Intel Cuts Prices, AMD to Ship Thoroughbreds....

[Bing Fung]

Intel is going to have to slash more before I would consider a P4, even then I would want the 533Mhz FSB version with .09 micron core, which would most likely follow Intel's typical Flagship chip pricing and be somewhere around $1000 cdn anyway Price cuts never seem to help out the bleeding edge subscribers :cry:

The AMD T-bred will be based on the .13 core so should run cooler that the T-Bird and XP's before it. Now if AMD would drop the market driven CPU naming convention and just call a spade a spade, rather than a 2100+ XP (what Mhz speed was that again? ) :?

Intel cut prices on Pentium 4 and Pentium III chips for desktops and on several low-voltage mobile chips on Sunday by up to 32 percent to make way for new processors that will appear over the next few weeks, the company said.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker slashed prices on the 2.2GHz Pentium 4 by 25 percent, dropping it from $562 to $423, while it cut the price of the 2GHz Pentium 4 by 22 percent, sliding it from $364 to $284. The 1.2GHz Pentium III for desktops went from $241 to $163, a 32 percent decline.

In notebooks, the 866MHz and 850MHz "low voltage" Pentium IIIs dropped 24 percent to $241 each, while the 800MHz version dropped 18 percent to $198. Intel also cut prices on low-voltage Celerons.


Further cuts across Intel's desktop and mobile line are expected in the coming weeks, according to sources.

Rival Advanced Micro Devices also cut prices, but the official discounts have yet to be posted, a spokesman said. Like Intel, AMD will be unveiling new chips to the public soon.

Intel's cuts precede a major refresh to the Pentium 4 desktops. On May 6, the company will come out with a new version of the Pentium 4 as well as a new chipset for high-performance desktops. One chipset, the 850(e), will feature a 533MHz system bus--the main conduit between the processor and memory--that will deliver higher performance than the 400MHz system bus found on Pentium 4 computers today.

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Bing

[Lex]

I agree Bing, it borders on false advertising, because it's general practice that a number actually means something!

XP-1900 is 1.600 ghz. I would guess the 2100 is probably 1700. Pretty cheezy thing to do, imo.

Lex

[SiliGoose]

Yea, but AMDs point is that Mhz numbers don't necessarily mean anything.

The reality is that these AMD chips, despite their lower clock speeds, out-perform their Intel counterparts. They obviously can't promote their lower clock speeds -even PC newbies know a higher number means better. Nor can they promote a bunch of benchmarks because they mean nothing to the general public.

I'll agree that the naming scheme is confusing but to the average joe it's probably more helpful that anything else.

.09 core...my god...just think if AMD was able to do that right now. That would be scary.




-Sili

[AndrewM]

I just had that problem with my girlfriend, she wanted a new computer and was convinced that Intel is where it's at. Unfortunatly she didn't want to spend the money on the 2 or 2.2Ghz Intel chip and had settled on the 1.8Ghz, so I started telling her that she should go with an AMD instead, and that she could get the XP2000+ or 2100+ for the same money her eye's lit up, until she saw that they were only just over 1.5Ghz....then I had to show her all of the benchmarks that showed the AMD was in most cases faster than the 2Ghz Intel's, and was certainly faster than the 1.8Ghz Intel.

The worst part is she is a technical person (senior Unix admin), but not so much on the component level.

Andrew

[Bing Fung]

Sili, I understand AMD's reasoning for that yet I still feel that they would have sold as well just by stating that a 1700Mhz CPU compares to the 2.2 part from Intel. They could have held that once they hit the same clock speeds that they would totally overpower the intel part.

Look at the Mac, they always stayed true to their speed ratings regardless of what PC's were doing. Or look at the Palm's Dragon ball processor that runs at 33 Mhz versus the Ipaq's 206 Mhz processor. Palms are the still the number 1 selling PDA regardless.

I contend that todays consumer is more knowledgable and that we (or at least I) should be given the goods straight up!




Bing

[AndrewM]

Sili, I understand AMD's reasoning for that yet I still feel that they would have sold as well just by stating that a 1700Mhz CPU compares to the 2.2 part from Intel. They could have held that once they hit the same clock speeds that they would totally overpower the intel part.

Look at the Mac, they always stayed true to their speed ratings regardless of what PC's were doing. Or look at the Palm's Dragon ball processor that runs at 33 Mhz versus the Ipaq's 206 Mhz processor. Palms are the still the number 1 selling PDA regardless.

I contend that todays consumer is more knowledgable and that we (or at least I) should be given the goods straight up!

Well, I don't agree with the comparison with the Mac, it's a totally different platform. People who are shopping for a regular Windows PC won't be looking at the Mac (there are lots of other machines like that as well, Sun, SGI, Alpha, etc don't care about CPU speed in relation to Intel). If you look at the regular consumer who doesn't understand all the inner-workings of a PC, they won't understand that an AMD chip at 1.7Ghz is faster than an Intel at 2Ghz, it goes against what is in our heads. Now as computer geeks we now that is the case, but we are also WAY more educated about it than the J6P computer shopper.

I think it was a very smart idea on AMD's part to do it, if they hadn't done it they wouldn't have nearly the market share they do now because clock speed to clock speed AMD chips are going to be mostly higher priced (1.7Ghz P4 is around $175 - AMD XP2100+ is around $250).

Andrew

[Bing Fung]

That's my whole bone of contention, rather than educate the consumer you are saying it's better for the industry leaders to spin doctor or spoon feed the novice with misleading yet representative naming conventions. Sure using +XP numbers made AMD comparative to Intel, my point is that I would rather see the consumer educated that a 1.7 AMD is comparable to a 2.2 Intel. That alone sells me more than speed ratings, for it makes me ask why is this so?

The novice consumer is wrapped up with speed ratings more than anything else, and why is that? Marketing from the industry. I would rather see a more educated consumer than market driven naming systems anyday, That's just me.

We may as well start giving cars comparative numbers as well rather than specify the actual displacement of the engine.

-Buyer "How many cylinders does it have?"

-Sales Guy "That doesn't matter, all you need to know is the SUX2002 is on par with the Ford Mustang GT..."

-Buyer "Uhh ...OK, does it come in Blooo?"




Bing

[AndrewM]

I agree with you 100% on the side that it would be nice if every consumer was 100% educated, but that's never going to happen. Explaining the inner workings of why an AMD chip is faster than an Intel to even my very technical girlfriend (the Unix guru) got me a glassy eyed look very fast, now imagine trying to do that to somebody who just wants to make Quake faster.

And it's more than just speed ratings of CPU's, it's everything in relation to life...more is better, that's basically ingrained into our brains from day one. And most of the time it's probably true, so it's just not the computer industry's fault. And there are tons of examples, Intel's 400Mhz FSB isn't exactly truthful, ATA-133 is fairly misleading, USB performance (older version, not the new 2.0 standard) is ridiculous, etc.

And the car analogy doesn't work very well, because AMD has never tried to hide the speed of the processor, you don't have to search for hours to find the true clock speed of the CPU. Besides most people when shopping for things don't look at the out and out specs, they look at the whole package. For instance I can show you a vehicle that has 400+hp and 600+lb/ft of torque, yet a 90hp VW Golf will blow it away in every performance category or maybe another vehicle that has about 60hp and very little torque yet will out accelerate a Corvette. But even then it's a bad analogy because comparing a "major" purchase like a car isn't fair compared to spending WAY less money on something like a computer, most people I bet do a lot more homework when buying a car than when buying a computer.

Andrew

[P-Dub]

-Buyer "How many cylinders does it have?"

-Sales Guy "That doesn't matter, all you need to know is the SUX2002 is on par with the Ford Mustang GT..."

-Buyer "Uhh ...OK, does it come in Blooo?"

That's right, the SUX2002 puts out 240hp and the Mustang GT puts out 260hp. But check out the torque difference, 153 lb/ft vs 302 lb/ft.

It's the endless case of dumbing down information to the lowest common denominator. In this case its MHZ. When in fact there are many factors that can determine's a systems performance.

Are consumers ready to educate themselves? From the trends that I've been seeing, consumers want it simple and easy. So we have the MHZ number for cpu, the lines of resolution for TV. The HP for cars.

[Bing Fung]

I think the car analogy works well here, it the same issues. Sell me what I'm looking for. If I come in saying I the fastest stock CPU on the market all you have to do is tell me I would want a AMD bang for buck. Then I say "but the AMD is is slower in clock speed..." "Yes it is you say, but because of the AMD's superiour architecture it can process the same amount of data in less time, here are some graphs that show this to be true...." "Wow that's incredibile!!"

How hard was that? If I chose an Intel anyway, well you don't have to beat me up about it, just know that I chose clock speed over everything else or had other reasons. The simplicity of this is so crazy it's obsurd. This whole thing reminds me of how Harmon Kardon sells amplifiers that are rated at Amps rather than Watts. We don't buy cars or refrigerators based on comparative notions of expected performance, we buy them based on hard numbers that either mean a lot to us or nothing, "I just like the color" may be the reason for some, but I contend that most consumers are smarter these days, and don't just buy based on color.

My IT guy at work came and asked me what he should buy for a system. Well I pointed him towards an AMD, after much discussion he decided to go with Intel in the end. Why, well it wasn't clock speed, he stated that he reads a lot of warnings related to AMD CPU's during his course of IT support at work. He mirrored the common sentiment that Intel's are inherantly more stable than AMD's, which I also believe so in the end it was not clock, rather stability. This is from a technical savy guy... Everyone wants something different from their PC's and as such the consumer should be educated to what they are buying. Before I ever build a system for anyone I always ask what is it main purpose and how much do you want to spend. During that time I then educate the buyer to what the pros and cons are to every component in his PC. It's then up to him to make the decision.

What if marketers were to continually push Pan & Scan on the consumer, stating this is the best utilization of the TV screen you have?? Same difference, the consumer should be educated by the sellers as this should never be left up to marketing to decide how to present the information.

Anyway, you guys disagree and I can live with that, I'm not trying to say I'm right and your wrong. Me I want it straight for that's how I like my information. Sure AMD speeds are easily found, call it what ever you want, just make sure some standardization is applied and MHZ is also part of the information. I have had people tell me they have bought a 1800 or 1900 mhz AMD. OK :LOL:




Bing

[AndrewM]

I think the car analogy works well here, it the same issues. Sell me what I'm looking for. If I come in saying I the fastest stock CPU on the market all you have to do is tell me I would want a AMD bang for buck. Then I say "but the AMD is is slower in clock speed..." "Yes it is you say, but because of the AMD's superiour architecture it can process the same amount of data in less time, here are some graphs that show this to be true...." "Wow that's incredibile!!"

Well, I've never (and have never seen anybody) gone shopping for a car that just had X horsepower, or y cylinders, etc. In that case you are buying a total package, which is what most J6P people are doing as well. If I saw some fancy graphs showing me something that I thought wasn't true (like how a 2Ghz is slower than a 1.7Ghz) I would just say that's marketing hype (which we see all the time).

Which then leads to another issue about how marketing departments seem to embelish a little to much on the truth.

We don't buy cars or refrigerators based on comparative notions of expected performance, we buy them based on hard numbers that either mean a lot to us or nothing, "I just like the color" may be the reason for some, but I contend that most consumers are smarter these days, and don't just buy based on color.

But how far down into the guts of it do you want the average consumer to be educated. If I showed you two similiar cars, that are very close to the same size, same weight, yet one of them had a little bigger engine, and a little more hp yet was a bit slower do you think the average consumer is able to sit there and comprehend it's because they put in some silly gear ratios for 1st and 2nd gear and a really low final drive ration to make the car more EPA friendly.

AMD from day one has said that their naming scheme is in relation to what competes with Intel, it's not hard to get educated on their naming convention, actual clock speeds, or even benchmarks to prove the numbers.

What if marketers were to continually push Pan & Scan on the consumer, stating this is the best utilization of the TV screen you have?? Same difference, the consumer should be educated by the sellers as this should never be left up to marketing to decide how to present the information.

How is that the same difference? Again you can hop over to AMD.com and learn everything and more than you ever wanted to know about the XP line of CPU's. That's far different than somebody promoting the cutting up of film. And the consumer is educated by the sellers marketing department, that will never go away, nor should it, again if AMD was "truthful" in their clockspeed as model numbers (which has been the standard naming convention for a long time) they would have lost a significant amount of business, maybe even enough to drastically change their business (although we'll never know).

Anyway, you guys disagree and I can live with that, I'm not trying to say I'm right and your wrong. Me I want it straight for that's how I like my information. Sure AMD speeds are easily found, call it what ever you want, just make sure some standardization is applied and MHZ is also part of the information. I have had people tell me they have bought a 1800 or 1900 mhz AMD. OK

Well, if we all agreed then everything would be boring for sure. And in a "utopia" like world I agree 100% with you, I'd like to see information straight with no marketing fluff added to it. I'd like to see fully educated consumers who don't care about having the "biggest numbered model" but the best for their needs. But that, I'm afraid, is just not going to happen for awhile.

Andrew