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Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

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Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#71
post #64
post #41

Have been with Intel for almost two decades, I finally moved to AMD for the very first time recently and I'm glad I did. Intel is being called "Toothpaste Company" for a reason. It has deliberately slowed down its innovation since gained performance advantage over AMD with CORE, for over a decade now. Between each iteration, there was not many changes but kept adding fancy instruction sets such as AVX512 useless to m…

For those who (like me) didn't get the "toothpaste company" reference - it seems to be a reference to Intel trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of an old architecture (as one would squeeze every bit of toothpaste out of a tube), rather than innovating with new architectures and technologies. It's hard to figure out exactly where the toothpaste reference originated, but at least one source makes it sou…

It has a bit of a double meaning.

Starting with the Ivy Bridge (3rd) generation, Intel switched to using thermal paste between the core and heat spreader instead of solder on socketed desktop processors. Presumably this was done as a cost savings measure.

This caused a marked increase in core temperatures and thermal throttling. Enthusiasts discovered that you could remove, or "delid", the heat spreader and replace the "toothpaste" with higher quality paste or liquid metal to drastically improve temperatures (15-20c) and improve overclocking headroom.

Edit: This event is commonly reflected on to showcase Intel's greed at a time where they dominated the market. It wasn't until the i9-9900k that Intel went back to soldering heatspreaders for consumer CPUs, at which point they were forced to because they were being challenged by AMD.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#72
post #41

Have been with Intel for almost two decades, I finally moved to AMD for the very first time recently and I'm glad I did. Intel is being called "Toothpaste Company" for a reason. It has deliberately slowed down its innovation since gained performance advantage over AMD with CORE, for over a decade now. Between each iteration, there was not many changes but kept adding fancy instruction sets such as AVX512 useless to m…

What tangible benefits are you getting from choosing AMD now? Honest question as I'm curious if there's another benefit besides price (which Intel is fighting now).

Most stuff eventually turns into cost so I'll ignore "costly" effects like heat/power and performance per dollar and focus on max performance scale for workloads and other unique differences not achievable via just throwing more money at the alternative.

Per socket performance scaling is higher for equivalent tier sockets. At hyperscale that goes back into the price benefit (buy and maintain less physical data center) but for an individual server workload or individual user that also turns into a performance benefit, particularly for non NUMA aware workloads on the server side and just plain availability of such core counts for performance on the desktop or workstation side.

PCIe wise you get about twice the lanes (128 total on AMD) of even a 40 core 8380 in a the base 8 core model of Epyc or a Threadripper workstation CPU.

A place Intel still wins is total NUMA scaling. For a NUMA aware app like SAP HANA Intel can scale to 8 sockets while AMD currently tops out at 2 so you can reach about 2x as many total threads that way.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#73
post #64
post #41

Have been with Intel for almost two decades, I finally moved to AMD for the very first time recently and I'm glad I did. Intel is being called "Toothpaste Company" for a reason. It has deliberately slowed down its innovation since gained performance advantage over AMD with CORE, for over a decade now. Between each iteration, there was not many changes but kept adding fancy instruction sets such as AVX512 useless to m…

For those who (like me) didn't get the "toothpaste company" reference - it seems to be a reference to Intel trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of an old architecture (as one would squeeze every bit of toothpaste out of a tube), rather than innovating with new architectures and technologies. It's hard to figure out exactly where the toothpaste reference originated, but at least one source makes it sou…

I think the parent meant an anecdote I've heard many times, in slightly different ways. It goes like this: a major toothpaste company was having a meeting, trying to increase sales. Many solutions were tried: new flavors, advertising, none had much effect.

On a whim, a director asks the guy serving coffee:

  - Jack, what would you do to increase sales?
  - Have you tried increasing the hole on the toothpaste?
There might be some truth to this, toothpaste tubes used to be metal in the 60s and you were supposed to punch a hole on the front of it with the back of the cover cap. That hole got a lot smaller than the ≈1cm wide in the plastic ones of today. It was also much easier to squeeze the very last gram by folding it.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tangible benefits are you getting from choosing AMD now? Honest question as I'm curious if there's another benefit besides price (which Intel is fighting now).

Most stuff eventually turns into cost so I'll ignore "costly" effects like heat/power and performance per dollar and focus on max performance scale for workloads and other unique differences not achievable via just throwing more money at the alternative. Per socket performance scaling is higher for equivalent tier sockets. At hyperscale that goes back into the price benefit (buy and maintain less physical data center…

Awesome, thanks for the extra details.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before M1 my only exposure to ARM has been low-power SBCs and Android devices, and the experience was mediocre in the “just works” department. Poor hardware support, and a lack of proprietary software support. Performance was also lacking. Apple’s tight integration and high-end CPUs have resulted in a vastly better experience, but I want to have more options than just macOS and MacBooks. I think we’re trending in the…

> If Microsoft could fix their frankly horrid x86 compatibility on aarch64 device I don't think Microsoft is the real problem there, though. NT was developed to be portable and was working on architectures other than x86 in the beginning. So it was interesting when I heard things about "Windows on ARM" half a decade ago--and then the Surface RT. The RT was crap, but it did have real Windows NT working on non-Intel AR…

> I don't think Microsoft is the real problem there, though.

> [...]

> So it was interesting when I heard things about "Windows on ARM" half a decade ago--and then the Surface RT. The RT was crap, but it did have real Windows NT working on non-Intel ARM, as was the OS on their Windows Series 10 phones or whatever.

In this specific case, Microsoft is the real problem: Microsoft deeply locked down the Surface RT; you needed a jailbreak to run unsigned applications on it.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before M1 my only exposure to ARM has been low-power SBCs and Android devices, and the experience was mediocre in the “just works” department. Poor hardware support, and a lack of proprietary software support. Performance was also lacking. Apple’s tight integration and high-end CPUs have resulted in a vastly better experience, but I want to have more options than just macOS and MacBooks. I think we’re trending in the…

> If Microsoft could fix their frankly horrid x86 compatibility on aarch64 device I don't think Microsoft is the real problem there, though. NT was developed to be portable and was working on architectures other than x86 in the beginning. So it was interesting when I heard things about "Windows on ARM" half a decade ago--and then the Surface RT. The RT was crap, but it did have real Windows NT working on non-Intel AR…

Parent's point was that Apple made the switch without having to get software vendors on the project, due to excellent emulation of x86 on their ARM.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#77
post #41

Have been with Intel for almost two decades, I finally moved to AMD for the very first time recently and I'm glad I did. Intel is being called "Toothpaste Company" for a reason. It has deliberately slowed down its innovation since gained performance advantage over AMD with CORE, for over a decade now. Between each iteration, there was not many changes but kept adding fancy instruction sets such as AVX512 useless to m…

What tangible benefits are you getting from choosing AMD now? Honest question as I'm curious if there's another benefit besides price (which Intel is fighting now).

[deleted]

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right for the 10nm (7nm) process development. They focused on shrinking the wrong parts and ended up with an inferior product. Instead of changing direction, they doubled down.

Was this a case of a leader refusing to be wrong, or engineers thinking "we almost have this, give us another shot."

I have no idea, but isn’t it the usual real-world case of “it’s complicated, and it’s both”?

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#79
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who (like me) didn't get the "toothpaste company" reference - it seems to be a reference to Intel trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of an old architecture (as one would squeeze every bit of toothpaste out of a tube), rather than innovating with new architectures and technologies. It's hard to figure out exactly where the toothpaste reference originated, but at least one source makes it sou…

I think the parent meant an anecdote I've heard many times, in slightly different ways. It goes like this: a major toothpaste company was having a meeting, trying to increase sales. Many solutions were tried: new flavors, advertising, none had much effect. On a whim, a director asks the guy serving coffee: - Jack, what would you do to increase sales? - Have you tried increasing the hole on the toothpaste? There might…

It's amazing how backwards we went from a sustainability perspective when you consider likely no one had this issue front and center as they did in the early industrial days.

We used reusable metals and glasses much more. Now everything is plastic.

Re: Intel is reducing server chip pricing in attempt to stem the AMD tide

#80
It's amazing how far Intel has fallen.

The 10nm debacle exposed how far they've fallen behind on fabs to the point that they're outsourcing to TSMC. Like, how humiliating must that be?

Intel completely missed the mobile revolution. They had a stake in that race but sold it (ie XScale).

Intel's product segmentation is bewildering. They've also kept features "enterprise" only to prop up high server chip prices to the detriment to computing as a whole, most notably ECC support.

And on the server front, which I'm sure is what's keeping them in business now, they face an existential threat in the form of ARM.

Intel had clearly shifted to a strategy of extracting as much money as possible from their captive market. I'm not sure price cuts here are necessarily about AMD but more than their previously captive market now has more options in general.

How the mighty have fallen.

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