Are Intel joking re: i3 pricing?

Well a few things.

First as badtrip said, new tech always has a premium.

Second, your trying to compare core i3 (dual core cpu) against athlon II x4 and core 2 quad Q8300 (both are quad cores). Quad cores cpu will always beat dual cores in multi-threaded applications.


For the value market, this is the best intel can truthfully do without wiping AMD out of competition. If AMD went out of business we would be seeing these intel cpus at the price of current core i7.

And make no mistake - intel are making more and more cash every quarter because they are asking more and more cash for cpu's that are much cheaper to make.

You don't like it, you know there is an alternative. Why anyone would even consider any of these clarkdales is frankly beyond me. If people used their brains it would be intel getting wiped out at the budget to midrange, not the other way around.

I can think of 2.7 billion reasons why, .... so far

Well, if we look at the cost of the i5 750, it is still at the same price as when released (approx £150) so I don't think the i3 price will drop very soon. This shows that demand must be high (kudos to Intel), and the fact that older CPUs are beating newer CPUs in some situations at the same price only bolsters my argument re: overpriced i3.

However, the i3 is an excellent all round performer whereas AMD (and the LGA775 quad cores) can't quite create a product with such good all round abilites. Team that with Intel's world class marketing/hype machine and we see the reason for current pricing. I do agree there is a mobo premium and hope mobo prices come down soon.

If AMD's current GPU products and future profit forecasts are anything to go by, I would be wary of any Intel sensitivity regarding wiping out the competiton.

I agree with this post, except for "it is unclear how long this socket will last", it will last a good many years don't worry about that.

However I totally agree with the rest, clarkdale does not in anyway impress me. At every price point AMD has a better solution. Why pay $130 for the bottom end i3 dualcore with HT when you can get a REAL quadcore from AMD for $100 that at least performs as well if not better. Also the $200-$300 i5 dualcores are absolute ridiculous, the i5 750 beats them for the same or less. The only decent point about any of them is that they overclock well, which is fun, but that wont make a difference considering anything over 3.6-3.8 GHz is just for bragging rights, which the Athlon II X4 can do as well.

All in all, clarkdale is pretty much a joke.

Where did you learn that; magic 8-ball? Maybe you should help AMD with it's pricing - ya think?

AMD's new tech doesn't follow your spinner logic either.

Thanx to spintel's antitrust tactics, we get amazing products from AMD at great prices. The attempted destruction of AMD by spintel, has come back to destroy the great monopoly itself. It's amazing AMD survived the abuse - read the evidence. And now spintel, and people like you, think we should be respectful of some lame offerings which are full of trix and deceptions - after spintel essentially copied the tek used by AMD for nearly a decade - which seems to have triggered the urge to bribe oem leading suppliers - as if 80% market share isn't enough.

It's easy to reject this infinite and endless pile of excrement when you tune out the marketing hype and the benchmarketing; AND LEARN THE TRUTH FOR YOURSELF.

Even if spintel presents something decent
- it is barely better and only in some situations
- it is overpriced
- it uses more energy, cos they lie/ misrepresent TDP
- which means you need a better heatsink
- the stock heatsink is junk at stock settings (more $$)
- the bencheez are simply not truthful, and are used to discredit true competitors thru misrepresentation and exaggerated significance
- things are somehow always different in the real world experience - after you get it home
- the real cost to you is hidden - as mentioned by OP
- it will be obsolete in 9 months due to socket changes


and
beyond that
- you have to believe that antitrust is a good thing that does not harm consumers
- you have to sleep at night knowing you undermine your own world by cosigning spintel's above the law bs.
- you have to be willing to turn a blind eye to underhandedness and secret backroom scams
- spintel cares not - as long as they discredit truth and people believe and innocents throw money away unnecessarily
- above the law is not a good image - busted several times for antitrust, and still the arrogance continues - but the legal eagles will fix it

This is easily researched as public opinion, public information, actual evidence, and a closer look reveals even more - or you can pretend that everything is just fine, and believe in benchMarketing from a glorified legally harassed con that has seriously hampered progress and innovation - and you pay for that too.


it's endlessly unbelievable

I agree. Nvidia fanboys are like...a minor mystery but I at least get that Nvidia were a great company at one time.

Intel fanboys, especially those who blindly continue to follow intel through all the recent bad news are a major mystery to me. Rather than just do the right thing, which is abandon this evil corporation, they continue to support and make excuses for intels behaviour over and over.

Had AMD released these Clarkdales they would be getting PANNED for crap performance and garbage IGP. And rightly so because that is exactly what these Clarkdales offer at a high price.

I'm going to put numbers to your points to make this easier.

1. Correct, clarkdale sucks.
2. Read number 1
3. No, both platforms will use about the same energy, any differences will be negligible.
4. More power consumption =/= more heat produced, and in fact the 32nm process allows the clarkdale to run cooler.
5. Yep
6. There is no evidence or proof of this. You can not look at one article and formulate an opinion. There are so many variables that the only way is to read a multitude of articles to get a consensus, at that point you have discovered the truth.
7. Refer above. Unless you get the exact parts, set them up the same way, and use the same software then you will always get dissimilar results, that is why you read many articles.
8. I'm not sure how this one works, a calculator easily shows the costs.
9. No, intel sockets last as long, if not longer, than AMD sockets in general, but there is no backwards compatibility. Right now LGA 1156 is new and should have atleast 2-3 years like every other socket. The backwards compatibility is a value one must take into account themselves. For me, I upgrade every 3 years so the LGA 1156 is more than new enough for me. I never go with the same socket because advancements usually come with new motherboards or sockets (IE architectures).
10. Why do you have to believe antitrust is a good thing to buy the superior product, assuming it is Intel in your circumstance? As a consumer you should buy the better product and let natural order and government handle competition.
11. I sleep great knowing my processor is the best that I could afford, I have no responsibility to what OEMs Intel bribes.
12. Your right I should just stop buying ANYTHING because it all comes from evil corporations!
13. Your right Intel doesn't care as long as not caring makes them money, just like AMD and every other company.
14. Right, as they produce some of the best products for consumers to buy.

Look Intel does bad things like every other company, but that is not going to make me sell my i5 750 for the inferior Phenom II 965 which does not perform as well, although close, and does not fit my needs with the features I desire.

Your notion that it is best to buy AMD because they are the underdogs and are less corrupt than the competition, while selling inferior products in same instances, truly is endlessly unbelievable.

He is miffed because because it will take 2 McDonalds paychecks to buy one. I don't want to get into a fanboy fight here or anything, but the Clarkdales just do not appear very enticing to me, performance or price point. I think that Intel is once again, for about the 5th time in their history, banking on the average person buying these because
A: They are less expensive than their flagship platform.
B: "I want a kumpooter with one a' dem dar Antel Pendalum chips in it."

I'm not super enthused about the new i3 offerings either. But comparing them with Quad-Cores as the OP has done is just not logical. As far as pricing goes, Intel almost has to keep their prices slightly above AMD if even just for marketing purposes. Intel of course paints their processors as better than AMD (and vice versa). If Intel says they are better, yet costs a bunch less, it would make sense that many folks would question, "Seriously...?"

Let's face it, better products usually cost more. And although the i3 CPUs are NOT the same as the i5 or i7 products, they are part of the same "family". The general populace is going to assume the i3 is just as good as the i5/i7 machines, just not quite as fast and less expensive. They aren't going to be comparing specs, data, benchmarks, etc. And let's all be honest here. AMD is using a specific strategy to win sales. They've created a pretty good system in their Phenom II series, and have intentionally priced their product lower than Intel as a means of attracting sales. It's a strategic option, price them less in hopes you sell more because of it, thereby making up your "profit loss".

And as far as the mass market in concerned, the i3 system allows for a fairly powerful Dual-Core system with an integrated graphics system that's better than last year's... For your average "computer" owner who surfs the web and pays bills online, this system is going to thrill them.

For patrons of Tomshardware, this system is a joke. So it's all in perspective.

Would I build an i3 system for gaming? No. But that has more to do with the fact that it's dual-core than anything else. And obviously I'd never use the onboard graphics system, which should go without saying.

LOL I assumed he meant the "dual-Core" CPU itself, and not the integrated graphic system built into them. Even with that being the case, I think the definite trend in the "gamer" market is becoming quad core.

While Intel's audacity is amazing sometimes, it's possible they are just getting their 32nm process warmed up and trying to avoid the FTC's wrath. It's obvious AMD would have no room to compete if they sold these CPUs any cheaper.

No you're way off actually smithereen.

Clarkdale actually costs a lot more to make than the Athlon X4. On simple transitor count alone the cpu portion of the clarkdales is about the same as the athlon x4. Yep two cores the same as 4 AMD cores.

Removing L3 cache on the Athlons was an absolute masterstroke by AMD. All that silicon real estate which is not worth it on a transistor/die space - performance ratio.

Intel are basically attempting to justify the cost of these Clarkdales because of their IGP. That is garbage. Intel cannot go lower on price, they are not making 32nm quad cores in 2010.

Put two and two together there. Intel have their *own* market carved up perfectly and they cannot change it in any big way else they lose profits. If these Clarkdales were just 32nm quads with HT? They would blow away any other current cpu in the intel lineup.

That's why they are coming much later, after the uninformed have wasted their cash on this garbage called Clarkdale.

If you want to get the best for your money, it doesnt come down to company, core count and if you throw out morals etc, morals either, but cost vs perf, period.
Yes, compare the same price brackets, as thats what both companies do.
At which bracket do we have our product? And how does it compare to the competitions parts in that bracket?
If excuses are used from either side, or by others its nuts.
Say, if AMDs duals we killer, but Intel offered better chips thatre quads for less, or same, then wouldnt AMD be full of it? Same goes for Intel, or anyone else stating such things

yeah if you compare a dual core to tri core of course the tri core is going to do better, now if you compare the i3s to the Regors then the i3 will definitely do better

lol



@ jenny i agree the removal of L3 cahce on the propus was a great idea which is why it is part of my first build just want the 620 to drop prices

yeah most likely

Thats why when you buy a mobo you make sure that its a decent brand name. BTW, LGA 775 outlasted AM2 and AM2+ in terms of years. But you buy a low end mobo then don't expect support.

As for the pricing, its not bad. A Core i3 540 is $124 on Newegg, only about $10 bucks more than a Core 2 E7400 and much much faster.

Wow. Yet a friend of mine keeps trying to buy one and every time the card is "sold out".

Me smells a pretty smelly scheam here.......

How come the lamest posts on here go on and on and on forever and really say nothing at all............................

Kinda makes you wonder..........

A i3 540 is $144.99 on new egg. You are thinking of the i3 530. For a new build i3 can be fine but if you have a 775 system you can just pick up a quad core.

Depending on if what is, is

PsychoSaysDie, I know your happy with your new build but you have to admit that between AMDs cheaper offerings and the i5 750 there is no real room for clarkdale unless you just want to overclock very high for the sake of it.

$130 + $85, the cheapest you can get, will get you a good Phenom quadcore that outperforms any clarkdale CPU and come very close to i5 750 performance.

Whoops. Thought it as the 530. Still comparing it to that in price/performance its a winner especially since a decent P45 mobo is over $100 now and a decent set of 4GB of DDR2 is over $80 while a decent Giagbyte 1156 mobo is under $100 and DDR3 is too.

But if you compare ONLY on price you wont get a full comparison. The Core i3 itself beats the Athlon II X2 240 in performance, power and scaling therfore that $50 dollars might not be worth it. BTW, buy that $50 dollar AM3 mobo and see how great it is. Most likely you will end up with a POS. I never spend less than $100 on a mobo but thats because I buy a brand thats easier to trust than most: Asus. Every mobo they have is pretty decent.

Of course we can't use THGs Core i3 results because they are paid Intel schills as will any other site that says that Core i3 is the best dual core choice out there.

besides you know that if Intel did price them at the same level as AMD, how many sales do you think AMD would get before the FTC cried foul? My bet would be so few that everyone would claim anti-trust all over again.

No? If it comes to perf, why do some say "of course more cores will win in MT apps"?
If it comes to price, why some say "its only a dual against more cores?", when the price is less for more cores?
Not sure if core counts are important here, it all comes down to perf, as in, average Joe and most of us here have agreed, good enough is good enough, so it comes down to price, right?
Do you think average Joe cares why AMDs chips are cheaper and have better perf? So what? Its a quad, and its better

In honesty a clarkdale CPU @ 4.8 Ghz is no faster than a i5 750 @ 4.0 GHz, at that point you have to have a piss poor CPU not to do well. In the end the extra 2 cores wll make the i5 750 come out on top, but for $70 more. In that comparison the clarkdale is not bad, but the i5 750 is barely cost effective as it is with the competition from AMD let alone clarkdale.

Your right, at 4.0 GHz+ the difference is going to be basically non-existent, except when doing something very multi-threaded, which you most likely do not do, hell I don't. You get the added benefit of just having fun with some insane clocks for a bit less, I understand it perfectly.

Clarkdale = E8600 all over again. I know, I once got an E8600 to 5.0 GHz on water (it was a bad chip and needed 1.625v to get there while most E8600s manage it with 1.5v!).

I will be surprised if you go over 5Ghz on an early 32nm chip, if that is possible so easily then the newer 32nm quads should be insane.

I hope you have CPUz up constantly otherwise you wont feel anything, hell I didn't feel anything after 3.6 GHz.