EE sales might help recoup some R&D costs, but profit isn't a motivation. It gives engineering time to refine the mainstream parts for mass production for OEM's. Testing the waters.

Always keep volume in mind as well Chuch. It costs Intel the same $ to ship one boxed cpu as it does 50 OEM cpu's. Size, weight, packaging, heatsinks, manuals...all cost $. The new heatsink and fan for the 980X probably costs 20x's more to produce than the old style, but they are selling the cpu at or close to the same cost as the 965 when it released. Larger box, more space on the skid...more money. Bigger footprint, bigger cost, less profit.

I got into a good one with a mate a while ago about the exuberant cost of SSD's. Why? They are cheaper to assemble, less complicated mechanically, they weigh much less, they make less of a footprint, so why hasn't those cost cuts right from the source made the prices more reasonable?

Man you guys sure have a sweet looking wish list. :)

Yah I know. Intels volume is probably hard for the mind to take in. I mean they have how much market share? Then multiply that by all the computers in the world :shock:

You are probably right about just taking care of R&D, but that is a luxury. I'm gonna go along the lines of I've lost my mind, think DIY market is bigger than it is, and call you right. :good:

Love talking about this shit chuch, and nothing you're saying is really wrong, but just from a different perspective.

I know, but I'm too lazy to keep going back and forth. Plus I tend to come off as an asshole in discussions like this, and I don't want that. ;) My economic mind is rusty since I haven't used it in a while so I can't get my point across in correct terms. In the grandest scheme of things though, you are most likely right. We probably pay for the initial investment of the new process technology so they can make a killing in the OEM market.

Just sold some stocks to pick me up that Crucial SSD I spoke of. Been wanting one since last year and never followed thru with it. Going to wait and see what the fermi as well as 5890 do before I jump on that boat. :D

not to mention now with the Atom and low power consumption stuff I think they may make a move tawards smrat phones and crap like that

Thinking about how many phones are sold in this disposable phone age is mind boggeling .............

lol, never thought you came off like an ahole at all. I just walk out of my lab, look at the sprawling warehouse filled with every kind, shape, style, speed, color of computer you can imagine and think about how our stock is 100% flushed every 3 months, replaced by new stock...then I think about the 50 other branches like us in Canada and the US, then I think globally...then I shit my pants.

Man I got to save up some and play the market. There are so many stocks I've told the wife they were going up and missed the oppurtunity.

I think Atom is kind of low margin wise, but not sure. I mean they already have the fabs and process when they came up with the design. Remember that intel hands their hands in more than the CPU cookie jar. They make RAID storage processors, NIC's and a host of other crap.

You guys have fun speculating, postulating and hypothesizing with a pinch of hatorading?
If you guys needed a hug, just ask next time, :hug: