Intel Is Reducing Server Chip Pricing in Attempt To Stem the AMD Tide (tomshardware.com) 87
Intel has pivoted on its server strategy in order to fight a supply-constrained AMD, reports DigiTimes. It's reportedly flooding the market with chips at discount pricing, rather than sticking to MSRP. From a report: While some reports point toward a relative normalization on AMD's CPU supply, AMD has two distinct disadvantages when compared to Intel: It has fewer revenue sources than its much bigger CPU rival, and AMD doesn't own the factories that produce its market-turning Zen chips. Intel, on the other hand, can leverage its vertical integration (meaning that development and manufacturing takes place in an almost entirely Intel-owned and managed supply chain), as well as its massive revenue advantage, to play with final client pricing. In other words, Intel pull a lot more levers to increase demand and (Intel hopes) attract would-be AMD clients back into the Intel fold.
AMD has seemingly been making strides in server market penetration. As seen in renowned system distributor Puget Systems' statistics, AMD has risen from a 5% share in systems sold since June 2020, up to a dominating 60% as of June 2021. However, unserved demand means that companies looking to invest in their server infrastructure or who aim to deploy AMD chips in any major way sometimes can't wait for the chips to become available. And Intel is smartly making it more attractive for those companies to go back to the Intel fold, or to skip AMD in the first place.
AMD has seemingly been making strides in server market penetration. As seen in renowned system distributor Puget Systems' statistics, AMD has risen from a 5% share in systems sold since June 2020, up to a dominating 60% as of June 2021. However, unserved demand means that companies looking to invest in their server infrastructure or who aim to deploy AMD chips in any major way sometimes can't wait for the chips to become available. And Intel is smartly making it more attractive for those companies to go back to the Intel fold, or to skip AMD in the first place.
Re: puget systems doesn't sell servers (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/server/
Re: (Score:1)
And neither does TFS/TFA state that.
It states they found that number in some way! (Probably by asking server sellers.) Netcraft doesn't need to "sell" BSD to confirm its life status.
Here we go again (Score:2)
Look, I hate Intel as much as the next nerd does. But pretending that what goes on in the “build your own” community is indicative of the much larger computer market is silly. People who design their own systems have preferred AMD for quite a while now. The biggest surprise is that Intel had such a dominant position in Puget Systems orders just 18 months ago - must’ve been related to the AMD supply chain constraints mentioned in TFS.
.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The funny thing is, for many workloads, AMD has had the price/performance advantage the whole time other than possibly during the early Bulldozer debacle. As you say, the latest from AMD is better for pretty much any workload.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh Intel can die quickly alright.
Just have them have no new process node, and TSMC reject them. ... dunno.
Good luck selling ancient nodes without a monopoly.
Then they would have to divert quite a bit. Like Global Foundries, making less important chips that aren't the start of the show but keep them fed until
Sure, GF is not literally dead. But it's not like they compete against TSMC or even Intel anymore, or maybe ever will again.
That's not what happened to Intel, or at least not completely, but it being pos
Re: (Score:3)
The simple truth is that AMD can't produce enough processors.
As such, anyone that _desires_ to someday replace a server will choose AMD, while anyone that _needs_ to replace a server will take whatever it can find _now_.
In a bad car analogy, even if the entire European car industry becomes the worst choice for everyone, there simply is not enough excess production capacity in the world to cover the market with the better and cheaper cars they make - so some people _needing_ new cars will buy European simply
Re: (Score:1)
Hate to tell ya, but big businesses DO build their own. Google, for example.
And those who don't, have a business that builds them for them.
I mean what business size *doesn't* cutomize their systems? If you buy even a 100 PCs, you tell your shop what you want, to optimize your cost. (Hint: AMD is better value.)
The only ones buying off-the-shelf are those with no clue AND no size to have a say. And the only ones getting Intel there, are those buying from sellers that somehow are in Intel's pockets or stupid a
Limited impact? (Score:5, Interesting)
While this may help sales of people looking at short term savings of one or two units, it will fail to target customers looking at the overall power consumption of a datacenter.
AMD chips are currently manufactured using a 7nm manufacturing process, while Intel is still at 14nm manufacturing, meaning AMD chips will consume less power both in terms of the chips themselves and the reduced cooling of those chips. With ARM chips slowly making their inroads into datacenters, there will be even more pressure on chips that are described as power hogs.
Re: (Score:2)
This is no longer an industry where a company can market their way to success, or make one popular design and ride that out for 20 years. The technical side of this one moves pretty fast and once you fall behind, as Intel has badly, you probably won't be able to catch up. Certainly they won't with this strategy which clearly came from a room full of MBAs rather than engineers. Trying to buy
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
once you fall behind, as Intel has badly, you probably won't be able to catch up.
I think AMD is a prime example that this is not always true. A company with sufficient resources and dedicated to catching up can do so, and sometimes even leapfrog their competitor. Remember Opteron? AKA the last time AMD was equal to if not better than Intel? People were buying Opteron servers like crazy, and then Intel leapfrogged AMD. Now AMD has leapfrogged Intel. These things happen every so many years, and will pro
Re: (Score:1)
... until they don't.
Then we get GlobalFoundries, for example.
It happened. But don't count on it going like that forever. It's always a time of peril.
Re:Limited impact? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are looking for some server grade hardware then check out all the used Intel gear on eBay. The massive efficiency gains from switching to AMD have made it worthwhile replacing relatively new hardware, meaning you can grab high end Xeons and motherboards for a tiny fraction of their list price right now.
Re: (Score:2)
So what’s the best bang for your buck?
Re: (Score:1)
A professional prostitute in Las Vegas.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Limited impact? (Score:5, Informative)
Intel Xeon Platinum 8380
40 cores / 80 threads
TDP 270 watts
AMD Epyc 7742
64 cores / 128 threads
TDP 225 watts
That's nearly double the power consumption per core for Intel vs AMD.
Re: (Score:2)
No doubt AMD is likely better because of more modern technology, but if you want to make useful statements about relation you need to compare performance per watt using some kind of real world benchmark.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, everything is "useless".
Got any better metrics, or are you just talking?
Re: (Score:2)
It's similar to the other comparison of "14nm" vs "7nm". By now there's been so much information on the internet to show that those numbers are arbitrary and can't really be compared between different manufacturing processes, and yet we're still doing this shit?
Typical Slashdot comment section to be honest though. On some days people with mod points seem to care as much about fact as people on facebook or Twitter. What matters more is th
Re: (Score:1)
The numbers on the process die are no longer representative of the actual size. 7nm is actually 30nm, Intel's density is still slightly higher on 10nm than TSMC on 7nm.
The power on AMD chips aren't due to minimizing chip dies, it's by minimizing parts and cores, stripping out non-gaming utility and focusing on a specific benchmark.
Instead of having a fat dedicated bus between processors like Intel or tons of shared cache on-die like IBM and Apple it's just producing 4 smaller processor chips, gluing them to
Re: (Score:2)
AMD has been beating Intel on price/performance for scientific and engineering computation for a good while.
Re: (Score:1)
TSMC is currently working on getting 3nm ready.
7nm is already the old hat.
While Intel still has a hard time convincing anyone that 10nm are even real. Has anyone here ever held such a chip in hand? And verified it actually *is* 10nm?
Re: (Score:1)
That was my point, 10nm Intel is denser than TSMC 7nm. They are actually 30nm. The numbers are just a trick, TSMC 3nm isn't much smaller than their 7nm dies, it just indicates the process cycle they're in.
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't they be taking into account (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Life cycle of the CPU in question? Not that the CPUs are going to break but they're going to be replaced sooner or later with something more power efficient and/or faster. Also in tightly run Data center you might have to rewrite some of your code to run properly on an AMD CPU. Assuming your programmers have done those kind of bare metal optimizations. That's going to factor into your overall cost of ownership.
The challenge is with people moving towards VMs and third-party hosting, the datacenter does not have much direct influence over the software that is written. This means they are left with improving on the hardware to reduce energy demand. Indirectly they could provide a costing model where certain CPU loads have an increased cost to the customer, but I am not sure how they would calculate that.
Race to the bottom (Score:4, Interesting)
If AMD is smart it probably won't go on a price game with Intel. But find a way to make better products at their price.
AMD is competing with Intel not because their chips are Cheaper, but they are a better value.
If you look at the people who are "In the Know" about a particular type of products, Such as the Car Guy, or the Computer Guy, the Watch Guy... You will often find that they rarely get the Cheapest product, nor do they get the most expensive product, but would pay a bit more for the best value product.
Intel has been lagging, and AMD is having a better value. So other than Intel making better chips they are dropping their price, Now that could either make them a better value, or just make them cheap (as Intel may find more cuts to meet the price point)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The only advantage Intel has right now is better availability.
Was looking at a new Dell server in June (very end of the month). I was looking at a delivery date in late October for an AMD server, I could have the Intel in my hands mid July, 2 weeks
No AMD won't lower prices, they are selling everything they can make - Intel has to make this move, or they will have spare capacity - which is very bad in manufacturing
Re: (Score:1)
Better availability? Not on 10nm they don't! ^^ As you say two sentences later.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Race to the bottom (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The per-chip price doesn't even matter much.
Even if Intel gives them away for (illegal!) dumping prices, they can't match the costs of a higher power consumption in the long run. They can't win this one. Only people who need the CPUs for such a short time that the chip price matters, will even be candidates.
Re: (Score:2)
If AMD is smart it probably won't go on a price game with Intel.
AMD already committed to not self-limit its profit margin on chips which outperform comparable Intel chips. Where a Zen 3 CPU outperforms the Intel CPU, they deliberately make that CPU more expensive than the top performing Intel CPU. As for lower performing performing AMD CPUs, they'll be price-competitive to Intel. Although if they can't make enough chips to meet demand, they probably won't set lower profit margins to outdo Intel.
But find a way to make better products at their price.
I think AMD won't be able to capitalize on market percentage.. If they wa
Re: (Score:2)
AMD has abandoned its fabs (into the GlobalFoundries corporation) quite a few years ago, and will probably never go back to owning fabs (as the economics of it didn't make sense then, and don't make sense now).
Re: (Score:2)
I know, I didn't mean it in that sense. But AMD's production is limited to what outside chip factories will make available to AMD. AMD will have to somehow be able to secure production in a new factory in order to increase its market share. Without the ability to get new foundries online, AMD will have to hope for Intel to abandon the CPU market (or an incredible set of incompetent fuckups for the next decade) before being able to make a dent into Intel's market share.
It's not only cost... (Score:4, Informative)
AMD's Epyc parts offer more density than Xeon. 64-core/128 thread Epyc cpus have been available for about 2 years already with a much larger number of pci-e 4.0 lanes available. The core count is scheduled to double to 128 cores/256 threads next year. It will be interesting to see if/when Intel can compete on density AND price.
Best,
Re: (Score:1)
Still no (Score:3)
The thing is, data centers have a finite amount of energy and cooling capabilities and Intel chips, in general, are a disaster with respect to performance per watt. So, honestly, even if they are effectively selling these at a loss, Iâ(TM)m still not sure if I could recommend them to a client depending on the computer systems engineering requirements.
Every time I re-evaluate the situation it only looks worse for them, I would say itâ(TM)s going to take them a decade to dig themselves out of this hole.
Unfortunately for them, by that time RISC-V will hopefully be the dominant platform. Maybe Intel actually just need to abandon AMDâ(TM)s x86 64-bit ISA (remember AMD owns the patients to x86_64) and go straight to mass producing a processor utilizing the RISC-V ISA.
Re: (Score:2)
Intel and ARM have a patent cross licensing agreement. If Intel went to selling ARM CPUs as a general purpose desktop or server CPU, that might be a lucrative venture, especially if an UEFI-like standard is done for ARM booting, and things are not dependent on a specific SoC.
Apple's push into using ARM on the desktop seems to have been a success, and it wouldn't take much to get people to move to Windows-ARM if the performance was there.
Re: (Score:1)
and it wouldn't take much to get people to move to Windows-ARM if the performance was there.
Microsoft's Surface tablet with ARM was a flop. It could run a few applications Microsoft ported for the purpose, mostly Office stuff. But not the huge variety of software that Windows on x86 could. People were not impressed. I doubt MS will repeat that attempt anytime soon. Current Surface products are using x86 Intel CPUs.
Outside of the Windows world, there is mostly Apple's MacOS and Linux. Intel seems to be equally open to work with Microsoft and the Linux community. If Linux finally takes off on the de
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I suspect that the majority of DC's still buying intel do so because they don't have another choice. For whatever reason, they can't switch because their no-virtualization baremetal OS doesn't run on something else, or because they're dependent on the igpus (allegedly this is how youtube is currently doing encoding). Apart from that you have the retards who never understood how computing works, but they've bought intel for the past 20 years and they won't change now.
Pricecuts won't likely fix anythin
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately is right. RISC-V has very little software written for it, open or proprietary. Plus AMD has no reason to abandon x86 even if Intel wanted to pull another Itanium. [wikipedia.org] Not that that would do them any good since the problem is with process node, not architecture.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, no shit RISC-V has very little software... You can't even exactly buy CPUs with it yet!
Any, no, it's usually no problem to compile every Linux package for another architecture, if the compiler supports it. Most stuff just just fine. cross-compile gcc for RISC-v, use it with -march=auto, and go.
I even re-compiled my entire installed OS while porting it from an Intel PC to an ARM single-board computer. Had to adapt the kernel to the different hardware, of course... But otherwise everything ran just as b
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Such a shame it's still the 1970s and we're still programming everything in assembler...
How does your fantasy that you can flip a switch at a drop of the dime and compile things for others change the result for an end user?
What the vendor programmed in, or how easy it is for them to produce something for RISC-V is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is if software is available, and at the moment it is not.
Also you jest, but the reality is a large amount of software both open and proprietary is not in fact portable and simply flipping a compiler flag will at best result in software which do
Re: (Score:2)
In a low density installation, used Intel gear can make sense if you get a bargain, but if you're buying new, go with AMD for sure. Of course, sales of used Intel gear don't do much for Intel.
"the Intel fold" (Score:2, Informative)
You used that twice, like you aren't whitewashing an abusive relationship by pretending Intel is caring and benevolent. Intel would fleece you if it weren't for the competition.
Re: (Score:1)
It's that cheeky kind of fold. ( ).( )
Careful Intel... (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel has pivoted on its server strategy in order to fight a supply-constrained AMD, reports DigiTimes. It's reportedly flooding the market with chips at discount pricing, rather than sticking to MSRP.
How cheap, exactly? Below the cost of production? AMD should find out... and sue them for illegal dumping if they are.
Even dropping their prices too drastically while staying above their production costs may not be legal. The reporting of Puget Systems' numbers is carefully designed to prevent people asking what is Intel's share of all CPU sales, and we know they still hold a very dominant margin there. Dominant enough that abuse of monopoly/monopsony power is a legitimate concern.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Intel used to pay Asus and other OEMs lots of funds for marketing campaigns and so on while keeping the processor prices "normal".
Re: (Score:1)
Cost of production for any chip is a few dollars. They're selling them for $10k/piece MSRP in some cases. The primary cost is R&D, that's really hard to quantify how much of that particular chip costs how much as they're already developing 2 and 3 generations down the line.
As far as how deep are the discounts: ~50% isn't unheard of on a regular year. They're generally always cheaper than AMD for big purchases.
AMD is crewed. (Score:1)
One, it sucks for AMD that our government is so corrupt that nobody will do anything to stop intel ilegal tactics.
Two, I bet you cold, hard cash that dell is getting extra discounts, for the reason stated above.
Three, I could be wrong, but this can be considered dumping, which is illegal.
Fourth, I can only imagine the amount of money that both nvidia and intel are giving to everyone that is as dirty as they are to kill AMD.
We already experienced high prices and 4 core hell when intel had no competition and
Re: (Score:2)
Three, I could be wrong, but this can be considered dumping, which is illegal.
Intel would have to cut prices A LOT before it would be considered dumping. Xeon gets somewhere around 80% gross margin, and dumping implies you are selling at a loss to kill competition - it is perfectly acceptable to be the low cost manufacturer and sell your products for less than your competitor does. If anything I believe Intel still holds a higher gross margin over AMD - so Intel could drop their costs to simply match AMD
Re: (Score:2)
Care to back that "80% gross margin" statement up?
That just sounds ridiculous. Realistic margins are 10% tops, 1-2% I’ve seen before.
I think you indeed .... believe ...
Second Quarter Intel Financials [intc.com]
Ok, 57% for the whole company, this is low - historically it is in the mid to low 60s. It is known that DCG (Xeon) operates at higher gross margins than the client computing group (it also has higher expenses vs the total revenue so operating margin is about the same)
You are probably thinking of something like Dell that operates at a few % net margin like you are thinking - Dell has almost no RnD budget and can get away with> that.
Just for the record. AMD has a 45.71% G
Intel taking advantage... (Score:2)
...of its decision to keep fabs which give it cost and supply flexibility that AMD walked away from years ago in favor of opportunistically switching from costs from capital to operational. The ability to cut prices with less impact on margins is one of those advantages you have with owning your own manufacturing. Which is why people who say there are no reasons to be fabless are wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Margins only have meaning if one has a product people want to buy. Otherwise it ends up in a landfill in New Mexico. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Intel had many fabs on several process nodes, and had to upgrade only the oldest ones to keep up to date.
AMD had just a couple of fabs, and had to upgrade them for every new process node.
The expense of upgrading the same fabs for every new process node (instead of upgrading only at the third process node improvement) is what almost broke AMD.
And fabs upgrade costs have grown vastly larger.
Severs are bought based on TCO (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I suggest you make your own better sites.
Make sure I am informed about them though, cause I want to. And not in a annoying wall of text format. If you act crazy, people will treat you crazy, even if you are completely right.
Broken window fallacy. (Score:1)
AMD also doesn't need to keep an entire fab business well-fed. ;)
Not owning the factories by itself is not a disadvantage.
Especially not if your own fab business, after long stagnation, has recently completely imploded.
Do the cheaper chips have security flaws too? (Score:2)
Are you going to engineering them cheap too?
And include all your known CPU security flaws?
I simply can't trust you any more... First, you try to make the fastest CPU chips out there, which ended up with serious security flaws. Notably more than AMD CPUs. Then you lack transparency on which CPU chips have which fixes. Now you want to make cheaper CPU chips.
How can I trust you to make Quality CPU chips, with as MANY CPU security flaws fixed, (as any in your co
Probably a Good Idea (Score:2)
On our ESXi refresh, we seriously considered AMD. The performance and price were more than competitive, particularly on the Dell R700-series.
The only reason we stuck with Intel is because a particular backplane we wanted wasn't available for AMD-based servers---at that time. The price difference between comparable builds was over $5K per server, and Zen improved more in the meantime.
Intel hasn't had an uncontested performance crown for a while now, nor do they have a compelling advantage in power efficiency
I Suspect that (Score:1)
I Suspect that even though Intel is dropping the prices, they won't drop to the level where consumers get value for money.