Unlocked Pentiums, Revolutionary or Sham?

Communities Blog
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Alot of people may not realize it but the unlocked pentiums don't look half as much like the decent, good-value, over-clocking beast that is a no-brainer for entry-level system builders, that they are being hyped up to be. Here is why:

The unlocked Pentiums are dual-core processors missing certain instruction sets, being priced at around $80, this is similar in price to the Athlon x4 750k which I believe have those missing instruction sets. In PassMark the Athlon has a score of 4313, the G3420 (also 3.2GHz) has a passmark score of 3,458, assuming by some miracle you can achieve 5GHz you would end up with a score of 5403, in such a case the theoretical maximum performance of one of these pentiums is probably going to be comparable to the athlon!

Ignoring the performance and price of the two processors, we have the motherboard situation, the Intel motherboards start at $60, however this will not allow you to overclock the processor, the cheapest Z87 is $106. The cheapest Athlon compatible motherboard is $50, this will alow you to overclock the processor, a saving of $56 for the same performance (or about 50% more for the Intel)! For about $10 more you could buy an AMD FX-6300 and an M5A97 LE R2.0, this gets 6,365 in passmark. 

Now if intel Had come out with a $60 unlocked duals core part (in otherwords replacing their existing dual core lineup with unlocked parts at no-premium) , if it could be overclocked on that $60 motherboard, it would be $10 cheaper (Probably impossible I know), and if it could reach 5Ghz+ it would be competitive! As it is, if these things start hitting 5GHZ (doubt it since I believe the integrated voltage regulator is still onboard, and crappy TIM), it could start cannibalizing their entry level Quad Cores (assuming gamers buy those) based on a price-performance analysis. 

If they released an unlocked quadcore where would that sit, $150, below the 4670K, that would just cannibalize their enthusiast grade sales! So the conclusion is that truly unlocked and overclockable parts are incompatible with intels market segmentation, and that they will not be competitive with AMDs entry and mid-level offerings.

SOURCE: http://wccftech.com/intel-devils-canyon-pentium-20th-anniversary-series-cpuz-shots-leaked/

TLDR: Not price competitive, not compatible with Intels market segmentation policy, nothing more than PR.

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I believe this is aimed at people who plan to build a gaming/workstation PC, but don't have the money to buy both a high end motherboard and a high end CPU.  This would allow them to purchase the motherboard and an unlocked Pentium then upgrade later on to an i5 or i7 without worry about the motherboard.

 

But at the same time I feel that it would be a wiser decision to purchase an i5 or i7 now with an OK motherboard then upgrade to a better motherboard later on if they wish to overclock and stuff.

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I dont see how this is the case. AMD has one real socket that supports the majority of their cpus. Out of the box their lower end cpu out performs the lower end intel one. The AMD mobo and cpu are both cheaper.

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I dont realy see what your complant is,gamers dont tend to buy Pentiums for gameing machines these are more aimed at cheap inexpensive overclocking fun than anything else.

And its not like we havent allready had unlocked Pentiums before,its not realy a new thing its like bringing back black forest gateau its a blast from the past.

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I agree with cooperman, I see these as nothing more cheap toys for overclockers to play with or as a cheap way for newbies to get into Intel overclocking without the fear of ruining their $250+ processor.

Plus I think people are smart enough to realize that the Pentium line is entry level and I doubt very many people will try to put these in there systems as their primary processor. So I really don't see how the release of this will undmine the enthusiast market, in fact I think lowering the barrier of entry could create more enthusiasts.

I really like the idea of the Pentium anniversary edition and will more than likely pick one up in the future. Why? Because it looks like its going to be fun to play with and if come out at around $80 I wouldn't be too broken up if I cooked it

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My latest build for gaming is on the I5 4670K and so far I am quite impressed with it.  No issues whatsoever.  It has handled everything I can throw at it so far.  

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Only gamers would really overclock a cpu. The only other people would be ones who just overclock competitively. Or for practice. No one else would need or should want these. I mean the average human, if they were going to buy cheap, should buy an i3 or AMD. That said, these cpus in my opinion are just pointless. Anyone who overclocks for fun might as well get a FX cpu, just because they are slightly more and are going to be much better speced. As in cache and overclock ability. They would be better for VM too, because they start at 4 cores and go up to 8.

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Intel are doing some really weird shit, of late. AMD are appealing to more market segments with a range of suitable products, which is more than I can say for Intel or Nvidia.

I use Nvidia and Intel, currently. No fanboyism.

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 Look I did the maths on this and don't see how it adds up, the Athlon X4 760K will probably outperform these unlocked pentiums and do so at signficantly lower prices when including the cost of motherboards, for a slightly higher cost one could get a FX-6300 and associated motherboard.

You know if it was a quadcore, had hyper-threading, virtualization extensions or didn't require some fancy chipset to overclock with I think it would be a different story, but if they did that, I think it would canabilze the sales on their higher-margin products.

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This should be a moot point - no cpu from ANY company should have a locked multiplier.