Friday, November 16th 2018
Intel Cutting Retail Processor Supply for Holiday 2018
Prices of retail packages of Intel Core desktop processors could continue to rise over Q4-2018, as the company has reportedly cut their supply, in favor of tray/reel shipments to OEMs. This could mean DIY favorites such as the Core i5-8400, the i5-8600K, i5-9600K, or even Core i7 models such as the i7-8700K, i7-9700K, and the flagship i9-9900K could be severely in short supply, or heavily marked up wherever available. Intel recently devised a strategy to increase its Core processor volumes by pumping in an additional $1 billion to its usually-$15 billion capital expenditure, to fire up small-scale manufacturing facilities around the world, to augment its bigger fabs located in Malaysia and Vietnam.
Sites like Mexico, Israel, and Ireland are beneficiaries of this move, and are being expanded. Much of Intel's efforts appear to be focused on making sure notebook and pre-built PC manufacturers aren't starved of processor inventory. The DIY retail channel, which consists of boxed processors, will foot the bill for this move. A good example of understocked retail channel would be the $499 Core i9-9900K processor being sold for upwards of $900 in some online stores. AMD is in an enviable position to fill the void, comments PCGamesN. Prices of its Ryzen desktop processor PIBs are either flat, or marginally cut; and socket AM4 motherboards are generally cheaper than LGA1151 ones.
Sources:
PCGamesN, DigiTimes
Sites like Mexico, Israel, and Ireland are beneficiaries of this move, and are being expanded. Much of Intel's efforts appear to be focused on making sure notebook and pre-built PC manufacturers aren't starved of processor inventory. The DIY retail channel, which consists of boxed processors, will foot the bill for this move. A good example of understocked retail channel would be the $499 Core i9-9900K processor being sold for upwards of $900 in some online stores. AMD is in an enviable position to fill the void, comments PCGamesN. Prices of its Ryzen desktop processor PIBs are either flat, or marginally cut; and socket AM4 motherboards are generally cheaper than LGA1151 ones.
106 Comments on Intel Cutting Retail Processor Supply for Holiday 2018
OEMs also draw their contracts way ahead of time, anticipating such demand. Now again I'd like to clarify the distinction between notebook market, as a whole, vs desktop or servers chips wherein the number of (chip) orders can vary greatly & seasonally. So if the OEMs have anticipated more chip demand, in any of the segments, then Intel should've been able to do that as well. It's not like the OEM are writing a blank cheque or Intel's fulfilling an unspecified number of orders.
For instance moving the chipset production to 22nm or TSMC ~ so how about Intel stop making like a thousand of them for each gen?
Now are you gonna tell me that everything Intel's facing now was unavoidable ~ I say totally not!
This is what intel dropping to one knee to AMD looks like, now we know.
Feels like when the much bigger Massadonian army got ripped by a very small Greek army lead by a young Alexander...
And 500 series was just as much of a turd as the 400 series was, just polished a tad.
But NVIDIA pulled it back by releasing the full Fermi a "mere" 6 months later, and the resultant GTX 580 was superior in all ways to 480, and still faster than HD 5000. That in turn caused AMD to misstep by rushing HD 6000, which released a month later yet couldn't overcome GTX 580. The end result was that the momentum AMD had picked up from HD 5000 was lost, and the enthusiast perception swung back in NVIDIA's favour.
Edit: Oh and the laptops fall into the OEM market bracket which is still above retail when it comes to who gets what first.