Reader Mail for September Loose Ends
Added 2024-10-10 23:11:50 +0000 UTCIt's that time! Put your questions and thoughts about recent developments below! Obviously, there's going to be A LOT of talk about Arrow Lake on this one, but as a reminder we've seen the following developments over the past 4 weeks:
PS5 Pro Benchmarks Leaked (and were officially shown off too!)
RDNA 4 was Confirmed to be a 2025 Product
AMD Cut Prices (behind the scenes) on RDNA 3
Nvidia Blackwell was Confirmed to (for now lol) be a 2025 Product
Details about the Laptop 5090 24GB Leaked
RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 Specs & Pricing Leaked
R7 9800X3D was confirmed to be a 2024 Product (Yay for once!)
X870E Launched
Intel Launched Granite Rapids
AMD Launches Turin
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Comments
In the MLID discord who has the best AI name and why is it me? With a name like 2nd Generation AI XTX im clearly super, while everyone is stuck on 1st generation AI I’m on the second generation with two x’s to show how extreme my ai is along with my superb 999 number which isn’t quite 1000 but is 1000.
Sad XTX 999
2024-10-11 21:41:37 +0000 UTCHi Tom, I feel like the handheld market for gamers is about to absolutely blow up. Both Zen 5 and Lunar lake from what I can see, went hard on performance per watt, especially in the mid and low end. What are you thoughts on this race it seems to match ARM in battery life while still maintaining high end performance. Will next Gen Zen 6 and Panther lake continue this low/mid end performance focus and aiming for low watt for laptops/mobile. I honestly it feel likes the High end performance jumps will mainly be seen in specific chips like the X3D/Intel equivalent if that ever happens.
Travis Gooding
2024-10-11 20:36:20 +0000 UTCIs there a reason Intel's model numbers for desktop Arrow Lake don't align(as I expect) with the segmentation of Ultra 5, 7, and 9? The Ultra 9 is 285K, instead of 290K. The Ultra 7 is 265K, instead of 270K. The Ultra 5 is 245K, instead of 250K. This could be an attempt to leave room for other binned SKUs, or a refresh. However, for those future scenarios, they could have gone +/- 5 from my expected (290/270/250) values. This is probably more attention than the product deserves. ha
Endless Logins
2024-10-11 15:31:06 +0000 UTCWhere is the 7650 GRE landing in the product stack with price drops happening? Is it replacing 7600/7600XT or will it be closer to a 7700 XT?
CompressedAIBlocks
2024-10-11 14:17:48 +0000 UTCAMD hasn’t even officially announced the 9800X3D and it looks like we can already crown it as the new king of PC gaming. Meanwhile, Intel probably has little room to cut Arrow Lake prices since the most expensive parts are made by TSMC. Do we have to hope that AMD goes aggressive on pricing in order to take market share?
Chris Rijk
2024-10-11 13:51:20 +0000 UTCWhat type of users do you think Arrow Lake is made for? To me it seems to only make sense for e-core lovers. I don’t think this is a good target market and I struggle to imagine how Arrow Lake could sell well on merit.
Chris Rijk
2024-10-11 13:50:41 +0000 UTCSēnor Mot. Do you think Intel played Atrow Lake announcement correctly by focusing on efficiency, power consumption and I/O? It was nice seeing them not beat their chest and yell 6GHz at 400w.
CompressedAIBlocks
2024-10-11 10:25:33 +0000 UTCBased on the information that has been officially announced, who would you recommend to get Arrow Lake? My thoughts are power consumption reduction is nice, probably be much more stable products but no huge performance advantages over AMD (or even worse, their earlier products) despite having node and packaging advantages.
CompressedAIBlocks
2024-10-11 10:18:56 +0000 UTCHello Tom, Intel revealed, that Arrow Lake is not faster in gaming then 14900k, they made no comment on future proofing for LGA 1851. Zen 5 is for gaming not faster then Zen 4 will this gen bring AMD and Intel Any significant DIY Sales as customers who are willing to upgrade every gen, what was possible on AM4 and with Raptolake, have no real reason to upgrade.
AI-Soldier789
2024-10-11 09:48:18 +0000 UTCDo you think the existing architecture on RDNA 3 can support FSR 4's AI upscaling? If so, this seems like a good opportunity to boost preexisting owners' satisfaction and to prompt new buyers to get RDNA 3 for a DLSS-like feature, although I don't think FSR 4 is ready yet, and we haven't seen the results, but I imagine it would be close to PSSR as that was a joint venture between Sony and AMD. Furthermore, if customers know for certain that a feature will come, isn't it better than not having one at all? What's your take?
Hugo Ander Kivi
2024-10-11 09:03:55 +0000 UTCLast Broken Silicon, you leaked AMD dropping prices behind the scenes, and you said that if they don't come out publicly and market the price drop, it won't make a difference. I know taking marketshare is not as simple as just pricing; features, driver support, reputation, and many other factors play an important role as well. However, do you think this is an opportunity for AMD to take significant market share with well-marketed, aggressive pricing for RDNA 3, or are you skeptical that the marketing team will wake up and smell the coffee?
Hugo Ander Kivi
2024-10-11 08:59:25 +0000 UTCHi Tom, Intel is manufacturing their, in my opinion, most competitive products in years ( Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake), at TSMC. Do you think this hurts the reputation of their own foundry services?
KingKoro
2024-10-11 08:29:28 +0000 UTCHello Tom, my question has less to do with the current developments but I'm still curious. In embedded and industrial applications, Intel is still dominating the market I feel, it is this marker where small good price/performance SoCs are attractive in my opinion. Alder Lake-N (only E-cores) is interesting but have you heard anything about a successor for 2025? Would that be based on Crestmont or Skymont cores?
KingKoro
2024-10-11 08:23:13 +0000 UTCHas Intel become a fabless company? Arrow Lake has CPU on N3B, GPU on N5P, and IO tile on N6 - all from TSMC...
KarbinCry
2024-10-11 07:50:36 +0000 UTCDo you have projections of Intel’s margins on ARL products? Based what I am seeing from the tiles and packaging it cannot be cheap to produce. Also does Intel share any tiles from ARL with their other products?
MultiNati
2024-10-11 06:37:41 +0000 UTCWhat prices do you think the 7900 XT/XTX gets down to when it is worth it to buy over waiting for RDNA 4?
MultiNati
2024-10-11 06:34:20 +0000 UTCAre there any confidence left in Intel’s design teams after multiple blunders and cancellations? Even IF ARL is a homerun, Intel’s roadmap is the biggest “Trust me bro” fraudulent roadmap in the industry.
MultiNati
2024-10-11 06:32:15 +0000 UTCTom, please talk about the tragic tale of Intel's P4 programmable networking. With AMD leveraging their Pensando acquisition to produce first Ultra Ethernet NICs, it is yet again ridiculous that Intel stopped P4 NIC development... despite buying Barefoot Networks, the inventors of P4, years earlier. What could have been a good niche where Intel had a solid headstart turned to yet another missed opportunity.
KarbinCry
2024-10-11 06:20:52 +0000 UTCWhat are you hearing (if anything) about Nvidias laptop sales this generation? The news that they shifted 4060ti wafers the laptop and laptop never got a super refresh is surprising to me because laptop 4070 looks like the worst product in the entire stack.
B. Fish
2024-10-11 02:12:47 +0000 UTCSony was comfortable this gen with users installing m.2 ssds and disc drives into their PS5s. Could you see Playstation putting an expansion port on the PS6 and selling a $300 gpu add on instead of a separate pro console after 3-4 years?
shea
2024-10-11 02:12:23 +0000 UTCWhich do you think happens first: the AI bubble bursts and Nvidia needs to shift their focus back to volume for gamers or they keep trying to give less gen over gen performance for more money to the point where gamers abandon them?
B. Fish
2024-10-11 02:08:20 +0000 UTCHow likely do you think it is that Nvidia is trying to get away with running 16gbit RAM on the initial 50 series lineup, and later upgrading to 24gbit with the super lineup to make the 192 and 256 bit cards 18 and 24GB respectively, to basically spoon feed people performance first and VRAM later?
qhfreddy
2024-10-11 01:03:59 +0000 UTCHi Tom with RDNA 4 coming next year have you heard anything about FSR 4 being released around the same time or will it be like FSR 3 arriving nearly a year after launch of RDNA 3 or somewhere in the middle? Also do you think RDNA 3 cards will take advantage of AI upscaling?
JonWickBoomStik
2024-10-11 01:01:31 +0000 UTCIs AMD using the navi31 supply glut delay to get an extra stepping in for navi48? Or are the chips already built and sitting in a warehouse? Would hate to see another rdna3 situation.
David
2024-10-11 00:43:18 +0000 UTCIntel Battlemage discrete GPU : Is no news just more bad news?
David
2024-10-11 00:40:12 +0000 UTCTom - Given that Meta today confirmed they bought 1.5 million Epyc processors over the last few years or 10 to 30 million Zen compute dies. What do you predict for AMD's future direction?
Kiln God
2024-10-11 00:35:06 +0000 UTCTom - Now that AMD has 12 Zen 5c cores on a die, what is the likelihood of AMD introducing a 8 Zen 5 + 12 Zen 5c (40 thread processor)?
Kiln God
2024-10-11 00:26:58 +0000 UTCTom - Maybe I'm not that jaded as Arrow Lake at first glance appears acceptable for gaming maybe less so for professional workloads. Am I just imagining things?
Kiln God
2024-10-11 00:23:17 +0000 UTCIs the 8800xt going to surpass the performance of the 7900xtx? Can't see it being all that interesting if it doesn't
Shadhahvar
2024-10-11 00:18:25 +0000 UTCHey Tom, me again, with AMD pushing back RDNA 4 and Nvidia going full dictator at the top end of Blackwell, I'm happy I got my 4090 and will sit with it. Also if anyone wants it Amazon has a 6950XT XFX brand new for $489.
Kinihun25
2024-10-11 00:01:03 +0000 UTCHey Tom, Intel pretty much confirmed that they will lose to Zen 5 3D, I remember one of the biggest things you said is holding back Intel that they can't take being second. Well here it is, Intel is pretty much giving Raptor lake performance for seemingly 50% of the power consumption. For me this is a good thing. Intel usually would go balls to the wall and throw 400 watts at their problem but it seems they finally learned their lesson and going got efficiency and taking 2nd to AMD. I look forward to the reviews to see how it truly performs, not saying I'll buy it but I feel better about slightly better for Intel.
Kinihun25
2024-10-10 23:58:45 +0000 UTCHi Tom, if the pricing you leaked for 50 Series holds true, what do you think the impact will be on the 2nd hand market? Informed PC gamers know very well how VRAM can be a limiting factor in newer games and with more current generation only games coming to market, do you think this will keep 2nd hand 4090 prices high? Do you think the sharp increase in price for the 5090 is to take away the "value" proposition that was the 4090 over the 4080?
Gob
2024-10-10 23:32:56 +0000 UTCI suppose one area where Arrow Lake can be a decent upgrade is laptops as if they claim it uses half the energy, so a Raptor Lake at 200w (desktop) should match Arrow Lake laptop at 100w (Not to mention laptop chips usually are designed and binned to be most effect yields so the uplift could be even better potentially)
Falto
2024-10-10 23:29:14 +0000 UTCThe fact that Intel themselves were not advertising Arrow Lake improving gaming performance by a lot makes me very worried about Intel. Sure they can shout efficiency and whatnot, but that is not what will get people to switch over/upgrade, as they already lost a lot of good faith in Raptor Lake. Why would anyone buy this CPU if they can get the same performance on Zen 4 and Zen 5 (and likely uses even less power) Ideally, Intel needed to hit a banger where it is at least firm 15-20% better AND uses half power. I mean for fuck sakes this is supposed to be TWO architecture jumps AND TWO node jumps and yet we are getting something that could be possible in a refresh or die shrink a few years ago.
Falto
2024-10-10 23:21:01 +0000 UTCHello Tom! Happy Halloween month! During the AMD AI Datacenter livestream event Today (thursday), what impressed you most about Zen 5 Turin? Did anything at the architectural level stand out to you for future consumer desktop Zen products?
Dylan K.
2024-10-10 23:18:24 +0000 UTCWith Arrow Lake and Zen 5 seemingly having less performance uplift than expected in gaming, is this the start of theoretical limits to CPU improvements we can squeeze out (at least for gaming)
Falto
2024-10-10 23:16:49 +0000 UTCIf we assumed that Intel's chart they shared today are accurate and scaled the same down the stack, what can we theoretically expect out of the 245K/KF skus?
Thalo215
2024-10-10 23:16:31 +0000 UTC
