I could see a case for "we'll sell a few narrow SKUs of non-ME products for an audience that demands it" -- assuming there are some people who will vote with their pockets for it. It's probably up there with some of the other corner-cases in their product matrix.
But I agree, that's noise. There are much bigger problems with their product line:
* Adding and removing features (especially AVX, but also the whole market-segmentation nonsense with ECC memory)
* The marginal and in some cases negative generation-over-generation performance boosts.
* The unlocked wattage situation which screams "we're pushing an end-of-the-rope product that we can only get to decent clocks by feeding it an entire mains circuit". (See: FX-9590, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition)
Intel might be able to say "Today's Glysophate Lake CPU is clearly better than the Haswell you bought 10 years ago", but there will be a lot of mumbling if you ask "how much better is it than last year's Paraquat Lake". That doesn't inspire confidence, especially when they have traditionally been the premium brand.
But I agree, that's noise. There are much bigger problems with their product line:
* Adding and removing features (especially AVX, but also the whole market-segmentation nonsense with ECC memory) * The marginal and in some cases negative generation-over-generation performance boosts. * The unlocked wattage situation which screams "we're pushing an end-of-the-rope product that we can only get to decent clocks by feeding it an entire mains circuit". (See: FX-9590, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition)
Intel might be able to say "Today's Glysophate Lake CPU is clearly better than the Haswell you bought 10 years ago", but there will be a lot of mumbling if you ask "how much better is it than last year's Paraquat Lake". That doesn't inspire confidence, especially when they have traditionally been the premium brand.