What has happened to Intel lately?

[drhycodan]

Ever since the original Core i7, these newer 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen i7's barely improve upon the original i7 in performance. I remember when the Core 2 came out, it was like day and night compared to a Pentium D/4. Then Core i7 came out and it also offered a substantial improvement over the Core 2's. But since then, the newer Core i7's barely offer any improvement. When is Intel going to release something that offers as much an improvement in IPC as the original i7 did?

[DJBarry004]

Wait for the new cores coming up in the next two years.

[Link_to_the_past]

(10-27-2013, 08:31 AM)drhycodan Wrote: Ever since the original Core i7, these newer 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen i7's barely improve upon the original i7 in performance. I remember when the Core 2 came out, it was like day and night compared to a Pentium D/4. Then Core i7 came out and it also offered a substantial improvement over the Core 2's. But since then, the newer Core i7's barely offer any improvement. When is Intel going to release something that offers as much an improvement in IPC as the original i7 did?

They have been focusing since the second generation of i7 on reducing power consumption and increasing integrated gpu performance more than increasing cpu power. They moved all their focus to more mobile offerings and i think that the lacking competition from AMD helped establish that. If AMD was competitive they wouldn't be so lax regarding their cpu performance. Having established their dominance in cpu performance then they shifted their focus to areas they lacked, integrated gpu performance and ultra mobile, tablet, etc. presence.

[MayImilae]

drhycodan Wrote:Ever since the original Core i7, these newer 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen i7's barely improve upon the original i7 in performance.

Uh, wrong. The first gen is Nehalem-Westmere, the second gen Sandy Bridge-Ivy Bridge, the third gen is Haswell-Broadwell. Sandy Bridge was a HUGE leap in performance. So you're wrong there.

Still, starting with Ivy performance gains per iteration have slowed down. But it isn't so clearcut... All speed gains are just efficiency gains. Think about it. Improved efficiency means you can do more with the same resources in the same time period. Simple. Well, Intel is focusing more on laptops and tablets lately to try to stop the advance of ARM. So while they are always marching forward with efficiency, now they are shifting more and more of that efficiency away from performance and using it to reduce power consumption and increase battery life. It's not that they've slowed down their advancement, they just have other things to worry about.

The only solution is for AMD to step up their game and start challenging them in CPU performance again. Considering how far they have fallen behind, that could be pretty rough. Right now they aren't even trying to challenge in CPU power, and are focusing on low cost bundles and their better onboard GPUs.

[delroth]

AMD is far too busy swimming in the PS4 and XBone money to make good CPUs.

[DarkeoX]

(10-27-2013, 09:59 AM)delroth Wrote: AMD is far too busy swimming in the PS4 and XBone money to make good CPUs.

I disagree here. AMD is progressively shifting their CPU business to APU, as they saw that APU can be quite attractive for your typical casual gamer who wants to watch HD stuff and do more usual stuff with his computer. He/She wants something that doesn't cost too much but gives room for improvement and allow him/her to play BF 3 / Dota / LoL / CoD / WoW at medium settings possibly with some shiny effects without loosing too much FPS. An 140$ A10-6800k can do this for them just fine, and I think that even Intel understood the huge potential that those APU solutions, that look bastardised for people who build gaming rigs, can be towards casual gamers market. When you buy something like that, it's clearly not to play Crysis 3 (even at low) or Metro LL. So I think those systems can take over the regular CPU+ dedicated GPU provided that they continue to improve. Thus they could very well, just as they owned the low-midrange GPU market, snarf the low-mid-range CPU market.
Which is why they positionning themselves on the console market doesn't mean they abandon or give less consideration to CPU. Certainly there's money, but there's also the experience of building systems where CPU & GPU get more and more close to each other and where software can speak more directly and more easily with GPU for stuff that goes on on display. Even the Mantle API seems a push into that direction.
So from what I understood, I quite disagree with the general assertion that AMD going all console will severe them from CPU market.

[drhycodan]

So about what Intel CPU does the fastest AMD cpu compare to? And aren't the newer Core i5/i7's all APU's besides the X79 Core i7's since they all come with integrated HD4000/4600 graphics?

[DatKid20]

(10-28-2013, 08:27 AM)drhycodan Wrote: So about what Intel CPU does the fastest AMD cpu compare to? And aren't the newer Core i5/i7's all APU's besides the X79 Core i7's since they all come with integrated HD4000/4600 graphics?

They aren't really apus. AMD doesn't just integrate graphics and call it a apu. AMD is breaking the barrier between them and letting them working them together even better than a low end dedicated gpu and a regular cpu.

[DarkeoX]

(10-28-2013, 08:27 AM)drhycodan Wrote: So about what Intel CPU does the fastest AMD cpu compare to? And aren't the newer Core i5/i7's all APU's besides the X79 Core i7's since they all come with integrated HD4000/4600 graphics?

Yes they are, all Intel Chips that comes with an integrated graphic solution are technically APU. The thing is that the integrated graphics in Intel chips are barely on par with AMD's one, the latter having "a bit" more experience regarding graphics... And as said above, the implementation of that concept at Intel isn't really on par yet with AMD. Which is why even if the Intel CPU itself washes away most of what AMD can offer CPU and APU wise, the graphic part of APUs AMD are far superior IMO. And from that balance comes the fact that if you're basically not planning to buy a dedicated GPU anytime soon, which is the segment of the market AMD is aiming at with their APUs, you'd better buy an AMD APU which are usually 150-190$ less expensive than the Intel counter part for roughly the same in-game performance.
Of course, it depends on the money you have at the moment. But one can also consider that if you can indeed just buy any GPU you want with your Intel solution ending up with a better CPU and possibly graphic solution than what any APU can deliver, you can just as well crossfire you integrated AMD APU graphics with whatever AMD GPU (won't give you a huge boost, but anyway, the GPUs that are supported aren't beasts nor they are expensive. Something around 6530 and stuff) it supports.
So of course, performance wise, and if you plan to have your build to evolve in something powerful for gaming. Just go Intel and add some dedicated GPU when you can.
However, I still believe Intel APU by themselves still have some ground to cover before they can become as attractive as AMD APUs are performance/$ wise.

If I remember correctly, a 3770k + HD 4000 was performing in-game a (tiny) bit worse than the A8-3850 (2.5-6 Ghz + 6550), so depending on games they might be on-par (of course, this is casual gamer stuff : we don't want HBAO, MSAA x8, V-Sync or TressFX, and we play preferably at 720p). That was like over a year ago, and you can already see that we're not really in the same price category, yet the delivered performance for the application that interest us is roughly the same. Well if you consider the power of the CPU itself, of course it would cost more. But the thing here is as a self-contained casual gaming solution, the AMD APU wins by far, and since then we've got the A10. I don't know how things went for Haswell, and I hear Intel are planning for HD 5000 and stuff but right now, if I wanted a ~300$ rig that do usual stuff + being able to play some new games at low-medium and knew that I wouldn't be touching it for the next 2-3 years, I'd go AMD without a doubt.

[mbc07]

Moved to Delfino Plaza...