REALITY: (i) 7NM+ with EUV is not yet ready for HPCPUs, (ii) Due to covid19 stores across the world still have shelves loaded with Zen2 CPU's pricing them same will create losses so AMD cares for their suppliers. (iii) OFCOZ by February 2021 Zen 3 CPus will be cheaper thanks to better supply. (iv) If you want the best will you hold back only $50 considering the state of covid19 supply issues?
Guess what? I didn't whine when Nvidia charged mega bucks for Turing. Nor did I while Intel were constantly charging mega bucks with their CPU's. No one at all needed those very expensive parts. Same here.Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Personally, I am mildly disappointed at the price increases and that will probably delay any replacement for my i5-3570k based system. But I can't complain. The capitalism that has given every person in this country a better quality of life long term than they would have had otherwise is often inconvenient to me and any other individual.
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
Pleiades (09-10-2020)
That is the thing,I noticed Intel is starting to have better prices too,and some of the Intel models,now look better value than AMD. People have rose tinted glasses for the Athlon 64 era but AMD did stuff such as bifurcate the platforms,ie, socket 754 and socket 939. Then they dropped socket 754 prematurely. QuadFX lasted one generation. AMD acted as badly or even worse than Intel during that era.
Also back then,it also ended up Intel had some better value SKUs.
Plus you are correct. In terms of IPC,Zen2 was not massively ahead,and in gaming due to better latency and better optimisations,Zen2 was playing catchup. Also,in older titles or those based on older engines,Zen2 is still significantly slower(think certain MMOs and RPGs). For example I saw some user testing of Creation engine,and Core i7 6700K with a mild overclock was still quicker than a tweaked Ryzen 7 3700X. Most review suites will have a few newer titles. So unless AMD is sandbagging performance,they have probably just about caught up in older titles,and probably pushes ahead in newer ones.
Yet back in the day AMD despite winning over Intel for brief periods with the Athlon and Athlon XP in pure performance,still were aggressively priced. So it took the 3rd time,for them to finally start pushing pricing consistently higher. Now they are doing it,after literally their first time.
Also,I don't think costs are the full reason. Remember,we had people saying the same when Nvidia pushed out £1000 Titan GPUs. 28NM costs more,etc. Except Nvidia gross/net margins started trending upwards after it. Then as time progressed we saw where the GPU market headed.
Remember,most of the Zen2 die is cache. Cache hasn't increased in Zen3. So even if the cores are bigger,Zen3 will be well under 100MM2 which is tiny for a 7NM product. A 5500XT has a 158MM2 7NM GPU as an example and that is under £200. Yields are apparently so good,there will be no 4 core variants. Last year TSMC 7NM was more expensive per wafer and had worse yields. Now its not cutting edge,costs less per wafer and has better yields. Apple is no moving onto 5NM and Huawei can't use it anymore.
For the most part,yes Intel has room to respond IMHO. By jacking up the prices per core,AMD has given Intel that room. Intel mostly can't compete on core count. AMD pushing down the cost of an 8 core CPU,would mean Intel would have to push its large monolithic dies to lower and lower price points,and Intel has more overheads.
Another thing is Rocket Lake S only has 8 full sized cores. Now AMD has pushed up the cost of an 8 core CPU to £420+ it means if the 8 core Rocket Lake S CPU,can match or beat AMD in gaming,etc Intel can maintain higher pricing too.
Jacking up pricing also means less likelihood of good deals on current Zen2 stock,which is what Nvidia did with Turing. People basically ended up paying RRP for Pascal,and thought it was a good deal,because Turing pushed pricing up. It also means secondhand prices won't really drop as much either.
Also,AMD hasn't stopped with higher priced models. There is also the 5900XT and 5950XT:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrac...in_amd_slides/
So by extension we will probably see higher priced 5600XT and 5800XT CPUs to,ie,the X series are not even the highest clockspeed SKUs. AMD is holding back and increasing pricing.
I think it is down to what Intel will do. This is why we all need Intel to compete too - AMD will do exactly what Intel will do if given a chance.
AMD has a history of doing this recently. Look at their GPUs.
Everything about the "new AMD" in the recent past,is about pushing up pricing as close as possible to Intel and Nvidia,and then waiting for a response.
Remember what they did with Navi10? Navi10 in GPU die size,is a traditional AMD mainstream GPU like AMD Ellesmere/Polaris 20. AMD officially leaked images had the RX5700XT as the RX680/RX690. The moment they realised it could compete with the RTX2070,they pushed the price up and rebranded it. They only jebaited the price,because Nvidia pushed out the Super series. Then with the RX5600XT,the original specifications had it barely better than a GTX1660TI for similar money(despite the cheaper GTX1660 Super existing). But Nvidia dropped the RTX2060 price(and it was faster),so they pushed out the emergency BIOS flash to overclock the GPUs,and many RX5600XT couldn't support the faster RAM specifications.
So we do need a competitive Intel as well.
Vega7 didn't drop down in price too much,and now sells for us much secondhand as it did new,because its good at mining!
I'm don't see me buying at these prices during these uncertain times where you can't be certain you will have a job in 3 months time. But then RRP prices don't generally last long, so will have to see what happens after Christmas. Vega 7 didn't stay release price for long
We still have the APU prices to come and they usually hold up the lower end and now include the key 6 core parts, though I'm not too hopeful of any bargains there from the way things are going.
On the plus side, I've not seen anyone say "AMD will be bankrupt in 6 months" so that's a nice change
The problem with the APUs,is unlike with Intel,the AMD APUs tend to lop off a ton of L3 cache. Hence they will probably have worse performance in gaming,etc. You see this with Renoir.
I know 3 mates,who are changing their upgrade plans after looking at the price. I was looking at upgrading but will just stick with what I have.
In retrospect I should have bought a Core i7 8700K in 2018 when I had a chance. The AMD mini-ITX motherboards were pricier than the Intel equivalents,and Zen2 still lagged in some more lightly thread applications I run,when compareD to Intel.
Despite some getting offended by me not liking what AMD have done here,on the AMD Reddit lots of posts are not liking the price adjustment as well.
The thing is in many countries,the price increases are actually relatively worse. £70 extra here,might feel like £140 somewhere else(Lowspecgamer logic due to lower pay elsewhere).
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 09-10-2020 at 11:33 AM.
Iota (09-10-2020)
I totally get your point and agree AMD have been trying to shuffle prices up or lock out features but the difference is they are hopelessly incompetent at pulling it off. That and the fact that the position of their products doesn't allow them to pull it off.<snip>
Maybe Hexus,is out AMDing AMD Reddit?
It was the same with the RX5700XT. They priced it high,and had to drop prices. They did it with the RX5600XT too.
I think that is the key difference between what Nvidia did with Turing or what Intel did with i7/i9 vs what AMD are doing now with Zen 3 or were trying to do with 5600/5700. The Turing and i7/i9 price reshuffle was clearly exploitative pricing because they were dominant and had no competition at the high end. AMD are trying to shuffle things up but they have competition at every level so in the end I doubt the $300RRP for 5600X is going to stick so I'm not really worried about that. And secondly the price of the flagship 5950X doesn't look that bad if it really is the performance champion across all metrics. That's probably why people are not as annoyed (so far). To use the Intel analogy, I think there would be far more outcry if AMD had shifted the 5600 to 5700, the 5800 to 5900, and the flagship 5950 to 5990 or something and charged $1500 for it because it is the fastest CPU out there. That's essentially what Intel did with the i7/i9 rebrand.
I don't doubt that AMD are just as evil/manipulative/anti-consumer as every other company out there but they do have a lot of goodwill still from their years of being the underdog and offering value propositions and also offering platform continuity (even though they tried to take it away from B450). They just haven't been able to be bad and their latest round of trying to shuffle up prices probably won't work because their products still sit in a competitive market. Where their flagship is dominant, they haven't exploited the pricing nearly as much as Nvidia and Intel have in the past. So yeah I don't think it's a big deal right now and I'd guess probably why there isn't more outcry over this. It just goes to show we need competition in the market to keep companies honest and that's exactly what we have now with Zen 3 and Big Navi.
CAT-THE-FIFTH (09-10-2020),Iota (09-10-2020)
As many were saying on the AMD Reddit,the higher end models actually make more sense. Its the lower end models,which the pricing is a bit wonky. My main concern is that AMD will try and maintain higher pricing. So unless the Ryzen 5 5600 non-X is $200,its going to be $250. So probably closer to £250. But it could be months before we see such SKUs.
The issue,is the Intel competitors are cheaper anyway. The Core i5 10600K is £248,and the Core i7 10700K is £344.Even if the Ryzen 7 5800X was 10~20% faster in gaming,then Intel has no real reason to drop pricing. Also we all know the Core i5 10600K is conservatively clocked,so again,if the Ryzen 5 5600X ends up being closer to £300,Intel does not need to adjust pricing that much.
Then there is Intel Rocket Lake next year. So even if AMD has slower and cheaper SKUs out in another few months,Intel might have refreshed the range by then anyway. Intel will then maintain its current pricing structure.
Also WRT to activities,AMD forced OEMs to take away PCI-E 4.0 from the B450/X470. OEM versions supported it. For me these kinds of moves,reminds me of the stuff they did during the Athlon 64 era. If Intel/Nvidia does such things I would be criticial,and AMD won't get a pass from me. In the end if they do,they will do the same stuff,and by extension Intel and Nvidia will make the same observations and it will validate their own actions too.
TBF on AMD Reddit and elsewhere a lot of people are not happy. Lots of mates who were looking at Zen3,have just decided they will just hang onto what they have now or reconsider their upgrade plans.
And that's the consequence of AMD's pricing moves. I don't know why AMD are not being more aggressive; they could have choked Intel as you outlined but they decided not to. AMD are trying to do this in a segment where there is competition so they are not exploitative like Nvidia and Intel, they are just stupid!
CAT-THE-FIFTH (09-10-2020),Iota (09-10-2020)
Me too, and that is all that matters; if AMD find they have product stuck on the shelves then the price will drop. If AMD sell all they can make at that price, then it won't drop.
I'm typing this on a 955BE at the office. It is a small company, I don't want to throw money away and there is a 2600X on X370 machine here that could do with an upgrade that I might throw into the mix, but these prices have not given any clarity. I was considering a 5800X on X570 for the current 2600X machine, and I get the old 2600X. But I'm not convinced at these prices. A 3900 seems a better deal for this use. But then I'm not gaming.
CAT-THE-FIFTH (09-10-2020)
Short termism. Its sadly what is affecting so many of the companies in our neck of the woods. Now AMD wants to buy Xilinx,so we can see why they want to raise prices. Intel did the same,as they spent billions of acquiring companies,selling discounted CPUs to OEMs,etc and DIY builders were one area exploited as a "high growth area". Growth meaning margins!
It wouldn't surprise me one bit the use of hire purchase,CCs,etc has driven prices upwards. People can use debt to finance purchases,but that has to be paid off.And as DWL said,look at the general economy. Jobs are uncertain,and even those with jobs might have to take pay cuts.
Same here. One of my other mates is on an old AM3+ system,and had saved up for a while to buy a new CPU. But these prices,now made them rethink what they will get. So instead of £300 on a CPU,they decided a £160 Ryzen 5 3600 is probably good enough. The rest of us will just hang onto what we have. If I see a good deal I will upgrade,if not I can wait.
Also,in case you forgot,AWD-IT still seem to be having their Ryzen 9 3900 deal on:
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/msi-mag-b55...therboard.html
£325 looks very good value,and even their Ryzen 5 3600 is the cheapest in the UK at £160~£170. Some of their B550 prices are decent,and you get a free SSD too.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 09-10-2020 at 12:13 PM.
Zhaoman (09-10-2020)
Just labouring on the pricing discussion a bit, imagine if AMD had released the 5950X at $1500 but went really aggressive on the mainstream 5600X at $200. They would have simultaneously choked Intel where the volume sales are while making their margins on the 'halo' product (if indeed the 5950X is the performance champion). People would have grumbled about exploitative pricing but that's only at the top end (like what Intel and Nvidia do) and the enthusiasts who want the top performance won't care and will still pay for it. All the while you still have goodwill in the value segment and drive up market share where it counts. What AMD are doing literally doesn't make sense.
CAT-THE-FIFTH (09-10-2020),Iota (10-10-2020),kompukare (09-10-2020)
That's pretty much what I was trying to say in the CAT's Zen 3 thread:
Like the Titan purchasers, if they can get someone with more money than sense to part with more money, good luck to them.A specially binned 5950-FAHM edition (fool and his money...) to milk the last 1% performance gamers and more reasonable prices for mainstream would have been far more palatable.
But at the end of the day, marketshare is important too, and the fixed costs of R&D are surely better spread over a.
And an arbitrary $50 to all the SKUs is far worse at the low end. And in actuality, the cheapest 6 core has gone from $199 to $299 which is 50% more.
But if AMD are going into the stockmarket mergers game, short-term margins today are all that matters
CAT-THE-FIFTH (09-10-2020)
Well they want to buy Xillinx,so got to push that stock up right??That's pretty much what I was trying to say in the CAT's Zen 3 thread:
Like the Titan purchasers, if they can get someone with more money than sense to part with more money, good luck to them.
But at the end of the day, marketshare is important too, and the fixed costs of R&D are surely better spread over a.
And an arbitrary $50 to all the SKUs is far worse at the low end. And in actuality, the cheapest 6 core has gone from $199 to $299 which is 50% more.
But if AMD are going into the stockmarket mergers game, short-term margins today are all that matters
I did read somewhere,a few thought AMD might be trying a jebait of sorts. Push pricing up higher,then before launch push pricing down/release cheaper SKUs and then appear they are listening to customers. Interesting if that is the case!
Waiting for the 5700/X to launch before deciding what to upgrade.
They can only sell what they can make, so unless they can get extra capacity from TSMC there is a current cap on that market share.
Pleiades (09-10-2020)
Yes, I usually qualify the marketshare and fixed cost of R&D with an "assuming TSMC have capacity".
But some of the things they did like the 7nm Vega did seem like wasting a lot of R&D and mask costs etc. and then not going for volume.
However, Wall Street is obsessed with margins.
I just thought, the availability timing could be interesting for Black Friday. I don't see people being in the mood for full retail prices around then.
Making AMD is trying to Jebait us regarding price,and suddenly will have some discounts,etc prior to sale.
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