Reviews Intel Core i7-8700K (Coffee Lake) And Z370 Chipset Review

To single out Intel for such ire though seems a bit unfair as what they've done, did, and will probably continue to do are standard corporate business practices, if roles were reversed AMD would be no different, it's just natural evolution of free market economics.

 

If I really thought any other company would be different in a market leading position if they could get away with it, I might care, clearly you don’t or you wouldn’t be running Intel hardware.

 

Oh Yeah, VT. They could very easily tell if they opened the chip up, but the fact of the matter is that they simply don't have time. It's so much more cost effective to verify the serial and batch number, send it for recycling, and ship a new one to the customer. That is why it's important to make it look like new from the outside.

 

People say that but the simple fact is that AMD didn't and are not known for such behaviour. Their whole ethos has just been completely different. As an example when I was working at the PC shop (same one we were told not to sell AMD stuff at) Intel also did the rounds over overclocking. More threats. If we advised people etc they would stop selling to us. AMD never gave a crap. In fact, I remember they actually encouraged overclocking on the XP line. So much so that every one basically bought the model they wanted two steps down and then simply overclocked to get what they wanted.

And it has just continued. AMD have left cores to be unlocked, left shaders on GPUs etc. All sorts of Easter eggs and unlockables. Intel haven't given the drippings from their arse, so I just don't agree.

AMD have the perfect chance now to go around fleecing people. Proof will be in the pudding. Let's see if they ditch X370 when the next gen of Ryzen comes out and force all of their users to buy a new board etc. Looking at sales for the past couple of months AMD are now ever so slightly ahead. Even since this new Coffee Lake CPU. I saw a survey yesterday asking people what they were buying. 40+ % said Ryzen, 15% or so the 8700k. Why? the AMD is obviously far slower?

I think it's mainly because people have just had enough at the way Intel treat them and act as a company. In fact, had they not acted like such arseholes Ryzen would not be anywhere near as popular as it is.

 

The only reason AMD haven't is because they've never had a dominant share of the market, depending on whose figures you want to believe the highest share they've had was around 50%, you only have to look at the way most companies behave when they hold a dominant market position to know AMD would be exactly the same given the chance, the only reason AMD behave in the way you describe is because it's advantageous to them to be seen as the "good" guys.

 

And then they fixed their broken microfuse implementation and prevented that in later revisions, in line with everybody else and standard practice. It wasn't done out of the goodness of their hearts as a special gift to their fans, they just didn't lock out some binned chips properly.

 

What, for like four years? Most of the lower end Phenom 2 range could be unlocked. In fact, it was even a bios feature that certain boards did not have. Don't tell me it took AMD that long to realise man.

 

It definitely didn't take them that long. They were well aware of it. It was left up to the consumer to decide whether or not they wanted to risk it for the biscuit or go for a sure fire quad or hex core chip. I remember the feature very well... it's what killed my CH V...

 

I had a CH3 I believe. Which did not have the unlock feature. Sadly it was SLi only and I wanted to go to a cheap Asrock (£25) that supported CFX. That too did not unlock which was a shame because I ended up using it with a Sargas Sempron that could have definitely been unlocked.

But yeah, Skylake I3 overclocking was clearly a mistake and Intel slammed that door shut bloody fast. There is no way AMD went for about four years blissfully unaware of it tbh. Just like how since about 2010 every single CPU they have made and sold has been completely unlocked.

 

That feature was brought forward with the CHV, I think. I could be wrong, though.

It was a feature that ultimately lead to the death of my board. It kept trying to unlock an 8 core, which obviously can't be done... and it wouldn't go past that as it kept failing to POST and resetting itself. Never mind. It happens.