Replies to post #140366 on Intel Corp (INTC)

[Unkwn]

So, what *new capability* do new PCs bring to the table vs. 4 year old PCs?
What can I do on a PC today that was simply not possible on a PC from 4 years ago?

Then you tell me what you can do with a smartphone today that you couldn't with a smartphone 4 years ago (and that's by staying with the chipset, not sensors)?

Sorry, but this whole "good enough" discussion is just ridiculous! If a smartphone would be good enough for doing everything a PC does, wouldn't it be also good enough to do what a smartphone does going into the future? If that would really be the case, why would anyone buy a faster smartphone then (don't bother telling me about 2 year contracts in the US, the world is much bigger than that)?

If good enough would actually hold true, the whole semiconductor industry would be on fire, don't you realize that? If that would be the case, any investment in the largest Semicos, be it Qualcomm, TSMC or Intel, would be dead money. This industry always has been pushed mainly by the ever increasing demand for processing capabilities (performance and memory) in general purpose computing, be it PCs, servers or smartphones. If that wouldn't be the case anymore, this whole industry would be in deep trouble. Is that really what you guys are trying to tell us? If so, I hope you realize that you are arguing against a law that has been existing for 40 years or so and was said to be dead many times already.

iPad processors were not designed to run with fans. If they were, they'd have higher performance also.

Are you suggesting it is easy to match Intel in the high performance domain as it is in the low power domain for ARM vendors? AMD tried that for ages and there was a time where AMD actually had the faster processors in the market. Then came Core and it was the design, not the process, which crushed AMD. We are also seeing how easy it is with all those failed attempts from ARM vendors trying to build a decent server CPU.

I guess you are technically skilled enough to know that this is not just about running with a faster clock, right? When it gets into really sophisticated cache controlling, high performance cache coherency, ultra high speed designs with manual layout, etc., things get really ugly and Intel is in a different league there. It is not Intel to prove anything here, it is ARM to prove. Just the same when it comes to Intel proving that they can beat the competition in low power applications (which should be technically easier, but Intel is still failing I must admit).

[mmoy]

> Seriously, word processing and web browsing does not require
> Nehalem with 8-16GB of RAM. That's absurd.

Try iCloud word processing on an XPS M1330. There's a fair amount of lag there.

> Also, you seem to have missed the point that 4-year old PCs ALSO
> have virtualization, so that can't be a reason to get a new PC.

Virtualization instruction set isn't required for virtualization. While not having enough RAM or decent storage performance can result in a crappy experience.

> You also miss the point that word processing and web browsing are
> also possible on older PCs and run just fine.

I can use 40% of my current generation Core i7 web browsing. Open a bunch of tabs with heavy web email programs - they can use a surprising amount of CPU horsepower. It might be flash or something else but some websites seem to do quite a bit.