Intel CPU prices going up?

Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

Yousuf Khan

On 2018-10-15 9:13 a.m., Yousuf Khan wrote:
Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

I, for one, will not be buying Intel's chips going forward. The security
issues they had during the year were reason enough as is the fact that
their processors usually cost a lot more than AMD's for the same
performance.

--
SilverSlimer

SilverSlimer wrote:

On 2018-10-15 9:13 a.m., Yousuf Khan wrote:
Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

I, for one, will not be buying Intel's chips going forward. The security
issues they had during the year were reason enough as is the fact that
their processors usually cost a lot more than AMD's for the same
performance.

AMDs were vulnerable, too. Go reread those security articles.

Yousuf Khan wrote:

Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

Every manufacturer has a maximum threshold for producing a product. A
bakery can only produce as many loaves of bread per day as they have
ovens. They cannot exceed that threshold without investing more money
when conjecturing long-lived increased demand. Without adding more
plants, Intel cannot increase their volume. Adding a plant or extending
an existing one costs a lot of money which is only be reasonably
qualified for expense if demand is expected to continue indefinitly, not
for a minor blip in demand. Demand has gone up and exceeded their
manufacturing volume. A company can overbuild their plant with
reasonable knowledge that demand will go up; however, if that fails then
all the expenses to build a new plant, expand an existing plant, or
re-tool a plant are wasted - and companies aren't in business to be
altruistic to non-achieved planning goals just so they could've made
more but didn't have to. The future can only be predicted, not observed
(at which point it becomes history).

Also, it isn't just about the CPU chips. Without the supporting
chipsets, the CPUs isn't usable. Missing hardware means lack of support
for, um, what those chipsets support. A car without tires isn't going
anywhere.

https://www.extremetech.com/computin...pu-prices-rise
https://www.techradar.com/news/intel...-14nm-shortage

Prices go up when there are shortages based on current demand. That's
normal business everywhere. With less or same supply volume but with
increased demand from more consumers clamoring for a product, what would
you expect to happen to the salesman's price? You're old enough to have
heard "supply and demand" but maybe you didn't understand it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capita...ply_and_demand

In article , Yousuf Khan
wrote:

Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

intel is having a ****load of trouble getting to 10nm. meanwhile, 7nm
parts are shipping from other fabs.

Yousuf Khan wrote:
Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

Yousuf Khan

"Intel are finished, finished I tell you"

No, they're not.

They wouldn't have switched on 14nm, without the
yield being there to begin with.

Did they clear out some 14nm fab building to make way
for 10nm equipment ? If you've seen pictures of that
before, when they change generations, the building is
gutted, and there's just an acre of flooring with
absolutely nothing sitting on top of it. If they
decide to change process nodes, there's really
no turning back. It's an all or nothing change.

What they might have done, is taken a chance on reducing
the number of lines making 14nm, while they gear up
for 10nm. And got caught without enough redundancy or
production capacity.

This is a table from a recent Anandtech article announcing
the 9900K.
22nm 14/14+ 14++

Transistor fin pitch 60 42 42

Transistor gate pitch 90 70 84--- relaxed pitch

Interconnect pitch 80 52 52

Transistor fin height 34 42 42

Some nodes are done for power saving, some are
done for max_clock (performance). The above doesn't
suggest a lot of radical change.

*******

And is the price change in the INTC pricelist document,
or are you referring to the price at your store (retail) ?
As it could take tariffs into account, if it is a retail price.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:


"Intel are finished, finished I tell you"

No, they're not.

they're definitely hurting, and if they can't get their act in gear,
their problems are going to be a lot worse.

nospam wrote:
In article , Yousuf Khan
wrote:

Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

intel is having a ****load of trouble getting to 10nm. meanwhile, 7nm
parts are shipping from other fabs.

The 10nm actually exists. These people offer a reverse-engineering
analysis of the *shipping* 10nm processors in the Chinese market.

https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/1371/...nds-ruthenium/

Those are retail processors, with some being taken apart for
that analysis.

Now, the fact they're shipping in low volumes means:

1) Could be low yield.
2) Not enough production lines (yet).
3) Could be a material expense issue (profit not large enough).

Obviously Intel did these shipments for P.R. reasons,
not to "make a profit from the Chinese market". They needed
to show investors and the stock market, how close they are
to 10nm.

Notice in the 9900K announcement, that Intel is mentioning
the usage of Solder TIM again, so the added expense isn't
bothering them for those parts. And their "conflict minerals"
policy, I expect that's gone out the window in the name
of keeping the business afloat.

Never count Intel out.

They have a lot of levers they can use, to make a
nuisance of themselves :-) It's one of the reasons
I would not count them out. They're not afraid of
anyone.

Paul

Wolf K wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

The future can only be predicted, not observed (at which point it
becomes history).

... and the predictions are calculated probabilities,
predictions = calculated probabilities
... not proven conclusions.
proven conclusions = observed (aka history)

So, you rephrased what I already said. Thanks for the reinforcement.

On 2018-10-15 1:19 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
SilverSlimer wrote:

On 2018-10-15 9:13 a.m., Yousuf Khan wrote:
Intel's processor prices have been going up recently, rather than down.
They're blaming it on production problems. Intel has been well known to
be stuck on the 14nm node for a while now. Instead of going towards 10nm
they just keep incrementing their 14nm with plus signs, what are they up
to now, 14nm++++? Regardless, even at 14nm they were able to keep up
with production before, why not now? It's not even only their high-end
processors that are in short-supply, even their low-end value-oriented
processors like i3-8100 or i5-8400 are not available. This doesn't sound
like a high-demand supply shortage, it just sounds like just basic low
yields to me. Do you think that maybe even their internal tinkering with
14nm is making things worse for them? Perhaps, 14nm++++ is not as good
as 14nm+++? In the meantime, AMD is at 12nm and humming along, and ready
to migrate towards 7nm within less than a year.

I, for one, will not be buying Intel's chips going forward. The security
issues they had during the year were reason enough as is the fact that
their processors usually cost a lot more than AMD's for the same
performance.

AMDs were vulnerable, too. Go reread those security articles.

Ah, good to know. It seems that AMD eventually admitted that Spectre2
affected their processors too. Thanks for that.


--
SilverSlimer