Opterongeek

August 26, 2010 at 9:32am

... to support the Intel crowd (which I've been doing lately actually) their strategy makes sense to me.  I already think their product lines are a bit clouded, so this makes sense to me.  Keep i3's at the low end, i5's in the mid range, and move i7's to the high end.  I'm ok with this thought.  They still charge more than I wish they would, but whatever helps me make better informed choices on how I buy CPUs, I'm all for it. 

I use an i7 920 at work, and it's a great chip.  We also have i5's and i3's here, and it's always a confusing matter trying to figure out which chip is which capability set.  At least with AMD chips, I know based on the family & model exactly what to expect. 

ironmon1

August 26, 2010 at 7:35am

...is this really such a big change?

i5 quads already have hyperthreading disabled.

if intel moved to the following, it would make the different families (i3/i5/i7/i9) much less confusing.

i9-->6C/12T

i7-->4C/8T

i5-->4C/4T

i3-->2C/2T

makes sense, no?

Keith E. Whisman

August 26, 2010 at 7:17am

Well by stripping away features like the performance enhancing Turbo and Hyperthreading, Intel is removing value from their products and making the decision to buy from AMD a very real alternative to those that at one time only purchased Intel because they trusted the brand. How can you trust a brand that fucks it's customers at every turn. 

Intel you should be ashamed of yourself. It's not like these chips don't have those features built in because they do. Intel is deciding to disable these features for only one reason, to remove value from it's product. To give it's customers a lesser product then what that product could be. That's just wrong and I'll be building an AMD machine for my next couple builds. I'm going to show my dis-pleasure with Intel by not giving them my money. 

The thing is about Intel is they don't give a fuck if no individuals purchase individual processors. Intel makes it's money by selling it's processors and chipsets to system manufacturers like Dell, HP, and Apple. They engage in anti competitive activities so these manufacturers only build computers with Intel processors. So there really isn't anyway for us the end user to keep from getting fucked then to not purchase a computer with an Intel part. So no Macs, No Dells or HP's unless they are AMD HP's.