Could Conroe intro backfire?

[BaronMatrix]

I'm ust wondering, because now NO ONE will want a P4 or PD. That means that a lot of people will want to wait until September which may put another damper on Intel's sales.

Conroe is a fast chip, but it may be too fast for it's own good if it takes more confidence from the NetBurst type chips already on the market. And then there's the fact that they force you to adopt a whole new platform, AGAIN.

I gues the next month or two will tell the story. Hopefully Intel didn't shoot themselves in the foot by releasing something not so much better than AMD but so much better than the products they are selling now.


AMD on the other hand is doing what it can to limit all the platform changes even though right now the Conroe has beat them down somewhat. AMD spokesmen have said that "they wil not REACT" to Conroe but continue on their path.


EVen now, Intel is dropping prices to Dell to get more interest from them. Dell has been in the crapper lately as HP and Sun are dominating the X86 server market and enthusiats are driving the demand for desktops with AMD chips.

I'm glad that Intel is at least making it interesting an dI hope this doesn't backfire the way NetBurst did, but if AMD doesn't react then the industry and consumers will assume that AMD is confident that AM2 and RevF will gain 20-30% over S939. That woould spel trouble for the Intel boys.




Opinions?

 

[RichPLS]

Or it could be an admittance that they are beat, and are hoping that at the end of 2007/ early 2008 they may pull back in the running...
I am not counting on AMD coming up with a 20% increase in performance at launch, from what I have followed.

 

[luminaris]

Yeah, I've thought about that too and it does make me wonder how it will affect the current market.

I don't know how it will play out but i'm sure Intel will find homes for all of their existing stock.

 

[moozh]

Realistically, we are entering the dead season for CPU and computer sales in general. They are targeting hype for a good Christmas season. And, thanks to the i975X chipset, a decent upgrade path is available for people who buy them now, anyways.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Realistically, we are entering the dead season for CPU and computer sales in general. They are targeting hype for a good Christmas season. And, thanks to the i975X chipset, a decent upgrade path is available for people who buy them now, anyways.

So you're saying that 975X is out now for current chips? If not, then how can you upgrade?

 

[BaronMatrix]

Yeah, I've thought about that too and it does make me wonder how it will affect the current market.

I don't know how it will play out but i'm sure Intel will find homes for all of their existing stock.

I don't doubt it, especially since they are basically giving Dell systems for buying a chip, but it is an interesting conunfrum to say the least. I hope it works out. I haven't "bought" an Intel chip for years. I used to buy them for stability before NVidia got into chipsets but now P4s just suck in my mind. I used them at work and hated it. My home machine with a slower chip and less RAM was a lot snappier, though it may have been because of the crappy network we had at work.

 

[moozh]

So you're saying that 975X is out now for current chips? If not, then how can you upgrade?

Yes, I'm saying i975X chipset-based motherboards are currently on the retail market. You can buy one with a Pentium D 820 or 920, overclock the crap out of it, and retire it in 6 months when you can buy a Conroe chip to replace it.

The ASUS P5WD2-E Premium is a good board for that purpose.

But you gotta go Crossfire for multi-GPU if that's your thing.

 

[Action_Man]

How many people know about conroe?

 

[BaronMatrix]

How many people know about conroe?

Regular consumers can barely turn the computer on, but Intel/Dell makes most of their money off of corporate clients, who usually do know - at least their IT depts.

It was just a simple question.

 

[BaronMatrix]

So you're saying that 975X is out now for current chips? If not, then how can you upgrade?

Yes, I'm saying i975X chipset-based motherboards are currently on the retail market. You can buy one with a Pentium D 820 or 920, overclock the crap out of it, and retire it in 6 months when you can buy a Conroe chip to replace it.

The ASUS P5WD2-E Premium is a good board for that purpose.

But you gotta go Crossfire for multi-GPU if that's your thing.


That's a good thing at least. I was hoping they wouldn't force people to abandon their mobos in a few months. I think my point was that people who DIY know about Conroe. Would you really buy an 820 or 920 when they are being totally embarrassed by A64?

 

[Action_Man]

It was just a simple question.

Which I answered with a simple question

 

[qurious69ss]

Well I believe that intel holds something in the line of 70% of the corporate IT contracts, which means that they are guaranteed a 70% IT lions share. What that means is that intel is guaranteed a 70% market share no matter how second rate their current processors are. Big boys play a little different, they make deals that will last for months and sometimes years......

 

[endyen]

That may be the reason Intel shares are down 5% this week.
Investers are not happy. That kind of a drop means that, at least on paper, people lost $billions.

 

[qurious69ss]

You are correct......for intel, a 5% drop is like a billion dollars and for amd 5% drop is like a million dollars.....Big difference huh.....we are comparing two very different companies.... It's a whole different world when you talk about billions.......

 

[endyen]

Actually for Intel it's 7 billion. That's what Intel value has dropped this week.
Amd is also worth many billions of $. They have more than doubled thier value in the last year. I think thier net worth is approaching 100 billion.

 

[qurious69ss]

Well lets just say that a 1% drop in intel stock is like a 10% in amd stock...

 

[endyen]

Have to feel sorry for poor Paul O. This little shuffle cost him almost $700K.
Oh btw, I just checked, and Amd's total share value is a meager $18billion.

 

[joefriday]

If I could justify the a new system build, I for one would be clamouring to buy a Pentium D right now. Hmm....$135 for a new retail PD 805, and $165 for a used PD 820 w/hsf..... I don't care how "inferior" it may be, for that price, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[apache_lives]

intel was loosing a markes share and now there making the market aware its back on track with conroe

 

[ltcommander_data]

This is a long post as I'm sure you can tell, but you asked for my opinion so here's the long winded version.

Whether Intel early release of Conroe stats will reduce their sales as people wait depends on whether Intel will be standing still over the next few months. But, it doesn't look like they are standing still.

First of all, they will be continuing to improve the 9xx and 6x1 generation of processors. The 65nm process has continued to mature and a C-1 stepping will be introduced allowing a drop in TDP. Currently, only the 920D and 930D fit into the 95W TDP, but soon the 3.2GHz 940D and the 3.4GHz 950D will also fit into the 95W TDP. This will further improve the temperature and power consumption of Presler and Cedar Mill under full load. EIST will also finally be enabled and will downclock further than Prescott 2M and Smithfield by going down to 2.4GHz. Although not to Conroe levels, between the revised 65nm process and the enabling of EIST, the performance per watt of Presler and Cedar Mill will continue to improve.

http://developer.intel.com/design/pcn/Processors/D0105761.pdf
http://developer.intel.com/design/pcn/Processors/D0105762.pdf

Intel will also be introducing faster Preslers and Cedar Mills and reinforcing their positioning with massive price cuts. New processors to be launched in April include the 3.73GHz 965EE, the 3.6GHz 960D, and the 3.8GHz 671. The most significant price cut will be to the 3.4GHz 950D whose price will fall 50% to $316.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20060213PR218.html

The low end will also fall as the 930D drops below the pricing of the current 920 to $209. That article actually lists the 930D and the 920D both being priced at $209, but Intel has actually announced to developers that the 920D will be discontinued with the 930D as the obvious replacement. I just noticed this product change notification as I was looking for the new C-1 stepping links (since Intel released a 2nd PCN revision on them), and I think I'm actually beating the news sites in reporting this.

http://developer.intel.com/design/pcn/Processors/D0105972.pdf

It's quite possible that with the elimination of the 920D, the $150 805D will be replaced with a 65m version.

Even with Conroe being released in Q3, a 3.4GHz 950D at $316 with a TDP of 95W and EIST is still a good deal. These changes are also Intel's way of pre-empting in April, AMD's June AM2 launch.

From a profit perspective, I don't really think these prices cuts will undermine Intel's bottom line much. The price cuts to the 5xx, 6x0, and 8xx series are simply inventory clearing ones. The price cuts to the 9xx series seem significant, but are just from Intel passing on the savings from the 65nm process as it matures and the yields improve. Price cuts to chipsets will also be occuring as Intel double transitions from 130nm to 90nm and 200mm wafers to 300mm wafers. Going from 200mm wafers to 300mm wafers alone increases the number of printed dies by 240% while using 40% less energy and water per die.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20051124214142.html

On a side note, Intel pricing model for Conroe is quite interesting.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=787

The way it's structured right now, the top mainstream model will be the E6700 (the naming structure is retarded btw) at $530. We know that there will be an Extreme Edition released as well, but what I'm interested in is the price. If it were priced at $999, that would leave a 50% gap between the Extreme Edition and the next lower processor which wouldn't make any sense. The Extreme Edition may be good, but it's not that good. This is speculation on my part, but it's quite possible that Intel will be using a split ultra-high end pricing model like AMD who currently prices the FX-60 at $1031 and the FX-57 at $827. The dual core Extreme Edition may then be released at around $799 allowing for the future quad core Kentsfield Extreme Edition to come in at $999.

 

[apache_lives]

But you gotta go Crossfire for multi-GPU if that's your thing.

wait for the southbridge update ,then go crossfire...the nvidia7900 as listed at new egg has got insane specs tho...690 gpu and 1680 memory clocks=2.37ghz ....dannnggg!
verndewd whispers to self (I hope amd kicks intels buttox)

you cant figure performance adding the mhz up, cause that would make a P4 insanly faster then any AMD, BS.

and theres enough AMD Intel fanboy BS, you buy whats best - you dont buy crap when you can get a better product for a similar price.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Well, it looks like the street has come ot the same conclusion as reported by the Inquirer. They remark that Intel may have inddedmade a mistake because nw the short term view is REALLY BAD with the only chips worth anything going into notebooks. It is said that after the announcements of COnroe and its perf the stock tanked to below $20.

Let's hope that AMD doesn't go DDR2-1066 and L3 for the FX and Opterons, though I doubt they won't since the chips are such high-margin prospects. SUre they will get a lot less per wafer but they can make as much as 10X on these chips versus X2/Turion/Sempron. Imagine an Opteron 3.2GHz with 2 MB L3 AND DDR2-1066 AND extra FP registers. Or the same thing on an FX.

I can only wonder though how they are going to change the model numbers since there is only 890 and 895 left.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Well, well, well. I knew it.

 

[conroe]

The high end chips come from the same wafer as the low end. Some have defects that can work with disabled cache(Celeron,) some need too much voltage, and some just don't go very fast.

Some say the 805 is good, just an attempt to rid of 90nm cores. More price cuts are coming with the 960.