NewsAnalysts Predict AMD & Intel will Struggle in 2009
Posted 11/16/08 at 07:15:04 PM by Justin Kerr
The slowdown in the economy continues to trickle down into the technology sector and new warnings have been issued for both AMD and Intel. According to the marketing research firm IDC; "The supply chain is telling us that there is strong concern for demand decline." As a result IDC, and many other firms are cutting their processor growth forecast to around 2-5 percent for fiscal 2009.
This negative outlook on the global PC market had a crushing effect on the earnings forecasts of both companies. Investment bank Friedman Billings Ramsey has slashed its fourth-quarter earnings expectations for Intel to a meager 30 cents per share, down from a previous estimate of 36 cents. AMD also takes a hit jumping from a 19 cent per share loss to as much as 24 cents. Obviously the situation is much worse for AMD who continues to struggle to find its way out of the red, but both companies are facing challenges.
Wall Street analyst firm ThinkEquity predicts much of the weakness will come from softer corporate notebook demand. According to Avon Securities; "PC OEMs...are worried about having too much inventories if end-market demand comes in materially weaker than expectations this holiday season."
Are you holding back on your PC purchases amidst the economic uncertainty? Hit the jump and help us conduct our own informal survey.
NewsCore i7 Pricing Leaks From Newegg
Posted 11/15/08 at 06:40:20 PM by Justin Kerr
It may have been little more than a cruel mistake, but Newegg certainly got our hopes up by showing Core i7 CPU’s for sale a whole three days before the official launch. The offending links and advertisements were quickly pulled from the site and now, little more than a handful of screenshots exist as evidence.
Core i7 is currently slated for launch on November 17th and it appears as though we’ll have to wait until then to place our orders. Normally, this incident wouldn’t classify as news, but the Newegg slip up does give us a pretty good idea of what the retail pricing will be on the three new SKU’s. The site was offering the 2.66GHz entry level part for $319.99, while the 2.93GHz and 3.2GHz models were priced at $599.99 and $1069.99 respectively. UK customers are seeing similar pricing and power users the world over are waiting with egger anticipation to embrace the new architecture. This isn’t surprising given that early benchmarks have the entry level Core i7’s mopping the floor with pricier, and higher clocked Core 2’s.
So are you going to buy a Core i7 on Monday?
FeaturesCore i7 Dissected and Benchmarked! Does Intel’s Next-Generation Chip Live Up to the Hype? Hell Yeah!
Posted 11/03/08 at 11:00:00 AM by Gordon Mah Ung
Tick tock? More like ding-dong, mutha—shut your mouth. What baby? We’re talkin’ about Core i7.
Our apologies to Isaac Hayes, but if he were alive, we’re almost certain he would have been tapped to hammer out a theme song for Intel’s most significant CPU launch in, well, ever.
Why is this CPU more significant than the 8088, Pentium, or Pentium M? As the second new chip produced after a series of embarrassing losses to archrival AMD, the Core i7 will answer for the world whether Intel is prepared to ride the momentum of its Core 2 launch with another winning chip or if it’s content to rest on its laurels, as it did with the Pentium 4.
Core i7 also represents a major new direction for Intel, which has stubbornly clung to the ancient front-side-bus architecture and discrete memory controller for years. Indeed, with its triple-channel integrated DDR3 memory controller and chip-to-chip interconnect, the block map of a Core i7 looks more like an Athlon 64 than a Core 2 chip.
Intel actually has three quad-core Core i7 CPUs ready: the top-end 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, the performance-oriented 2.93GHz Core i7-940, and the midrange 2.66GHz Core i7-920. For the most part, all three are exactly the same except for clock speeds, multiplier locking (only the Extreme is unlocked), and QuickPath Interconnect speed. See the chart on page 42 for details.
The bigger issue is how Core i7 performs. To find out, we ran the Extreme 965 against AMD’s fastest proc as well as Intel’s previous top gun in a gauntlet of benchmarks. Read on for the results.
Continue reading for our comprehensive review and benchmarks!
NewsQuad-Core CPUs Fall Below $200 as Intel Slashes Prices
Posted 10/21/08 at 04:08:08 PM by Andy Salisbury
Now that you’re playing the waiting game with your fancy new 30” monitor, why not wait for your processor upgrade as well? Price cuts on certain Intel quad-core and dual-core processors are on their way for desktops and servers.
Starting on October 19, 2008 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 and Q6600 will be priced at $193 and $183, drops of 14 percent and 5 percent respectively. The only question you’ve got to ask yourself is whether or not you want a chip with two cores and a higher clock or four cores with a lower clock.
The price on the Intel E7300 has gone from an already low $133 to $113, wih the E2220 and the E2200’s following suit dropping to $74 and $64,
At this rate, you’ll be able to build a rig for almost nothing!
NewsIntel Officially Launches Six-Core Xeon Processors, Boasts 50% Performance Boost
Posted 09/15/08 at 06:54:20 PM by Norman Chan
Intel today announced the official release of their Dunnington-based Xeon 7400 server CPU. The six-core chip is monolithic, meaning that all six cores are on one die, and is the first Xeon CPU to sport that design. The previous 7300 series CPU, dubbed Tigerton, was a quad-core processor with two dual-core chips on a single module (like existing quad-core consumer chips). As expected, Dunnington is still of the Penryn architecture (45nm High-K manufacturing process), and will be compatible with current Tigerton Socket 604 motherboards.
Speed-wise, Intel claims a 50% performance increase in the 7400 over the 7300 series CPU based on TPC-E database benchmark testing (TPC-E simulates the online transaction workload of a large brokerage firm). More impressive is Intel’s claim that even with the improved performance, Dunnington’s energy efficiency actually means it uses 10% lower power than the previous generation. The gains are largely attributed to the presence of a new 16MB level-3 cache, in addition to the extra compute power of two more cores. Xeon 7400 CPUs will launch at 2.66Ghz with either four or six core, and will be priced from $856 to $2729.
What does this mean for consumers? Unfortunately, not much. Intel has no current plans to release a six-core CPU to the mainstream market, and few applications would be able to scale well enough to take full advantage of the additional two cores. Intel seems to be pushing Nehalem for the consumer market, which will launch as a quad-core. Dunnington customers – large Web 2.0 companies like Myspace – will be the ones who benefit most from the extra performance and power efficiency, which may enable them to develop compute-intensive features like high-definition video sharing.
More pics of the sizable chip and Intel's press conference after the jump.
NewsIntel Pushes Back the Release of Chips with Integrated Graphics
Posted 09/05/08 at 11:01:50 PM by Pulkit Chandna
Intel has pushed the release of its upcoming chips with integrated graphics core to 2010. According to the company, the move was necessitated due to the “client platform learning and customer feedback” it gained in 2008. These chips - codenamed Auburndale and Havendale -are based on Intel’s Nehalem microarchitecture and have integrated graphics core, memory controller and PCI-Express. They will be locking horns with AMD’s much vaunted APU (accelerated processing unit) that the company has codenamed Fusion. If AMD can release its Fusion in the second half of 2009, as widely speculated, it will have a bit of time to freely plug its APU.
NewsIntel Upbeat on Desktop and Notebook Market Despite Economic Slowdown
Posted 08/01/08 at 10:11:31 AM by Chris Moody
While other parts of the economy are definitely feeling the slowdown from the energy pinch, Intel remains upbeat and expects no slowdown in global demand for personal computers.
Eweek quotes Intel Chairman, Craig Barrett, "We gave a relatively upbeat business forecast, saying that despite the economic problems in the United States our business is so international that we didn't see any slowdown in the PC market."
He also seemed to brush off the European Union’s recent antitrust charges saying that price reductions for microprocessors and computers have an "anti-inflationary nature". While prices are rising globally, prices for computers and processors have dropped which he calls a testimony to high competition in the sector.
On the high end of desktop processors where Intel currently dominates, it is more like a boxer keeping his opponent on the ropes. AMD currently doesn’t have anything to compete directly with Intel’s high end and Intel would like to keep it that way by slashing its prices and keeping AMD safely behind. Good for consumers right now, but without serious competition those prices will go up someday and there may be less reason for rapid innovation.
Barrett went on to say "It looks as the market is functioning as it should, because every year consumers are getting more for less. We continue to say that, please just look at the facts, don't just listen to a competitor complaint."
Last year the European Commission accused Intel of giving computer makers rebates to limit their use of rival AMD's chips or avoid them altogether. They issued additional charges against Intel earlier this month, saying Intel had paid a retailer off to avoid offering computers with chips made by AMD.
It certainly sounds like Intel will use any tool it can lay its hands on to stay ahead of AMD, and when you’re the size of Intel, what is a little economic downturn?
NewsDaily News Brief: Microchips to Require Activation
Posted 03/07/08 at 05:14:21 PM by One4yu2c
Microchip activation scheme seeks to thwart hardware piracy, Circuit City taking returns on HD-DVD hardware, Google downplays concerns over Android, a new Crysis patch, and much more!
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