Intel to pull support of desktop chipsets on upcoming Xeon E3 CPU's

[sirtoby]

Repost: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/470331-intel-launches-skylake-xeon-e3/

 

Intel has given more information on the upcoming Skylake E3 v5 Xeons. According to it, upcoming Xeons will not work in motherboards with a 100 series chipset. Instead, you'll have to use a board with a server chipset. These are more expensive and have less consumer relevant features than the 100 series motherboards.

 

 

Users interested in the perennial alternative to the Core processors, the E3-123x range, might come up empty handed this generation. Not necessarily due to the processor itself, but multiple sources in discussion or published at ComputerBase are concluding that Intel is further locking the Xeon processors down for Skylake. This means that in order to use a Xeon processor, you need a server based chipset, such as the C230 series, rather than the 100-series found in consumer platforms. Several companies have confirmed that a ‘workaround’ in this case is most likely not possible.

Article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9730/intel-launches-greenlow-c236-chipset-and-skylake-e31200-v5-xeons

 

Even though I don't agree with Intel's move, I can understand it. The E3 Xeons are becoming more and more popular on the consumer platform, which means that people aren't buying the more expensive i7. 

[XTankSlayerX]

You'll be fine. You actually followed the rules for posting news. I applaud you for doing so.

I don't know much about Xeon CPUs...

But support ending isn't good?

[SteveGrabowski0]

I can't believe Intel ever let us use Xeon E3s on consumer chipsets in Sandy, Ivy, and Haswell to begin with. I would have closed that loophole towards getting an i7 for $60 less too if I was Intel, but I'm glad they left it open long enough for me to get my E3-1231v3. Otherwise I would have bought a locked i5-4590 and missed out on hyperthreading.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Better quote your article like this: 

 

 

Else big daddy will lock your thread

[CommandMan7]

In the anandtech comments, as extide pointed out, 

 

 

 

Now that I think about this .. it makes total sense. On the Z series chipsets, you get overclocking, and since the BCLK is divorced from the other busses now, you can overclock freely ANY/ALL Skylake cpus ... if you are using Z series chipset.

This is Intel's counter to that ....

 

This is most likely why. If a 1230v5 was allowed to run on a Z chipset, you could get meaningful overclocks for wayyyyyy cheaper than a 6700k. There are reports of skylake BCLK overclocks¹ up to 136, which is a 36% increase (duh). Imagine if you could essentially have a 6700k for $250, that has the potential to overclock just as high as the 6700k. 3.8Ghz boost on the 1230v5 times 1.36 is an impressive 5.16 Ghz. Intel would not let that happen when they can charge nearly $350 for a 6700k instead. This really goes to show the kind of margins Intel is most likely making on their consumer chips, and although I can't find any strictly factual sources online, most people^2,3 estimate Intel makes between 50% and 80% margins on their chips, not including development. This is why Zen needs to be successful - one of the reason AMD chips are cheaper is that they target closer to 40% margin³ not including development, which should still leave a relatively large but more reasonable margin after development costs. If Zen were to be as good as promised, Intel could no longer markup their chips so much, especially consumer chips like the 6700k where Intel essentially considers value to be an afterthought.

 

1. http://www.overclock.net/t/1570313/skylake-overclocking-guide-with-statistics

2. https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-Intel-to-manufacture-one-Core-i5-chip

3. http://aceshardware.freeforums.org/real-cpu-production-cost-t476.html

[Bsmith]

seems like a logical move IMO, it aren't consumer chips after all.

[PlayStation 2]

While this is logical, Intel needs to drop the price on the damn locked i7s. No one wants them for their ridiculously expensive price.

[sirtoby]

You'll be fine. You actually followed the rules for posting news. I applaud you for doing so.

I don't know much about Xeon CPUs...

But support ending isn't good?

Thanks 

Ending the support of xeons on the consumer chipsets is a logical step. While the xeons where a secret tip back in the sandy bridge days, we have reached a point now, where the xeons cannibalize the sales of the more expensive locked i7s and the cheaper to produce unlocked i5s. While I can understand Intel, I'm not the worlds biggest fan of that move and I'm pretty stoked to see what AMD brings to the table when I plan to do another build (later next year)

[Misanthrope]

Too many people are too apologetic: This are basically the same fucking chip intel just throws a few switches on and off to add and remove features and presto: you have a "server" chip. Problem is, what if I want to overclock a xeon? What if I want to have some of the server oriented instructions? Why are we ok with intel arbitrarily deciding what we can and cannot do with the fucking chips we bought?

 

Because there's fuck else as an option, that's why. This is not a good idea or a healthy practice, this is just intel abusing their defacto monopoly on the market.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Repost of information in the e3 xeon announcement page.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/470331-intel-launches-skylake-xeon-e3/

[Tomsen]

Basic productsegmentation. Make sure everyone pays full price.

Nothing new, and it will keep happening. Artificial segmentation or not, it will happen.

[Real_PhillBert]

I understand why, but I still enjoyed the extra options that the E3 Xeons provided. 

[sirtoby]

Repost of information in the e3 xeon announcement page.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/470331-intel-launches-skylake-xeon-e3/

The original thread got locked and the mods seem ok with it, as they crossed out my note on the repost

[Sauron]

Oh, COME ON! You really aren't fun anymore, intel! So what if I don't care about those fancy integrated graphics that I'll never use? I probably shouldn't be talking because I have an i7, but aside from the fact I might have bought a xeon in the future (if and when they give us the damned 6-core cpus we should have had on the consumer platform since 2013) there are plenty of people who want the cpu performance and none of the oc and igpu and don't have as much cash to spend.

[Sauron]

While this is logical, Intel needs to drop the price on the damn locked i7s. No one wants them for their ridiculously expensive price.

 

the thing is, the locked i7s are the same damn chip as the unlocked ones. why should the unlocked ones cost more? In my opinion they should straight up dump locked cpus. But of course they are afraid an unlocked i3 would cannibalize the i5 market, and they have to have something inbetween the high end i5s and the unlocked i7s...

[SaperPL]

I think I may have the explanation of all this.

 

Xeon E3's ain't necessarily better for overclocking. They are locked and not all of them are low powered ones. Intel usually releases low powered T versions of i7's as well.

 

For the ones who didn't catch the idea of having Xeon E3 in their home pc - it's not about overclocking but the price. Most of E3's have models with and without integrated gpu while you can't freely choose a core unit without igp.

 

Those without the igp were fairly cheaper than sligthly faster/higher clocked i7's in the saindy bridge/ivy bridge era. I actually bought E3-1230v2 $100 cheaper than i7-3700 at that time and it run without problems on cheap itx board.

 

Because manufacturers were making workarounds to support Xeons in their consumer grade motherboards intel started closing the price gap between E3 and i7 on haswell to finally lock it out in latest architecture. They probably caught the problem too late for haswell to prevent the workarounds in its familiy.

 

So what's the reason of that? I think the price difference is not the main reason for intel here but the igp. If any of you noticed: from sandy bridge intel has been basically pushing their igp in every consumer grade cpu and I don't really think most of people use those at all.

 

Essentially it's the intel igp market share and that probably affects their stock prices. If they push igp into every cpu, then for let's say market share of 80% they get roughly counting 40% of gpu market share if every computer has a dedicated one as well.

 

I wouldn't see any problem with that if intel gpu's weren't literally useless and misplaced in the families - If you buy an i7 you get most powerful igp even with edram (broadwell i5/i7) but when you buy something cheaper you get crap igp that only works well for old games and browsing. I'd like to have a choice of picking cheap dual core pentium processor that has the most powerful igp in the family and pay like for i3 or to buy i5 and i7 without the igp. That actually would've make sense for me. This gets even worse for laptops where it should be worth picking better cpu without the dedicated graphics but then again manufacturers are making those units always with a dedicated gpu, even slow ones that are hardly faster than iris pro.

 

What do you think guys? I hope that Linus will pick this up on next WAN show. it's such a load of crap.

[patrickjp93]

While this is logical, Intel needs to drop the price on the damn locked i7s. No one wants them for their ridiculously expensive price.

If no one wanted them, they wouldn't sell, and prices would drop. I'm sorry but the idea that a successful company is selling a product for too high a price is laughable. It would render microeconomics entirely false.

[GloriousPain]

Honestly this is the logical move for intel with their monopoly at the market doing anything they can to guarantee profits is just gravy for them. I'm still rather pissed, if nothing else the fact I and other well informed individuals know about this route to get an essentially locked i7 for the price of a mid-high end i5  it should be available to us, if nothing else it shows a gaping hole in intels' potential product stack. This is definately a loss for those going with the bang for the buck option of cpus, and depending on difficulty of purchase/price/feature set this could be a loss for the small business/prosumer server market too, depending on that, this really could be intel fucking over two of it's smaller markets just for excessive profits... It's a damn shame too, I plan on building a home/personal small business server in my own home and I was really counting on a decent Xeon but "mainstream socket" xeon on being a good fit for it, this news probably changed those plans...

[Mooshi]

Besides pure greed, there isn't a logical reasoning to separate the chips if they are artificially locked down to a chipset depending on whats turned off and on. Unless the chips are radically different, I'm not going to play fanboy and give Intel a round of golf claps.

 

I feel as if Intel is only doing this because AMD hasn't had anything worthwhile for what feels like ages now. I mean, my old 2500K still smacks around AMD's current flagship no matter if it comes clocked at 5GHz stock or not.

[don_svetlio]

If no one wanted them, they wouldn't sell, and prices would drop. I'm sorry but the idea that a successful company is selling a product for too high a price is laughable. It would render microeconomics entirely false.

I can't remember the last time someone bought a locked i7

[Shakaza]

I can't remember the last time someone bought a locked i7

Now it seems like you're arguing with @patrcikjp93 just for the sake of it. Just because you don't see it happen doesn't mean that it doesn't. If you're referring to people buying it within the confines of this forum, then, yeah, there aren't going to be a whole lot of them, since we are tech enthusiasts, people who tend to value overclocking and getting the best performance possible. If you ignore the computers at my university, almost all of which have either locked i5s or i7s and the oodles of business machines on websites such as Newegg that have locked i7s(there's about an equal number of models with i7s as i3s), then yeah, no one buys them.

 

Obviously, there aren't going to be as many computers utilizing i7s as there are i5s, since not every business feels the need for their computers to have such power, but it stands to reason that Intel's CPUs sell well at the price they are at. If they didn't make any money off of them, they either wouldn't make them or make them cheaper.

[don_svetlio]

Now it seems like you're arguing with @patrcikjp93 just for the sake of it. Just because you don't see it happen doesn't mean that it doesn't. If you're referring to people buying it within the confines of this forum, then, yeah, there aren't going to be a whole lot of them, since we are tech enthusiasts, people who tend to value overclocking and getting the best performance possible. If you ignore the computers at my university, almost all of which have either locked i5s or i7s and the oodles of business machines on websites such as Newegg that have locked i7s(there's about an equal number of models with i7s as i3s), then yeah, no one buys them.

 

Obviously, there aren't going to be as many computers utilizing i7s as there are i5s, since not every business feels the need for their computers to have such power, but it stands to reason that Intel's CPUs sell well at the price they are at. If they didn't make any money off of them, they either wouldn't make them or make them cheaper.

Even my former high school had 2600K chips - I've literally only ever seen 1 locked i7 in a friend's pre--built