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7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

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Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#101

Post by api »

piinbinary wrote: post #99

I'm curious why they aren't charging more for it. Wouldn't that be free profit margin? Or perhaps they are trying to hurt Intel by selling it at a price where Intel can't make a profit if they lower their prices to be competitive? Or, maybe it has to do with trying to quickly grab market share. Maybe AWS and other purchases of servers have a somewhat fixed budget, so cheaper chips translates directly to more chips so…

Intel is the standard and that has amazing sticking power. AMD is trying to make an offer DC operators can't refuse to break that.

Intel is reeling from major design flaws and process stagnation right now. It makes sense for AMD to punch hard. Now is the time.

Also note that the eternally predicted ARM64 wave into servers, workstations, and cloud is not materializing. So far nobody has been willing to build such high performance chips and price them aggressively enough. All things considered it's an amazing window for AMD to take the market lead.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#102

Post by ianai »

api wrote: post #101
piinbinary wrote: post #99

I'm curious why they aren't charging more for it. Wouldn't that be free profit margin? Or perhaps they are trying to hurt Intel by selling it at a price where Intel can't make a profit if they lower their prices to be competitive? Or, maybe it has to do with trying to quickly grab market share. Maybe AWS and other purchases of servers have a somewhat fixed budget, so cheaper chips translates directly to more chips so…

Intel is the standard and that has amazing sticking power. AMD is trying to make an offer DC operators can't refuse to break that. Intel is reeling from major design flaws and process stagnation right now. It makes sense for AMD to punch hard. Now is the time. Also note that the eternally predicted ARM64 wave into servers, workstations, and cloud is not materializing. So far nobody has been willing to build such high…

At some point, too, they’re likely to get a comparable ARM entrant. The threat of competition puts downward pressure on prices.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#103

Post by api »

ianai wrote: post #102
api wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel is the standard and that has amazing sticking power. AMD is trying to make an offer DC operators can't refuse to break that. Intel is reeling from major design flaws and process stagnation right now. It makes sense for AMD to punch hard. Now is the time. Also note that the eternally predicted ARM64 wave into servers, workstations, and cloud is not materializing. So far nobody has been willing to build such high…

At some point, too, they’re likely to get a comparable ARM entrant. The threat of competition puts downward pressure on prices.

I just ninja edited to add that. Hah. Anyway that could happen but keep in mind that a new ISA (for server workloads) is a much harder sell than a new chip brand. An ARM64 would need to be priced much lower (at least in $/perf/watt terms) than this already mega aggressive AMD offering.

Personally I think Epyc this cheap really harms ARM's chances in the data center.

If Apple goes ARM64 for Mac it could indirectly help ARM get into the DC by showing that ARM is not just for small stuff.

Longer term you also have the RISC-V wildcard. A mostly free core and ISA could in theory move the whole game to the foundry and lead to a race to the bottom on price/performance.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#104

Post by FireBeyond »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #75
chx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP said "QS" these are grey market chips, QS means Qualification Sample, Intel sends them to various manufacturers to test with motherboards and then they leak into the grey market. They are not retail so frequency and other characteristics might differ -- but even their stability might not be as high as a retail one. Although QS is usually better at this, it's ES (Engineering Sample) which can be very dicey.

Black market, not grey market. QS are loaned on terms that explicitly prohibit resale. If you buy them, you are purchasing stolen goods.

No, you are not.

You voiding your contract with Intel does not make me a criminal. At best this is a civil tort.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#105

Post by znpy »

piinbinary wrote: post #99

I'm curious why they aren't charging more for it. Wouldn't that be free profit margin? Or perhaps they are trying to hurt Intel by selling it at a price where Intel can't make a profit if they lower their prices to be competitive? Or, maybe it has to do with trying to quickly grab market share. Maybe AWS and other purchases of servers have a somewhat fixed budget, so cheaper chips translates directly to more chips so…

They probably still make a profitable enough margin, but they want to make it so check it's unreasonable not to (at least) give it a decent try.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#106

Post by nottorp »

rolleiflex wrote: post #98
nottorp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pray tell, where are the docs for AMD hackintoshes? Running on Intel atm but the time for an upgrade is coming close. Do you have power management (and sleep) working on amd?

Start from https://amd-osx.com/ . > Do you have power management (and sleep) working on amd? Yes (null-power-mgmt.kext) and yes. Though mind that this is a desktop, so power mgmt. / sleep needs are much less demanding than a laptop. Specifically, the kext works by disabling power management from within OS X. However I have a kill-a-watt and the the power from the plug varies based on the CPU load, so it seems to be b…

I'm typing this on a MBPro :)

With me being a quiet computing / low power fanatic, null power management isn't good enough I'm afraid. Not to mention that amd-osx says "sleep will either work or not".

Using a hackintosh desktop for the same reason as you and yes, considering getting a Mac Pro. But it's good to be aware of your alternatives.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#107

Post by mikhailt »

ksec wrote: post #51
agloeregrets wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbolt is an open protocol now. They are not stuck.

Is that true though? As far as I know the Spec has been donated to USB and will be included / published as USB4 by the end of this year. So until USB4 is out, it is not Open "yet". And even if USB4 is out, there is no guarantee USB won't mess up with only USB4 4x4 that support Thunderbolt 3 40Gbps.

That's my understanding as well, we only have Intel's word at this moment that TB would be open but it's USB4 that'll have the open "TB features" and they will co-exist; not USB4 replacing TB at all.

Here's the Verge article[1] that also speaks to this:

> Although USB 4 will integrate Thunderbolt 3’s features, Intel says that the two standards will coexist. While USB 4 is open, Thunderbolt 3 is not, and Intel requires manufacturers to be certified to use it. It also offers these manufacturers more support with reference designs and technical support. USB 4 might have the same specs, but Intel provides other Thunderbolt 3 services that go beyond the hardware itself.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/24/15685096/intel-thunderbol...

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#108

Post by nagisa »

piinbinary wrote: post #99

I'm curious why they aren't charging more for it. Wouldn't that be free profit margin? Or perhaps they are trying to hurt Intel by selling it at a price where Intel can't make a profit if they lower their prices to be competitive? Or, maybe it has to do with trying to quickly grab market share. Maybe AWS and other purchases of servers have a somewhat fixed budget, so cheaper chips translates directly to more chips so…

Note, that the list price for Intel Xeons is something that nobody really pays. Behind the closed doors bulk pricing is negotiated and the price-per-chip in practice is only a fraction of the list price.

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#109

Post by mamcx »

rolleiflex wrote: post #22

I do have an AMD Hackintosh, I don't see any reason you wouldn't be able to use these as a dev Hackintosh machine. It's gorgeously fast with my Ryzen 2700x, eats compilation time like no one's business and it's stable. And it's something around 1/4th the price of the same horsepower from native Intel Macs. I can't imagine the cost delta of a EPYC Rome Hackintosh to its Intel counterpart. It's not like I cheaped out e…

I almost go to hackintosh and buy a mini instead, but with the price of the mac pro now is absolutely out of my reach.

Making it with AMD is very tempting, but the fear is less compatible and will break even more than intel hackintosh?

Re: 7nm AMD EPYC “Rome” CPU with 64C/128T to Cost $8K (56 Core Intel Xeon: $25K-50K)

#110

Post by elif »

piinbinary wrote: post #99

I'm curious why they aren't charging more for it. Wouldn't that be free profit margin? Or perhaps they are trying to hurt Intel by selling it at a price where Intel can't make a profit if they lower their prices to be competitive? Or, maybe it has to do with trying to quickly grab market share. Maybe AWS and other purchases of servers have a somewhat fixed budget, so cheaper chips translates directly to more chips so…

It seems to me that if they are trying to gain market-share in the server market, it is wise to price their chips such that the costs for the required chasis-and/or-mb-swap are obviously covered.

If they priced at intel-$1k, for instance, many organizations would rule it out because the operational and additional hardware costs to switch would easily dwarf the $1k discount.

Sort of like people still buy gas cars even though the long-term economics of electric make so much more sense. The math has to be obviously beneficial (e.g. same sticker price, same range) for the switch to happen en masse.

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