing there already high prices to skyrocket) if they had not made this ruling intel would have surely run amd out of buisness. so how is intel screwing us over? well by them having the only license to produce cpus for pc (other than amd) they eliminate a fair market for the consumer because they are forced to choose between intels expensive cpu or amds more budget cpu which causes us to spend more when if other companies such as asus, gigabyte, or msi for example where able to produce processors to sell for pc then we would have much more affordable options as well as the same quality. let me know what you guys think about this.

 

p.s. this is a non biased opinion because if have no prefrence between if amd or intel is better

 

Intel needs AMD just as much as NVidia needs AMD. If they were the only companies in such a huge market, I'm honestly not sure if things would be better for Intel. Competition is HEALTHY and is a VERY GOOD THING in industries.

Intel is NOT screwing us over. It's just a business doing their thing, and to be frank, doing it rather well. AMD and Intel are both excellent companies and there was a time when AMD was really kicking Intel in the teeth with their chips. The tables may turn again.

[flipped_bit]

I paid $79.99 CAD for my brand new Athlon II X3 over 6 years ago.  At the time it was a very competitive/leading CPU.  To buy a similar leading CPU today - the 4690K - I'd have to pay over three times as much.  Even after currency fluctuations and inflation is taken into account, that's a huge increase in price.  Intel IIRC makes 60-80% margin on their CPUs.  That tells you there's ample room for prices to come down if Intel had real competition.  I do feel like we're being gouged as consumers, but you can't really blame Intel for doing so under these circumstances.

 

I'll be very interested in the Skylake pricing.  If the equivalent to the 4690K is significantly higher in price, I'm probably going to wait until Zen (late 2016 hopefully).

[Rusty Shackleford]

ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI do not make chips. They make circuit boards and solder components onto them. People are already overwhelmed by the choices - if we had more CPU companies, they would become even more overwhelmed and programmers would have to take into consideration so many different architectures.

if they did it would bring prices down and quality up at the same time and intel wouldnt have such a hold on the markets its just like gpus there are plenty of them out there and i dont feel overwhelmed

[Rusty Shackleford]

Intel needs AMD just as much as NVidia needs AMD. If they were the only companies in such a huge market, I'm honestly not sure if things would be better for Intel. Competition is HEALTHY and is a VERY GOOD THING in industries.

Intel is NOT screwing us over. It's just a business doing their thing, and to be frank, doing it rather well. AMD and Intel are both excellent companies and there was a time when AMD was really kicking Intel in the teeth with their chips. The tables may turn again.

exactly intel is doing the best they can for themselves but from a consumer stand point it sucks that i have to pay 3x as much as if the market was more balanced with other companies besides if you want a good cpu for gaming you pretty much have to go with intel if you want performance

[Bouzoo]

AMD is kicking butt with that Fury X, so that Zen thing should be pretty good

"This new GPU seems quite good, so their next CPU should also be pretty good." I don't see a connection there.  :lol: Zen looks promising, but it can go both ways.

 

On topic, do you know the amount of money someone would need to start manufacturing CPUs? Companies just don't wanna go there.

if they did it would bring prices down and quality up at the same time and intel wouldnt have such a hold on the markets its just like gpus there are plenty of them out there and i dont feel overwhelmed

Saying there are ton of GPUs, well it's not really the same thing. GPUs are from Nvidia or AMD, and then other companies change few things and boom, new GPU. It's not like EVGA produces Nvidia chips, it's the same as MBOs. With that said, what would you change on a CPU except frequency so it's a Gigabyte G1 4690K OC CPU?

[Faceman]

exactly intel is doing the best they can for themselves but from a consumer stand point it sucks that i have to pay 3x as much as if the market was more balanced with other companies besides if you want a good cpu for gaming you pretty much have to go with intel if you want performance

 

 

You cannot compare just the price of the processor when evaluating platforms.  Once you factor in motherboard, and cooling, often times AMD ends up being more expensive than Intel. Not to mention energy cost is another piece of the pie that doesn't get talked about enough, but it is more than people realize, and especially if you overclock on AMD, that extra cost per year adds up exponentially.

[Prysin]

Intel is screwing you over, on the other hand. AMD has the IP for 64bit processing. So while X86 is 32bit (god knows why), and thus you need X86 instruction set (that is what everything is all about, the proper standardized commands for a certain set of functions). Intel also need AMDs x64 instructions, or intel wouldnt or couldnt due to legal reasons, have processors compatible with 64bit systems without inventing a whole new instruction set standard. Which would cost more money then it would be worth when they can just make an agreement with the competitor that they use your tech while you use theirs.

[Prysin]

You cannot compare just the price of the processor when evaluating platforms.  Once you factor in motherboard, and cooling, often times AMD ends up being more expensive than Intel. Not to mention energy cost is another piece of the pie that doesn't get talked about enough, but it is more than people realize, and especially if you overclock on AMD, that extra cost per year adds up exponentially.

 

The cooling and mobo question ONLY works on AM3+ CPUs, especially the 8xxx and 9xxx. You can easily run a bog standard STOCK 6300 off a 970 chipset of medium quality with STOCK cooler. It will be noisy, it will very likely be hot depending on ambient temps. But IT WILL RUN.

 

Stop trying to make intel look like a budget setup by using dirt cheap and feature lacking mobos vs AMD with high end boards and aftermarket coolers. Right out of the box, unless you PLAN to overclock, AMD is cheaper. Fact, the end.

 

If you PLAN to overclock, then intel CAN be cheaper. But i would still advice any buying to NOT GET the dirt cheap intel boards and aim for something a bit more expensive in hopes that you actually get proper quality when it comes to capacitors and stuff like that.

Also, who in their right mind runs intel with stock cooler? You can say what you want, that thing is noisy, and not very efficient (Linus made a video about AMD vs Intel cooler, so that can be considered a fact that stock intel cooler is garbage).

I would personally NEVER advice anyone to run with stock cooler, be it intel OR amd. Atleast get a Hyper 212. Just to keep noise down. There is NO justifyable reason in this universe to use stock coolers of either brand unless you are broke.

[Faceman]

The cooling and mobo question ONLY works on AM3+ CPUs, especially the 8xxx and 9xxx. You can easily run a bog standard STOCK 6300 off a 970 chipset of medium quality with STOCK cooler. It will be noisy, it will very likely be hot depending on ambient temps. But IT WILL RUN.

 

Stop trying to make intel look like a budget setup by using dirt cheap and feature lacking mobos vs AMD with high end boards and aftermarket coolers. Right out of the box, unless you PLAN to overclock, AMD is cheaper. Fact, the end.

 

If you PLAN to overclock, then intel CAN be cheaper. But i would still advice any buying to NOT GET the dirt cheap intel boards and aim for something a bit more expensive in hopes that you actually get proper quality when it comes to capacitors and stuff like that.

Also, who in their right mind runs intel with stock cooler? You can say what you want, that thing is noisy, and not very efficient (Linus made a video about AMD vs Intel cooler, so that can be considered a fact that stock intel cooler is garbage).

I would personally NEVER advice anyone to run with stock cooler, be it intel OR amd. Atleast get a Hyper 212. Just to keep noise down. There is NO justifyable reason in this universe to use stock coolers of either brand unless you are broke.

These "low end" Intel motherboard are only lacking additional fan headers.  That is the only main feature that they are missing, and its as easy fix.  They arguably have more modern features than the 970 chipsets.  You are aware that 970 still uses PCI 2.0, right?  Not that it makes a difference right now, but its just an example of how old that chipset it.

 

There have been plenty of instances of people running into issues with FX6/8s and low end 970 motherboards even at stock speeds.  Why risk it?  If you want to ensure the ability to run at stock speeds and overclock, you have to buy a proper motherboard with sufficient VRMs.  The least expensive motherboard that ensures stable stock operations and the ability to overclock costs $70.

 

"Failures on motherboards with higher phase counts have been relatively infrequent if at all. Most of the culprits for VRM failures are the lower end 4+1 phase and 3+1 phase motherboards that aren't equipped to handle processors that consume lots of power and may be overclocked.  Smaller 4+1 phase systems or less on CPUs can be particularly risky due to the fact that each transistor must be capable of outputting more current and heat. This is why you normally see motherboards with low phase count failing (i.e. catching fire, frying, overloading), often on motherboards from only certain manufacturers or certain particular motherboards."

 

This is not the case with Intel, they have modernized and voltage regulation is done on the chip with Haswell and Devil's Canyon.  Skylake looks to be moving the VREG back to the motherboard though.  You can drop an i7-4790k into an H81 motherboard and be running perfectly fine, assuming compatible BIOS.  There is nothing wrong with the capacitors, in fact, they are more modern than the ones used in the 970 motherboards.  No overclocking, but overclocking isn't needed because a 3.0Ghz i5 already bests anything FX has to offer, no matter the overclock.

 

The only thing missing from the H81/B85 motherboards is additional fan headers, which is an easy fix with a $3 Y splitter.  There are also constant deals going on for very good B85 motherboards for only $40.  Or you could buy a Z87-A which is an incredibly feature rich motherboard that also allows overclocking of "k" SKUs for a measly $60.  Even if you bought one of these more expensive motherboards, the price difference is minimal, $10-$20.  That will quickly be made back in energy savings in two years time.  Oh, and lets not forget the much better overall performance.  If you were saving around $50 or more, then I could get behind the budget train, but its no where close to that.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZhVQD3

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZhVQD3/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($134.99 @ NCIX US)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($79.89 @ OutletPC)

Total: $214.88

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-20 15:01 EDT-0400

 

Vs.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FKCwK8

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FKCwK8/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($178.99 @ SuperBiiz) <-- Is usually $163.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-GAMING 3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $218.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-20 15:02 EDT-0400

 

MAN!  That $4 you saved is so worth it.

 

Even if you wanted to risk it with an FX6 + 3+1 or 4+1 VRM phase motherboard, an i3 will still be less expensive, put off less heat, consume less energy, and provide superior gaming performance.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ztztJx

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ztztJx/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($97.46 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($64.98 @ OutletPC)

Total: $162.44

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-20 15:04 EDT-0400

 

Risky, but it could work.

 

Vs.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/n79y3C

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/n79y3C/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($113.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-GAMING 3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $153.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-20 15:05 EDT-0400

 

AMD ain't cheaper when you take everything into account.  That is fact.  Take it to the bank.

 

I dunno if you have checked benchmarks lately, but an i3 is consistently outperforming even overclocked FX8s in the majority of games.  There are some games that the FX processors do run better than i3s, but its not many.  You are paying more, and you are stuck at a dead end with no upgrade path.

 

The cooler argument between AMD and Intel is outrageous.  Are you not aware that AMD processors have much higher TDPs?  They HAVE to have better cooler to displace all that heat.  Intel stock coolers aren't as big, or noisy because the TDP of these modern chips isn't as much as the old FX ones.

[Godlygamer23]

if they did it would bring prices down and quality up at the same time and intel wouldnt have such a hold on the markets its just like gpus there are plenty of them out there and i dont feel overwhelmed

I also don't think you represent every consumer on the planet - just like I don't. I'm an informed consumer and I know what I want - your average Joe consumer doesn't.

[Nexxus]

Which is the evil twin @Trik'Stari

[-iSynthesis]

Wouldn't we have tons of different sockets and chipsets if other companies made CPUs?

There could be a universal socket like other standards such as USB

[Godlygamer23]

There could be a universal socket like other standards such as USB

Perhaps, but programming may also become more complicated with the addition of all these different architectures, unless everyone abides to some standards.