There’s a very valuable article showing Intel’s current intentions in 2008 here.
(Update: The roadmaps appear to have originally come from PC Watch.)
It tells you not only what Intel will put out, but gives you a price range on what their various CPUs will cost through the end of 2008, and will also give you an idea on what proportions of Intel’s productions will come from each product line.
For instance, if you want to know what the cheapest Nehalem will cost you a year from now, the first of the two charts will tell you: roughly $300-$350.
If you think that’s rather steep, welcome to the new Intel Order. Look at that chart, and there are practically no price cuts planned through 2008.
Go to the chart on the bottom of the page, and you’ll see what Intel plans to produce through 3Q 2008.
The two most worthy items are:
Make Me
Many people say, “AMD has to live because if they don’t compete against Intel, Intel will charge more and slow down the pace of innovation.”
Well, these roadmaps are what we get from Intel when they think AMD can’t compete against them; they’re charging more and slowing down the pace.
This roadmap says, “We plan on making a lot more money in 2008.”
Obviously, these roadmaps aren’t set in stone, but the only thing that’s going to budge them is AMD being more competitive than Intel expects then to be. This roadmap is definitely a dis.
Given the pricing and proportions, Intel doesn’t expect them to be very competitive at all. The Slum Strategy continues. Intel is positioning relatively low-end items (a cut-back Yorkfield, a new E series, the “Pentium” notebook chips) cheaply to force AMD into even lower-end pricing, and charging more for everything above that line.
And if AMD shows more game than expected, Intel will just knock the prices down a notch this summer, maybe just down a notch for the next lower-end items.
Overconfident? They’ll probably have to make a few minor adjustments around June or so, but from what we see and know at the moment, not really.
People ask, “Why do you carry on so much about AMD’s failings and problems and false claims?”
These roadmaps are why: we end up paying for those failures. One way or the another, we get less for our money.
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