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Comment by faragon | Hacker News Reader

For new PCs, Intel chips are amazing. However, e.g. updating a desktop PC with a 2.8GHz (3.46GHz turbo, 8MB L3 cache) Core i7 from 2009 with a decent enough video card it is not: spending 300-400 USD on a new CPU for just 30% performance increase it is non sense, in my opinion.

Please, Intel: add more L3 cache to desktop PC CPUs, and put 6 core instead of 4, not just for the servers.

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Problem is you also need to upgrade your motherboard, memory, and probably your CPU cooler.

And if you do that, you might as well just build a new computer with a current GPU.

Sounds like a product designed to produce new sales. Funny that.

Who would have thought?

They won't do this because people will stop buying their overpriced server chips. Desktop is hamstrung to their desires to keep server chips better, even if it means making desktop ones worse.

They tried getting rid of ECC memory support but that wasn't enough to stop people from using consumer chips so now they're just keeping them a generation behind

Agreed, Intel is clearly hamstringing their desktop CPUs.

Lack of eDRAM on almost all chips to me is inexcusable. They placed eDRAM on some desktop chips, and they performed fantastically. I think they are waiting to introduce that as standard in the future, as they are running out of features to introduce.

Not to mention the hamstringing of PCIe lanes. I had to switch to Xeons because the lack of PCIe lanes is ridiculous to me.

Their HEDT stuff has more PCI-E, except for the cheapest HEDT stuff which is still more expensive than the expensive mainstream stuff. Basically, spend $500+ on a CPU and $300+ on a mobo and Intel will give you more PCI-E lanes.

+1 for more cache! (And ECC)

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