Intel reportedly considers CPU price cuts to defend market dominance
CPUs are getting cheaper, and that's a great thing for PC builders
Published: 21st January 2020 | Source: DigiTimes |
Intel reportedly considers CPU price cuts to defend market dominance
Intel is facing stiff competition within the CPU market, with AMD's new Zen 2 architecture delivering compelling performance numbers across the desktop, enterprise and notebook markets. Intel hasn't faced competition this intense in well over a decade, making the company's x86 dominance far from assured moving forward.
DigiTimes (behind paywall) has reported that Intel plans to cut the prices of its processors in the second half of 2020, citing sources within several major PC manufacturers. These price cuts could be how Intel plans to combat AMD's next-generation Ryzen processors, as AMD is sure to release new processors this year. AMD's Lisa Su has already stated that the company plans to talk more about its Zen 3 series processors later this year, a promise which should have Intel worried.
Intel's 2020 series of mainstream desktop processors are expected to be made up of Comet Lake series parts. These CPUs will contain up to 10 cores and utilise what's fundamentally the same underlying CPU architecture as Coffee Lake and Kaby Lake, albeit with higher core counts and clock speeds. This limits the competitiveness of Intel's 10th generation desktop products, as a lack of change on the process, which is expected to remain as 14nm, and architecture fronts will prevent Intel from making major single-threaded performance gains are significant leaps in power efficiency.
As Intel enters the second half of 2020, the company may need to start offering its customers more value. If they cannot provide increased value on a technological level, with boosted CPU performance or power efficiency, the company will need to deliver it with decreased prices. This will cut into Intel's profit margins, and may also force AMD to reconsider its own pricing.
DigiTimes (behind paywall) has reported that Intel plans to cut the prices of its processors in the second half of 2020, citing sources within several major PC manufacturers. These price cuts could be how Intel plans to combat AMD's next-generation Ryzen processors, as AMD is sure to release new processors this year. AMD's Lisa Su has already stated that the company plans to talk more about its Zen 3 series processors later this year, a promise which should have Intel worried.
Intel's 2020 series of mainstream desktop processors are expected to be made up of Comet Lake series parts. These CPUs will contain up to 10 cores and utilise what's fundamentally the same underlying CPU architecture as Coffee Lake and Kaby Lake, albeit with higher core counts and clock speeds. This limits the competitiveness of Intel's 10th generation desktop products, as a lack of change on the process, which is expected to remain as 14nm, and architecture fronts will prevent Intel from making major single-threaded performance gains are significant leaps in power efficiency.
As Intel enters the second half of 2020, the company may need to start offering its customers more value. If they cannot provide increased value on a technological level, with boosted CPU performance or power efficiency, the company will need to deliver it with decreased prices. This will cut into Intel's profit margins, and may also force AMD to reconsider its own pricing.
This is good for consumers
Lower pricing will help spur demand, and furthermore it will allow consumers to get a lot more for their money. Strong competition has forced Intel to start offering better processors at lower prices, and price decreased from Intel may force AMD to become more aggressive as it prices its planned Zen 3 series products.
Ultimately, these moves will get high-performance technology into the hands of more PC builders, and help fuel upgrade cycles for consumers and businesses alike. This should result in increased PC sales and help reduce the number of "PC is dead" headlines that you will see in the press.
You can join the discussion on Intel's reported plans to reduce its CPU pricing in H2 2020 on the OC3D Forums.
Most Recent Comments
Yeah because intel's prices were always inflated any way.Quote
I like how they're "considering" it. As if they have a choice.Quote
They will just do what most of the companies did for "Black Friday" and is knock £0.01p of each one.
IIRC OCUK knocked 1p of a item for Black Friday and so did Scan, cannot remember exactly what the item was but I laughed when I saw it.
Intel will not release a CPU at a decent price, just like nVidia will not release a graphics card at a decent price because they have little to no competition, I know AMD are close to Intel on the CPU front but Intel still have the better CPU's for gaming by a few % and to some people that few % matters so they will continue to pay inflated prices, and whilst that happens Intel will continue to milk people.
I could have recently bought a 3900x and replaced my 7700K but when I looked at it, the 3900x was not worth buying for me because it's only going to gain me about 5%, and the only thing that pc with the 7700K gets used for is gaming and I am not paying upwards of £700 for a new board, cpu and ram just for 5 to 10%.Quote
IIRC OCUK knocked 1p of a item for Black Friday and so did Scan, cannot remember exactly what the item was but I laughed when I saw it.
Intel will not release a CPU at a decent price, just like nVidia will not release a graphics card at a decent price because they have little to no competition, I know AMD are close to Intel on the CPU front but Intel still have the better CPU's for gaming by a few % and to some people that few % matters so they will continue to pay inflated prices, and whilst that happens Intel will continue to milk people.
I could have recently bought a 3900x and replaced my 7700K but when I looked at it, the 3900x was not worth buying for me because it's only going to gain me about 5%, and the only thing that pc with the 7700K gets used for is gaming and I am not paying upwards of £700 for a new board, cpu and ram just for 5 to 10%.Quote
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Originally Posted by Damien c
They will just do what most of the companies did for "Black Friday" and is knock £0.01p of each one.
IIRC OCUK knocked 1p of a item for Black Friday and so did Scan, cannot remember exactly what the item was but I laughed when I saw it. Intel will not release a CPU at a decent price, just like nVidia will not release a graphics card at a decent price because they have little to no competition, I know AMD are close to Intel on the CPU front but Intel still have the better CPU's for gaming by a few % and to some people that few % matters so they will continue to pay inflated prices, and whilst that happens Intel will continue to milk people. I could have recently bought a 3900x and replaced my 7700K but when I looked at it, the 3900x was not worth buying for me because it's only going to gain me about 5%, and the only thing that pc with the 7700K gets used for is gaming and I am not paying upwards of £700 for a new board, cpu and ram just for 5 to 10%. |
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Actually, this is just returning to real prices without Intel's God syndrome tax.Quote