AMD EPYC Server Processor Thread - EPYC 7000 series specs and performance leaked

[itsmydamnation]

They are pricing it against Intel's monopoly pricing, but they are in a duopoly now. Prices should come down by at least half.

Never confuse RRP with the real price.......

 

[XavierMace]

Years of crappy AMD performance on the server side makes many business unwilling to even consider an AMD offering. In addition, if you're already an all Intel shop, there's other factors to consider before buying AMD servers, such as vMotion compatibility.

 

[Space Tyrant]

They are pricing it against Intel's monopoly pricing, but they are in a duopoly now. Prices should come down by at least half.

Interesting. So, to avoid losing a small-but-growing share of server revenue, Intel will preemptively and immediately cut their server revenue in half?

 

[LaikaSpaceCat]

They are pricing it against Intel's monopoly pricing, but they are in a duopoly now. Prices should come down by at least half.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-CM8064...TF8&qid=1497563115&sr=8-1&keywords=E7-8890+V4

8 more cores for half the price.
I don't see how that's Intel pricing.

 

[theeedude]

Interesting. So, to avoid losing a small-but-growing share of server revenue, Intel will preemptively and immediately cut their server revenue in half?

Depends on how fast growing it is. Intel has big fabs to fill.

 

[theeedude]

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-CM8064...TF8&qid=1497563115&sr=8-1&keywords=E7-8890+V4

8 more cores for half the price.
I don't see how that's Intel pricing.

Intel is smoking crack too if they think they can keep charging that much for a CPU in a competitive environment. The answer is to wait for Intel to respond and then see where the prices settle. But I am going to go out on a limb and say that $4000 will be $2000 in the real world when the dust settles.

 

[Space Tyrant]

Depends on how fast growing it is...

I guess that's quite a moderation of your position from "Keep smoking that crack."

 

[Topweasel]

The Server market is where Intel makes their moves last. AMD having a chip that competes in the market is one thing. AMD having a chip that sells in the Market is another. Intel has to actually feel the burn of AMD syphoning sales in the Server Market before they do anything. Remember Intel wasted something like 10 billion dollars trying to create a server ecosystem purely to prevent AMD from being able to sell in it. They aren't going to start throwing the huge server margins away till AMD actually proven that it's viable in the market.

Heck even their reactionary X299 release only really changed the pricing of the 12 core by placing the 14+ on top of it. They are still 1.2k+ CPU's and that was a market that ThreadRipper will certainly take sales away from Intel.

 

[scannall]

$4000 for AMD CPU? Keep smoking that crack.

Intel's current top of the line Xeon. http://ark.intel.com/products/96900/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E7-8894-v4-60M-Cache-2_40-GHz

24 cores. 32 pcie lanes. 4 channel memory. $8898. I'd say Epyc makes a pretty compelling argument. 32 cores. 128 pcie lanes. 8 channel memory. For less than half the cost.

 

[DeathReborn]

A pair of 7451's sound really nice to me, it would be nice to drop from 4 to 2 sockets without losing any performance, gaining it instead for less power. Hopefully the local retailer will carry some as I get a discount (15%) there.

 

[stockolicious]

Years of crappy AMD performance on the server side makes many business unwilling to even consider an AMD offering.

that has never been true in the past - every time AMD had a quality CPU for servers they have gained traction rather quickly

 

[stockolicious]

AMD having a chip that sells in the Market is another.

if you look back - every time AMD has had a competitive CPU they have done very well in servers. This will be no exception if EPYC is really good. OEM's need to leverage AMD for pricing purposes but now they have an extra incentive because in the datacenter and elsewhere GPUs are in those servers too. So you have high performance CPU's with GPU's (once vega is out) and at about half the cost - the attach rate is going to be ridiculous.

 

[theeedude]

Intel's current top of the line Xeon. http://ark.intel.com/products/96900/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E7-8894-v4-60M-Cache-2_40-GHz

24 cores. 32 pcie lanes. 4 channel memory. $8898. I'd say Epyc makes a pretty compelling argument. 32 cores. 128 pcie lanes. 8 channel memory. For less than half the cost.

That's monopoly pricing, monopoly is over. If prices stay at these levels after an adjustment period, EU should open a collusion investigation into the x86 CPU market.

 

[Topweasel]

if you look back - every time AMD has had a competitive CPU they have done very well in servers. This will be no exception if EPYC is really good. OEM's need to leverage AMD for pricing purposes but now they have an extra incentive because in the datacenter and elsewhere GPUs are in those servers too. So you have high performance CPU's with GPU's (once vega is out) and at about half the cost - the attach rate is going to be ridiculous.

I believe it is true and I am not going to say that AMD can't sell them. In fact I have stated that I think OEM's are going to put more effort into their AMD offerings now that they are competitive, not just to get better pricing on Intel. I think they have learned from that mistake. But to actually create a sustainable environment for AMD so that they can keep a consistent alternative.

 

[theeedude]

The Server market is where Intel makes their moves last. AMD having a chip that competes in the market is one thing. AMD having a chip that sells in the Market is another. Intel has to actually feel the burn of AMD syphoning sales in the Server Market before they do anything. Remember Intel wasted something like 10 billion dollars trying to create a server ecosystem purely to prevent AMD from being able to sell in it. They aren't going to start throwing the huge server margins away till AMD actually proven that it's viable in the market.

Heck even their reactionary X299 release only really changed the pricing of the 12 core by placing the 14+ on top of it. They are still 1.2k+ CPU's and that was a market that ThreadRipper will certainly take sales away from Intel.

Hyperscalers and cloud providers don't have any loyalty to Intel, if anything their interest is in pitting Intel against AMD. They will either buy AMD, or use AMD to get a killer deal from Intel. Days of charging mid 4 figures for x86 CPUs are over. Intel will feel the burn of AMD in a hurry, respond, and AMD will counter-respond. Then we'll see where the prices settle. Charging $4K in a market where you don't have a monopoly just because your competitor charged $8K when they had one is not going to fly.

 

[Topweasel]

That's monopoly pricing, monopoly is over. If prices stay at these levels after an adjustment period, EU should open a collusion investigation into the x86 CPU market.

No it just means that Intel is happy with it's current sales and they don't feel the need to adjust. Keep in mind another big issue for AMD is actual CPU dies. It isn't like AMD has unlimited Zeppelin's rolling around. Can AMD keep all three markets afloat and actually impact Intel's demand at their current production?

 

[Topweasel]

Hyperscalers and cloud providers don't have any loyalty to Intel, if anything their interest is in pitting Intel against AMD. They will either buy AMD, or use AMD to get a killer deal from Intel. Days of charging mid 4 figures for x86 CPUs are over. Intel will feel the burn of AMD in a hurry, respond, and AMD will counter-respond. Then we'll see where the prices settle. Charging $4K in a market where you don't have a monopoly just because your competitor charged $8K when they had one is not going to fly.

Supply. AMD can charge 4k because well it is an awesome spec wise compared to Intel. Keep in mind they are offering almost 33% more at 50% less. But also they are the ones with the limited supply. Intel won't need to drop it's price if every OEM is selling out of EPYC and clamoring for more but can't. That's always been the issue with AMD, for as much as Intel hurt them, it wasn't as much as it could have been because everyone knew that even if they did go in heavy to AMD they wouldn't be able to keep up supply.

 

[Bouowmx]

Intel's current top of the line Xeon. http://ark.intel.com/products/96900/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E7-8894-v4-60M-Cache-2_40-GHz

24 cores. 32 pcie lanes. 4 channel memory. $8898. I'd say Epyc makes a pretty compelling argument. 32 cores. 128 pcie lanes. 8 channel memory. For less than half the cost.

AMD EPYC (2 sockets) vs Intel Xeon E7-8000 series (8 sockets)? Really? To inflate cost?

E5-2699 v4 (2.8-3.6 GHz Turbo) and whatever the upcoming Xeon metal series offers.

 

[theeedude]

No it just means that Intel is happy with it's current sales and they don't feel the need to adjust. Keep in mind another big issue for AMD is actual CPU dies. It isn't like AMD has unlimited Zeppelin's rolling around. Can AMD keep all three markets afloat and actually impact Intel's demand at their current production?

It's 200mm2 die. That's less than Polaris, and they don't have to pay for board, Memory, IO, Voltage regulators, etc. RX580 sells for $300, so figure the GPU is only $150 of that, so even if they sell 4 Zeppelins at $2000, they are still way better off building those than GPUs, so they can just eat into their GPU wafer allocation and build more CPU dies instead. I don't think supply is going to be an issue unless AMD decides to artificially constrain it. $4000 is only reasonable if there is collusion with Intel.

 

[Topweasel]

It's 200mm2 die. That's less than Polaris, and they don't have to pay for board, Memory, IO, Voltage regulators, etc. RX580 sells for $300, so figure the GPU is only $150 of that, so even if they sell 4 Zeppelins at $2000, they are still way better off building those than GPUs, so they can just eat into their GPU wafer allocation and build more CPU dies instead. I don't think supply is going to be an issue unless AMD decides to artificially constrain it. $4000 is only reasonable if there is collusion.

Where does Supply end. GoFlo can't compete with Intel. Samsung/TMSC can't compete with Intel unless they wanted to sacrifice all their other customers.

AMD also doesn't want to exit the GPU market. So they have to use all their wafer agreements to keep stock alive for Ryzen, ThreadRipper, Raven Ridge, Polaris, Vega, and so on top of EPYC. The great thing is they can adjust production around the more profitable options. But the point is at the end of all of this even if AMD said "I am only going to make 32c64t EPYC's. It still would only just barely then really eat into Intel's production capabilities. We like to think that Intel did the stuff they did to AMD in the past because AMD made their wallets hurt. That wasn't true at all. They did that to make sure AMD didn't get into a position to make their wallets hurt. The fact is that AMD can sell these at 4k, have companies clamoring for it and Intel will have little desire to start a price war for the reasons you stated. Once that starts you are talking about $200-$300 of silicon for AMD and probably $500-$600 for Intel. It wouldn't be hard to imagine Intel letting AMD have it's bone is more profitable for them in the long run. AMD just needs to price it low enough that their is always a demand for it.

 

[jpiniero]

that has never been true in the past - every time AMD had a quality CPU for servers they have gained traction rather quickly

That's not really true. This is a different market for sure now, but back when AMD clearly had better server products they only managed max 20% of the server market.

 

[theeedude]

Where does Supply end. GoFlo can't compete with Intel. Samsung/TMSC can't compete with Intel unless they wanted to sacrifice all their other customers.

AMD also doesn't want to exit the GPU market. So they have to use all their wafer agreements to keep stock alive for Ryzen, ThreadRipper, Raven Ridge, Polaris, Vega, and so on top of EPYC. The great thing is they can adjust production around the more profitable options. But the point is at the end of all of this even if AMD said "I am only going to make 32c64t EPYC's. It still would only just barely then really eat into Intel's production capabilities. We like to think that Intel did the stuff they did to AMD in the past because AMD made their wallets hurt. That wasn't true at all. They did that to make sure AMD didn't get into a position to make their wallets hurt. The fact is that AMD can sell these at 4k, have companies clamoring for it and Intel will have little desire to start a price war for the reasons you stated. Once that starts you are talking about $200-$300 of silicon for AMD and probably $500-$600 for Intel. It wouldn't be hard to imagine Intel letting AMD have it's bone is more profitable for them in the long run. AMD just needs to price it low enough that their is always a demand for it.

Of course no one wants to be in a competitive market, everyone wants a monopoly. But this idea that Intel can just pretend they still have one and continue charging same old prices or anything close to them is just fantasy. Closing your eyes and sticking fingers in your ears is not a business strategy.

 

[Topweasel]

Of course no one wants to be in a competitive market, everyone wants a monopoly. But this idea that Intel can just pretend they still have one and continue charging same old prices or anything close to them is just fantasy. Closing your eyes and sticking fingers in your ears is not a business strategy.

Intel spent 3.4 billion on R&D in Q1. AMD had Revenue's of like 900 million. Lets not pretend that in one product launch AMD is ready to ship an unlimited amount of CPU's for EPYC to outpace Intel. The fact is that AMD won't be a Rottweiler nipping at Intels ankle. It will be more like an Ant crawling up its shoe. It's not about sticking a finger in it's ear. It's about not throwing away Billions now because you might have to fight AMD later. It will be much easier for Intel to fight on the consumer products and force AMD to lower prices their increasing demand and forcing AMD to divert stock of dies for those products to keep them in stock.

 

[theeedude]

The question us are Xeons and Epycs substitute goods, and the answer is yes. 3.4B in R&D only matters to the extent that it gives you a sufficient lead to be head and shoulders above the rest and own the market. Intel doesn't have it anymore. If AMD is not making enough 200mm2 Zeppelin dies to sell for $500 each, while they are building 230mm2 Polaris dies that sell for $150, they should fire their whole management team.

 

[frowertr]

No sys admin ever got fired for buying Intel. AMD will have a lot to prove before anyone takes them seriously in the server space.