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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

#231

Post by mook »

freemint wrote: post #119
tw04 wrote: post #103

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…

I don't want to pay more for cheap CPUs such that they have ECC. High prices on ECC subsidize cheaper parts without ECC.

Except that if the cheaper chips have ECC, they probably couldn't go up much in price — that price is limited by how much people (who don't care about ECC anyway) are willing to pay. So if prices for the low end went up, people (like you) would instead go without (meaning Intel doesn't get your money), or try to get second hand (Intel doesn't get your money), or go with AMD (Intel doesn't get your money). But Intel would really like to have your money, or at least generally more money.

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

#232

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

adamweld wrote: post #230
jandrese wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is that adding ECC support should only increase the price of RAM by about 13%, which given that the RAM modules are about $50-$100 on most builds works out to $7-$13 to the total cost of the machine. Every machine should come with ECC . It's such cheap insurance. But because the chip manufacturers have to make more money by artificially segmenting the market almost nobody runs ECC on home machines.

13% is huge in a low margin, highly competitive field. the price difference comes down more to economies of scale and less to artificial segmentation.

But it's 13% of a tiny component of an overall system. Not the same as 13% of the total cost.

Sure, if you're only buying memory modules, maybe you would go for the $7 savings. But as part of an overall system, nobody is even going to notice.

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

#233

Post by jandrese »

adamweld wrote: post #230
jandrese wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is that adding ECC support should only increase the price of RAM by about 13%, which given that the RAM modules are about $50-$100 on most builds works out to $7-$13 to the total cost of the machine. Every machine should come with ECC . It's such cheap insurance. But because the chip manufacturers have to make more money by artificially segmenting the market almost nobody runs ECC on home machines.

13% is huge in a low margin, highly competitive field. the price difference comes down more to economies of scale and less to artificial segmentation.

It is 13% of one of the cheaper components. Back in the 80s when all memory was expensive there was something of an excuse, but today we are needlessly trading the possibility for silent corruption over the multi-year lifetime of the machine for a couple of coffees. And worse, we make it really expensive and difficult for people who do want to reduce their risk by artificially segmenting the market.

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

#234

Post by cs2733 »

webmobdev wrote: post #141
atq2119 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple has more control over developers - these idiots pay them money for the "privilege" of developing on it. And Apple started by deprecating support for all 32 bits app. That forced many developers to refactor or port their code. The x86 emulation support will end in the near future and will force the remaining developers onto the ARM platform.

Rosetta 1 was supported for 6 years. I don't think that's too bad.

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

#235

Post by jvanderbot »

munificent wrote: post #225
jvanderbot wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not amoral. It's missing a market opportunity, but conflating that with morality is an interesting way of looking at it. Businesses don't owe you a product (before you pay for it) any more than you owe them loyalty after you pay for something. They will suffer when someone else offers what you want and you leave. That's the point of markets and competition.

> Businesses don't owe you a product (before you pay for it) any more than you owe them loyalty after you pay for something. This is itself a moral claim. You may choose to base your morals on capitalism, but capitalism itself doesn't force that moral choice. > That's the point of markets and competition. And the point of landmines is to blow people's legs off, but the existence of landmines does not morally justify…

So, if I had changed to preface with "In today's western society, it is generally accepted that ... ", we'd be on a level playing field? That's reasonable.

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

#236

Post by bastardoperator »

Interesting strategy, based on my interactions with AMD the work we're seeing materialize today was planned 5-7 years ago. I worked with the GPU team in Florida and they laid out at high level how AMD plans to attack Intel at business and consumer level. I'm not sure if it's viable but when Intel is hiring back old engineers and slashing prices it makes me think they lack a long term plan.

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

#237

Post by lupire »

deedree wrote: post #159
inetknght wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By fusing off the broken and one of the good ones, they can sell it as a two core SKU. Fuse off the broken one? Sure, makes sense. Fuse off a good one? That's arguably amoral and should be discouraged. Three cores can be better than two. Let the consumer disable the runt core if they need.

To be pedantic, you mean immoral right? It's bad, they shouldn't waste usable resources just to fit their marketing scheme. Amoral means that it is not moral or immoral.

It's amoral because they act based on incentives and not the commenter's religious beliefs.

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

#238

Post by gleenn »

dragontamer wrote: post #183
gleenn wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really an Apple tax though, that's a cost of doing business tax. It's not like Intel and AMD and everyone else aren't effectively doing the same exact thing.

Intel and AMD __literally__ sell those broken chips to the open marketplace, recouping at least some of the costs (or possibly getting a profit from them). Apple probably does the same strategy PS3 did: create a 1-PPE + 8-SPE chip, but sell it as a 1-PPE + 7-SPE chip (assume one breaks). This increases yields, and it means that all 7-SPE + 8-SPE chips can be sold. 6-SPE-chips (and below) are thrown away, which is a s…

Apple sells a 7 core and 8 core version of their M1 chips. Maybe Intel and AMD ship CPUs with even more cores disabled but it's not like Apple doesn't do this at all.

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

#239

Post by verall »

jimbob45 wrote: post #196
tcoff91 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no way they throw away that much revenue. Not even Apple is that committed to purity. I'm sure they have a hush-hush deal with another company to shove their chips in no-name microwave ovens or something.

It's not that much revenue because the marginal cost of an individual chip is very low. Given that apple has plenty of silicon capacity, throwing away say 5-10% of chips that come off the line is likely cheaper than trying to build a new product around them or selling them off to some OEM who needs to see a bunch of proprietary info to use them.

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

#240

Post by dodobirdlord »

chippiewill wrote: post #185
colejohnson66 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the silicon lottery is very much a thing at these nanometer sizes. So some market segmentation has to exist. If Intel threw away every chip that had one of the four cores come out broken, they’d lose a lot of money and have to raise prices to compensate. By fusing off the broken and one of the good ones, they can sell it as a two core SKU. Does this excuse Intel’s form of market segmen…

> Does this excuse Intel’s form of market segmentation? No. They almost certainly disable, for example, hyperthreading on cores that support it - just for the segmentation. I think even this is a bit unfair. Intel's segmentation is definitely still overkill, but it's worth bearing in mind that the cost of the product is not just the marginal cost of the materials and labour. Most of the cost (especially for intel) is…

> The point at which this breaks is when Intel doesn't have any real competition and uses segmentation as a way to raise prices on higher end chips rather than as a way to create cheaper SKUs.

I’m not sure that this is really fair to call broken. This sort of fine granularity market segmentation allows Intel to maximize revenue by selling at every point along the demand curve, getting a computer into each customer’s hands that meets their needs at a price that they are willing to pay. Higher prices on the high end enables lower prices on the low end. If Intel chose to split the difference and sell a small number of standard SKUs in the middle of the price range, it would benefit those at the high end and harm those at the low end. Obviously people here on HN have a particular bias on this tradeoff, but it’s important to keep things in perspective. Fusing off features on lower-priced SKUs allows those SKUs to be sold at that price point at all. If those SKUs cannibalized demand for their higher tier SKUs, they would just have to be dropped from the market.

Obviously Intel is not a charity, and they’re not doing this for public benefit, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a public benefit. Enabling sellers to sell products at the prices that people are willing/able to pay is good for market efficiency, since it since otherwise vendors have to refuse some less profitable but still profitable sales.

It is unfortunate though that this has led to ECC support being excluded from consumer devices.

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