191–200 of 344 posts
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ECC support is an actual +10-20% cost in materials for the motherboard and DIMM manufacturers. Also, ECC errors are basically non-existent on desktop/laptop workloads. ECC is worth the extra cost in servers, but for desktops and laptops, the market got it right.
A consumer PC should see a single bit error roughly once a week. That’s hardly non-existent
/s
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Cost saving would've been to get rid of the IHS entirely. Their mobile chips work fine without them, I don't really understand why they're a thing for desktop processors. AMD uses them too, so there must be a reason... is it because they're afraid of improper installation breaking them? That's on the user. The weight of the desktop heatsinks? Small changes to latch design should suffice. Or you can have a metal space…
Desktop cooler: https://d1lss44hh2trtw.cloudfront.net/assets/editorial/2018/... Laptop cooler: https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/4h3FmQQNHsITcHTq.med...
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Baseless speculation: perhaps they do actually throw away chips? They only really target a premium market segment so perhaps it's not worth it to their brand to try and keep those chips.
Turns out the Apple tax means you're also buying the three chips thrown away to produce your one...
I've never had time for Intel creating 400 different CPUs just to create artificial market segmentation and force people into a more expensive CPU. Why is there an i3, i5, i7, i9 - ahh, right, because then you can try to justify charging incrementally more for each additional feature. Oh you want turbo boost? Sorry that's an i5! Oh you want hyperthreading/SMT? Nope, next model up. Oh you want ECC? That's a "workstati…
AMD recently dicked b350/x370 chipset owners by sending motherboard manufacturers a memo telling them not to support Zen 3 (5000 series) Ryzen CPUs on their older chipsets.[1] This was after AsRock sent out a beta BIOS which proved that 5000 series CPUs worked fine on b350 chipsets. Today, AsRock's beta BIOS still isn't on their website and it's nearly a year after they put it out.
Also, Ryzen APU CPUs do not support ECC. Only the PRO branded versions. Which only exist as A) OEM laptop integration chips, or B) OEM desktop chips which can only be found outside North America (think AliExpress, or random sellers on eBay).
It's more accurate to say AsRock supports ECC on Ryzen. And sometimes Asus. They are also incredibly cagey about exactly what level of ECC they support.
Ryzen only supports UDIMMs. Not the cheaper RDIMMs. There are literally 2-3 models of 32GB ECC UDIMMs on the market. One of which is still labeled "prototype" on Micron's website, last I checked. Even if your CPU supports ECC, it takes the entire market to bring it to fruition. If no one is buying ECC (because non ECC will always be cheaper), then the market for those chips and motherboards won't exist. Want IPMI on Ryzen? You're stuck with AsRock Rack or Asus Pro WS X570-ACE. Go check the prices on those. Factor in the UDIMM ECC. It's not cheaper than Xeon.
[1] https://wccftech.com/amd-warns-motherboard-makers-offering-r...
I've never had time for Intel creating 400 different CPUs just to create artificial market segmentation and force people into a more expensive CPU. Why is there an i3, i5, i7, i9 - ahh, right, because then you can try to justify charging incrementally more for each additional feature. Oh you want turbo boost? Sorry that's an i5! Oh you want hyperthreading/SMT? Nope, next model up. Oh you want ECC? That's a "workstati…
The "reason" is yield management combined with inventory management. The i3 through i9 are generally the exact same silicon. But yields are always variable. If you took the raw yield the actual i9 per wafer might only be 10%-20% which would not be economically viable. So designed into EVERY Intel product (and generally every other semiconductor company's products) are "fuses" and circuitry that can re-map and re-prog…
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Apple produces one A series chip for the iPhones every year. How does that work?
Baseless speculation: perhaps they do actually throw away chips? They only really target a premium market segment so perhaps it's not worth it to their brand to try and keep those chips.
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Looking back it seems so barbaric. I remember how they briefly tried those black foam sticker pads in the corners of the substrate before acquiescing and using the IHS. At some point they realized they could do better than a heatsink mounting system that involved trying to balance a heavy metal object on a small pedestal while trying to hook a tensioned spring to a clip you couldn't see by exerting tremendous downwar…
I always wondered why that mounting mechanism even existed. Would've thought it would get scrapped on the drawing board but maybe no one in the design pipeline ever put a screwdriver through their motherboard.
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I think one more issue is support. If I want a chip from TI, Analog Devices, etc., I fill out a web form and get a sample. If I want to talk to an engineer, I place a phone call. If I want to order a dozen of a part, I go to Digikey. If I want a datasheet, it's online. Intel won't give you the time of day unless you're HP or Dell. That's optimal for capitalizing on old markets, but it means it's never in new markets.…
This is a point where I would have to disagree. While their early access programs are generally restricted to larger customers, you can apply to join other schemes (called Docs and Docs+ as far as I remember) where they will assign you an account manager and a dedicated platform application engineer to help you with your design-in process. I worked at a small start-up producing COM-HPC boards for companies who wanted…
I've had few enough interactions with AMD that I can't pass judgement, but from the few I've had were consistent with your assessment. AMD was a complete black hole. My interactions with Intel were lightyears ahead of AMD.
But Intel, in turn, was lightyears behind Analog, Linear, Maxim, TI, and most other vendors I've dealt with (this was before Analog gobbled Linear and Maxim up).
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Intel IS competing against AMD mainly in the server space now. Of course at some point ARM and RISC-V servers will become mainstream, but it will take years. Intel is taking action now and it's aimed directly at AMD.
ARM is already there in the cloud, cf AWS Graviton. With Apple's M1 in the laptop/desktop (mac mini) space, ARM and its superior power/performance ratio is a significant contender for mainstream compute now.
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They aren't losing to AMD because of market segmentation, they are losing because their fabs are way behind TSMC.
> they are losing because their fabs are way behind TSMC. I don't believe it is merely an execution problem. AMD's out-innovated Intel Evidence being the pivot to multi-core, massive increased PCIe, better fabric, chiplet design, design efficiency per wafter, among others. Why did this happen? > Two years after Keller's restoration in AMD's R&D section, CEO Rory Read stepped down and the SVP/GM moved up. With a docto…
It's a harsh truth, but nodes completely dominate the value equation. It's nearly impossible to punch up even a single node -- just look at consumer GPUs, where NVidia, the king of hustle, pulled out all the stops, all the power budget, packed all the extra features, and leaned harder than ever on all their incumbent advantage, and still they can barely punch up a single node. Note that even as they shopped around in the consumer space, NVidia still opted to pay the TSMC piper for their server offerings. The node makes the king.