AMD KILLED Intel's 290K Dreams w/ R9 9950X3D2 (+ Arc Pro B70 Analysis)

So today AMD finally announced the Ryzen

9 9950X3D2,

a dual Vcash monster with 208 megabytes

of cache for both top tier gaming

performance and top tier professional

application performance as well. And

then also today, Intel canled the Ultra

9 290K Plus. And no matter what people

try to say online, don't believe them if

they tell you this was a coincidence.

There is no way these dual announcements

on the same day could be a coincidence.

And uh also make no mistake that Intel

was planning to launch a 290K. I mean,

we literally got benchmarks of it months

ago. I these things were out there.

Intel was ready to launch it. And really

what was going on behind the scenes,

like I've been saying for a long time

now in multiple pieces of content, is

that there was a game of chicken going

on between the 9950 X32 and the 290K

Plus because Intel knows the 290K Plus

would have made sense in a world where

AMD does not launch a faster flagship,

but it would not make sense outside of

that. And again, AMD probably doesn't

want to launch the 9950 X3D2 until they

feel like they have to to crush Intel.

And ultimately what we saw today was

that Intel ended up being the one that

blinked and decided to pull their

release. Well, AMD decided it was

finally time years after Zen 5 actually

launched to get the new dual Vcash

flagship out. But of course, all this

begs a few questions like why would

Intel blink now? And why did AMD take so

long to finally release the catalyst

that killed off any chances of Intel

trying to compete with the 290K? Well,

that's really what I'm going to answer

in today's video. in addition to

analyzing the release of Intel's new or

really last GPU flagship, the B70 or Big

Battle Mage. But first, let's stick with

the 9950 X3D2 and the 290K. Um,

undoubtedly, I believe the reason the

290K isn't coming out is because Intel

finally knew for a fact that AMD was

going to pull the trigger on the 9950

XD2. And and and don't kid yourself,

there's been rumors of a 9950 XD2 coming

out and really since Zen 5 launched. I

mean, even Leo from K Guru came on

Broken Silicon and said that he knew it

was out there, that he knew people

personally who had the CPU physically in

their hands. And it was just a matter of

will if AMD wanted to launch this thing

that used extra Vcash capacity. Because

as long as AMD can easily continue to

dominate with the 9950 X3D not dual

Vcash variant, the one they already have

out, that thing's cheaper to produce and

doesn't use up as much of the Vcash

capacity that they could be using to

just make tons of those eight cores that

keep dominating Amazon's CPU best

seller. However, AMD would have had to

have taken the launch of a 290K Plus

seriously once they saw its brethren,

the 270 and 250K launch and then set

into motion Intel making the decision,

can we really compete with that at a

attractive price that makes sense? And

the answer was no. And the 290K Plus was

cancelled. Now, why though wouldn't it

be competitive? Well, let me get into

the two main reasons. The first reason

is that it really wouldn't have even

really made sense compared to the 270K

because it wouldn't be that much faster.

Remember the 270K has the full 24 cores.

The only difference between the 270K and

290K would be clock speed. And in

reality, I'm not sure even how much

higher that clock speed would be. We saw

no clock speed increase between the

Ultra 7265K and the now released 270K

Plus. And so I think I'm being generous

when I assume maybe they'd get 100 MHz

more out of it. And if they did, we're

looking at about 5% higher clocks

between the 290K and the 270K that's

already being sold for rock bottom

prices at $300. And so then let's take

AMD's numbers that they put out, which I

believe we can trust. They don't look

insane to me at all. And compare what a

9950 X3D2 would look like compared to

A290K. And we see that well, yes, in

some things like Blender, they'd

probably be a tie. Then we go to V-Ray,

AMD would dominate by double digits. And

in gaming, I mean, good lord, they'd

probably end up winning by 30% or more.

And doing so, by the way, with greater

efficiency. Not enough people are

talking about this, but Aerake refresh,

it's a powerhog. A 5.8 GHz version would

probably feel almost like Raptor Lake

again. I mean, look at this here. AMD is

vastly more efficient, especially at

gaming. Intel's only doing better here

because they've gone back to their power

hogging ways. And so in reality, the

only reason you would get any of these

Aerolic refresh products is because of a

attractive price. And that is what all

reviewers said. In fact, Gamers Nexus or

Steve at Gamers Nexus directly said

this.

>> It's way better than the 285K. I mean,

that CPU was a [ __ ] nightmare. Like

their their 200 series launch was just

awful. Uh we knew they were launching

onto a dead-end platform. We got a

refresh, so that's good. But that plus

the fact that the CPUs were regressive

versus the 14 series. It was just bad.

It was. And the prices were pretty high

too. They were like out of their [ __ ]

minds with the $600 CPU thing. They were

doing plus or minus 50 bucks sometimes.

And I am sure Intel saw these things and

said, "We tested the waters. We launched

the Ultra 5 and Ultra 7. People do like

it, but everyone says if it cost a scent

more, it'd be hard to recommend. The

290K would cost far more than just a

cent more." And so we are cancelling it.

And to anyone that says, well, why not

just make it 350 or something, guys, uh

I I gotta tell you, they probably

wouldn't have that many golden sample

yields. And these things are more

expensive to make than AMD. So, well,

Intel is probably willing to fight some

kind of a price war in the $200 to $300

region against AMD's, you know, Ultra 7s

and Ultra Fives. That's probably only

because they're getting rid of

overstocked Aerolate because nobody

bought it. It's been a complete sales

failure. That's why it's so cheap is to

get rid of it. Um, if they tried to go

for even 400, 350 for some flagship and

it actually hurt AMD. AMD's processors

right now cost vastly less to make than

Intel. I've covered that in dozens of

videos. I'll put one on screen right now

that really gets into it a little bit if

you want to learn about that. But the

point is, if Intel tried to be

aggressive with pricing and it actually

hurt AMD, AMD could price the 9950 XRD2

cheaper than whatever Intel could do for

the 290K. And so, well, there you go.

That's what happened. AMD saw the Plus

products come out. They pulled the

trigger on the 9950X3D2. Intel saw that

the only reason anyone would get their

product is because it is cheap and

there's no way it could be cheap enough

to compete with what AMD is bringing to

the table if they got into a real price

war. And really, the thing would

probably have been a power hog that

would be impossible to recommend over

the Ultra 7 if it cost even $50 more.

And it surely would have. And that is

why the 290K was cancelled today. All

right. And now I want to move on to

talking about well another Intel product

that was announced this week, the B70 or

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