Why is 8950HK (from 8750h) config upgrade ACTUALLY so much more $ ?

I'm not asking a general stupid question for people to say 'that's just how much it cost' or 'it's worth it'. I mean, does anyone have the actual reason? Does it really COST the (bga MB) suppliers that much more to get the chip from Intel vs the 8750h? I am talking about what is generally around $600 more JUST for that upgrade! But you see the internet published Intel price difference between the two chips is 'only' about $200 So...THAT is either wrong or there is something else going on. I still sorta think there is an ACTUAL 'legitimate' reason, like it does actually cost close to that much more for vendors to get it in their hands. BUT, I know it could be 'other reasons'. It seems to be consistent across all vendors...but they could just all be forced to pay up somehow from a single supplier...idk. SOMEWHERE in the supply chain it seems to be that ($600) much more...but where? and why? Anyone know? If I knew that, I might not feel quite so UTTERLY frustrated and refusing to considering to muster almost 50% more for my base config vs 8750h. Thought I still probably would never pay an extra $600 for that. I would gladly pay $200-300, maybe $400 at the outside, but $600 is just like 'wtf?!' I can't have what I want/need because.. screw u and your f'd up pricing ! It's seems just weird...like they DON"T want people to get the better chip/mb, or some weird 'catch 22' where they are afraid to have adequate supply of them from fear of less demand from slightly higher price, which ends up making price dramatically higher? R/D and production costs of MB etc are, or should be, all be the same or very nearly so. Yeah I have no idea. Just pissed really. I think it's an interesting question I've not yet seen any clarity on. I sorta doubt there is some 'conspiracy' to 'gouge' those that 'have more money than sense' but, in the laptop industry, well...let's just say there are probably too few suppliers for everyone's good, idk. Still I more strongly suspect there is a 'legitimate' reason, I just have no idea what it is and am very curious about that.

 

You may take offense to this, but it would be much easier to read your opinion when its split up into paragraphs

It would just be my opinion on your question, but I imagine those that want the HK know they will be trying to overclock and with the CPU having 12 threads means they will be holding on to those machines for much longer so they want to collect more now.

Also there is no competition from AMD besides 2 laptops (Asus / Acer) so they can charge more because there is no competition in the high end.

 

yeah sorry my OP is a bit long. Notions such as 'lack of competition' etc are not what I consider 'illegitamate' reasons. But you see the INTEL price published price difference is about $200. If the Intel price difference was already 400-600, I wouldn't be happy about it, but it wouldn't be such a mystery. So I'm asking something specific here, not the usual whining. I't just a bit odd. You see they do know if they priced them less they would sell more of them, and less of the 8750h. It seems either they WANT to sell less at a huge mark up, or something is 'forcing' that magnitude of price difference. Because it's not clear to me yet that Intel is the cause (based on their published pricing).

 

Besides the normal price gouging due to the lack of competition I would have to fall on this point.

Economies of scale, they will likely sell in droves the 8750h, the 8950hk will have much less volume and if the motherboards are not the same then that means another production line to make it.

Also I wasnt pointing to not the length of the OP, just that its not broken up into paragraphs.

 

This is no different in the GPU market. It has always been like this, the high end segment was always considerably more expensive but doesn't offer the same price to performance. You could say that the 8750H is the sweetspot in terms of price to performance. It's business, nothing more.

 

Why is 8950HK (from 8750h) config upgrade ACTUALLY so much more $ ?

I am not curious because the reasons are obvious:

• Because they can
• Because people go for it

It is also marketing fluff that drives the price. They are playing the "9K" card: i 9-8950H K vs i7-8750H. Most never investigate past what is spoon fed to them through marketing campaigns and social media, and the people selling them exploit that. Consumers frequently look at the name and make a decision on that basis. Then they run it stock and brag about what they bought, while having no real clue why other than what they are told. Those that truly understand what overclocking is all about, know what they are doing and are serious about exploiting a chip for all it is worth do not play the BGA game.

If it was really all it was cracked up to be, it would be worth more than the $200 price difference to those that actually know what they are doing and we would be seeing unprecedented performance results from those folks.

Are there any examples of laptops that offer the end user a configuration option to choose between the two processors, along with a totally different cooling system designed to support the "9K" chip? Or, do they generally end up spending even more than $200 to buy a different model only because it has the "9K" chip that the talking heads are chirping about?

 

In an ideal world, you are also paying more for beefier VRM's and better cooling, because the 8750H is limited to 45Watts, and the 8950HK is not, and will in fact draw over 100Watts if there is cooling for it to not turn into an oven..

 

Stay on-topic in this thread please, I deleted a number of posts. It's not about anything more than the OP's question, which was asking why the Core i9 chip is extra money. A few of you addressed that just fine until the discussion devolved into theoreticals.

Food for thought: purchasing something is, in almost every situation, a voluntary practice. I don't know what kind of argument could be made against Intel for charging extra for their top-end products, and it has nothing to do with the fact that just about every company does something similar. Companies have a right to charge what they want for their offerings, and consumers have a right to buy or not to buy them. There's no blame to be spread, so stop taking it personally.
It's equally unfair to blame people for wanting what they perceive to be the best. We all base our lives around believing things are the best. Don't get into blame games or rant-fests about the behavior of others, or show a general disdain for things, which does nothing but spread negativity. Negativity is only going to attract more negativity. You're not going to convince anybody of anything by being wholly negative.

Charles

 

I think there are a couple of problems with this argument however.
1) 7700HQ and 7820HK cost exactly the same price from Intel.

2) 8850H and 8950HK do not--the 8950HK is $200 more, even though 7700HQ vs 7820Hk is the same family relationship as 8850H vs 8950HK.

The big problem is that END USERS do not buy these chips. So the argument that "customers will pay more" is a red herring here.

It's a red herring, because end users buy the socketed chips (7700K vs 8700K). They do not buy the BGA chips (it's almost impossible for an end user to even get his hands on one).

So the big question is why is Intel charging the ODM's $200 more? The end user has nothing to do with this, as they are not Intel's customer.

 

As stated, you're free to discuss the topic of why one chip is more than another, or why a laptop with a given chip is more than another, and so on. Keep it to that. Thanks.

Charles

 

Pricing in most cases is just a matter of capturing the differences in price sensitivity and willingness to pay for a good or service that people have. Consider the different classes of flight seats that you can purchase, all of them belong to the same flight, but some classes can cost 10 times more than other classes. The cost of a first-class seat to the airline may only be twice that of a economy seat.

The idea with pricing of CPUs or CPU upgrades is that some people are willing to pay an extra $200, $500, $1000, $10000, etc for the i9-8950HK even if it was only slightly better than the i7-8750H. The price to performance ratio isn't linear, and that reflects the fact that price sensitivity isn't linear either. While the OP would gladly pay $200-$300 more for the 8950HK over the 8750H, others who hate BGAs would probably pay $0 for the upgrade, and there are still others who might pay $600-$1000. Ultimately, it's up to the vendor or the manufacturer to decide how much to charge in order to maximize their profits. Ideally for them, if they knew exactly what every person was willing to pay, then they can charge exactly that amount for each person as long as it's higher than their own cost of production (e.g., charge the OP $300, charge some other people $50, and charge some other people $1000). However, that's not possible because individual price discrimination isn't allowed and even if it were consumers would probably find a way to get around it.

Competition also play a role for vendors as they have to compete with each other for customers. They partially get around this by offering differentiated products/services and also have geographical location differences. At the manufacturer level the competition doesn't quite exist since Intel dominates the market.

 

Well I can say I’m happy I went for the 7820hk vs 7700hq. There are plenty of games that I cannot run at 4K, so having the ability to run a much higher overclocked cpu frequency at say, 1080P or 1440P makes all the difference in the world.

Instead of getting 90fps, your getting 120fps with the exact same GPU.

Unfortunately intel decided to charge a premium for this with the 8950hk. And it’s silly that they decided to call it a i9.

I can just see the guys in the desktop segment with a i9 79XX cpu’s And the other guy is like, yea man I’ve got a i9 laptop i know what ya mean it’s blazing fast! Lol rofl..

Marketing, marketing!!

 

Agreed. It's because GPUs have improved at a much faster pace than CPUs, so overclocking is important to keep up. I feel like high refresh rate monitors exacerbate the problem even further.

 

The problem with this discussion is there are claims but no evidence is shown to support those claims.
All sorts of numbers are stated, but zero actual evidence.
How can we know why some notebook configurations cost more if you don't show us the notebook configurations?
Guessing is usually a waste of time.

 

You are welcome to disprove my statements.

 

Likewise.

 

You mean to tell me that more i9's are produced to match the demand for a threshold that doesnt exist?

Interesting theory.

 

I’d only own an 8950hk laptop if I got a super good deal on a lightly used one with warranty.

Which would never happen, because I’m not shopping for a laptop with the exact same GPU, as what I already have.

My next laptop will be a 7700K or 8700K with next gen graphics.