Broadwell-E 10 Core Costs $1723

[Burpo]

My buddy bought a brand new 4u server, direct from HP, about year and a half ago. Guess what it had for CPU's. Engineering samples! He owns that box and can sell whatever he wants to out of it, including said ES proc's. In this country possession is 9 tenths the law. i.e. "In a property dispute (whether real or personal), in the absence of clear and compelling testimony or documentation to the contrary, the person in actual, custodial possession of the property is presumed to be the rightful owner. " A court of law likely would NOT side with intel if for some reason they wanted them back.

 

[Arachnotronic]

My buddy bought a brand new 4u server, direct from HP, about year and a half ago. Guess what it had for CPU's. Engineering samples! He owns that box and can sell whatever he wants to out of it, including said ES proc's. In this country possession is 9 tenths the law. i.e. "In a property dispute (whether real or personal), in the absence of clear and compelling testimony or documentation to the contrary, the person in actual, custodial possession of the property is presumed to be the rightful owner. " A court of law likely would NOT side with intel if for some reason they wanted them back.

That's very interesting, didn't know that OEMs sold systems with ES chips. You learn something new every day

 

[Burpo]

News flash.. OEM's do wtf they want..

 

[jhu]

That's very interesting, didn't know that OEMs sold systems with ES chips. You learn something new every day

HP doesn't make their hardware anymore. Their contract manufacturer fucked up and somehow got through HP's QC (you can then question if HP even has QC, but that's another diacussuon…).

 

[Burpo]

I've seen Dell's with ES proc's too. Point is, there are other ways these proc's end up on ebay (other than theft)..

 

[MrTeal]

My buddy bought a brand new 4u server, direct from HP, about year and a half ago. Guess what it had for CPU's. Engineering samples! He owns that box and can sell whatever he wants to out of it, including said ES proc's. In this country possession is 9 tenths the law. i.e. "In a property dispute (whether real or personal), in the absence of clear and compelling testimony or documentation to the contrary, the person in actual, custodial possession of the property is presumed to be the rightful owner. " A court of law likely would NOT side with intel if for some reason they wanted them back.

That's true in the case of an absence of documentation to the contrary, but Intel might have such documentation showing that they are the owners of those chips. That doesn't mean your buddy did anything wrong if he didn't know they were ES chips, but if those chips are property of Intel just because he paid HP for them doesn't mean that they are his.

 

[Burpo]

And in this country, just because intel makes a blanket statement claiming they own all ES CPU's ever made, doesn't make it so. If they have serial numbers from a stolen shipment, or from stolen servers, yes, they would likely prevail.

 

[jhu]

My buddy bought a brand new 4u server, direct from HP, about year and a half ago. Guess what it had for CPU's. Engineering samples! He owns that box and can sell whatever he wants to out of it, including said ES proc's. In this country possession is 9 tenths the law. i.e. "In a property dispute (whether real or personal), in the absence of clear and compelling testimony or documentation to the contrary, the person in actual, custodial possession of the property is presumed to be the rightful owner. " A court of law likely would NOT side with intel if for some reason they wanted them back.

Hope your friend called up HP about this since he didn't get what he paid for and the contract manufacturer otherwise pocketed several thousand dollars in profit on that machine.

 

[MrTeal]

And in this country, just because intel makes a blanket statement claiming they own all ES CPU's ever made, doesn't make it so. If they have serial numbers from a stolen shipment, or from stolen servers, yes, they would likely prevail.

I don't know what country "this" is, but in most they absolutely could. If Intel makes a CPU and then loans it out to their partners, Intel doesn't cede their ownership just because that partner sends it to you and charges you for it. According to Intel, these are the terms of their ES CPUs.

Intel ES Processors are the sole property of Intel.
Intel ES Processors are Intel Confidential.
Intel ES Processors are provided by Intel under nondisclosure and/or special loan agreement terms with restrictions on the recipient's handling and use.
Intel ES Processors are not for sale or re-sale.
Intel ES Processors may not have passed commercial regulatory requirements.
ES Processors are not covered under Intel warranty and are generally not supported by Intel

If I buy a bike and it turns out to be stolen, I don't get to tell the cops that I paid for it and its mine now, regardless of whether I bought it second hand or from a shop. If Intel did not transfer ownership of those CPUs to HP, HP doesn't have the authority to sell them and Intel is still the lawful owner.

 

[Phynaz]

Can we get back on topic please?

 

[Burpo]

Hope your friend called up HP about this since he didn't get what he paid for and the contract manufacturer otherwise pocketed several thousand dollars in profit on that machine.

He upgraded to an 8u awhile back that cost him 25k. :\

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Can we get back on topic please?

I think if they had sold the "top" part at $1723, but other 10 cores, at slightly lower specs, at sensible prices, they might have got away with it.

E.g.

3.0 GHz 10 Core (top) part - max cache $1723
2.8 GHz 10 Core - less cache $999
2.6 GHz 10 Core (entry level part) - even less cache $699

They would then be covering a lot of different users, and would probably keep many more people happy.

Selling ONLY the $1723 part, seems rather mean of Intel.

Currently available software, only rarely (in my opinion), usefully uses 10 cores, anyway.

The chip does not even allow ECC memory usage or multi-processor usage (I presume, as the part is not showing up for me via Intels information pages). Why such a huge price premium ? (or are they taping the market for every cent they can).

 

[Arachnotronic]

I think if they had sold the "top" part at $1723, but other 10 cores, at slightly lower specs, at sensible prices, they might have got away with it.

They are getting away with it. Newegg sold out of these chips fairly quickly.

 

[jhu]

They are getting away with it. Newegg sold out of these chips fairly quickly.

They must be priced too low then.

 

[Phynaz]

(or are they taping the market for every cent they can).

Yes, they are. Which is their fiscal responsibility to their shareholders.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

They are getting away with it. Newegg sold out of these chips fairly quickly.

I understand that (although I'm NOT sure how many they had in stock in the first place, it might have been a very small number). Because I am in the same boat myself.

I.e. Sometimes I can be paying considerably more for something, just so it is a relatively small amount better. E.g. Your main monitor, getting an early, bigger and higher resolution one, than most other people.

tl;dr
I'm NOT at all surprised there are enthusiasts out there who will buy it, at almost any price.

But this is the complete opposite of what I want Intel to do. I want them to sell decently fast processors (speed and number of cores wise), to the masses at sensible prices.

If the cpu was $1723, but had 20 cores and ran at 3.9 GHz, then it would be worth it anyway. But as it is, it is probably only a small percentage faster than the $999 8 core model, given the clock speed drop.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Yes, they are. Which is their fiscal responsibility to their shareholders.

But some people in the market place (customers), will be annoyed by such price gouging. This could cost Intel lots of money, if competition appears (such as Zen (AMD) and later Arm (AMD + others) based offerings).

If AMD comes out with a 8/10/12/16 core Zen enthusiasts chip, priced at around $999 or less. Even if it is slower than the Intels, top part. People could end up voting with their feet.

Maybe Intel is suffering from poor leadership at the top of the company, and the effects are rippling down, and beginning to appear.

This latest chip release, is beginning to turn me away, from being a partial Intel fanboy.

EDIT:
When I mentioned Arm above, I primarily meant possible future, HUGE number of cored Arm cpus. E.g. 64 core. These have NOT been released publicly yet (ignoring some rarely purchased exceptions), but when/if they do ever appear, for some users (such as Linux people), they could make interesting alternatives. But even small number of cored arms may eventually be competition at the bottom end of the desktop market, when hardware and software permits.

EDIT2:
Comparison between many core, 2 socket Arm server chips and Intels Xeon E5 ones. Benchmark(s) included.

 

[YBS1]

But some people in the market place (customers), will be annoyed by such price gouging. This could cost Intel lots of money, if competition appears (such as Zen (AMD) and later Arm (AMD + others) based offerings).

Well of course it costs them, no way to tell yet if it is worth taking the higher margins over higher volume yet though. I already mentioned it earlier in this thread, at ~$1700 I'm out, now if these things get out into the wild and they start clocking ~4.8-5.0GHz under water then I may reconsider. I love as many core as they can give me, but I'm only willing to take a small single thread hit to have them. With the (albeit early) overclocking displayed so far from these and the crazy pricing I'll be going back to the mainstream with Kaby Lake probably. At ~$1100 I probably would have swapped, though I'm not sure that would even be a good idea if they don't clock better, I might end up actually losing single threaded performance.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Well of course it costs them, no way to tell yet if it is worth taking the higher margins over higher volume yet though. I already mentioned it earlier in this thread, at ~$1700 I'm out, now if these things get out into the wild and they start clocking ~4.8-5.0GHz under water then I may reconsider. I love as many core as they can give me, but I'm only willing to take a small single thread hit to have them. With the (albeit early) overclocking displayed so far from these and the crazy pricing I'll be going back to the mainstream with Kaby Lake probably. At ~$1100 I probably would have swapped, though I'm not sure that would even be a good idea if they don't clock better, I might end up actually losing single threaded performance.

The people who are into extreme gaming and/or overclocking, and have/will spend many $1,000's on the rest of the kit, with one or more top end graphics cards, multiple expensive monitors, water cooling etc etc. $999 or $1723 extra for the best cpu, does NOT make that much difference, since they are paying several thousand dollars or more on their prized setup anyway.

But it is disappointing for the rest of us, who would also like to buy the latest 10 core cpu, for their PC. At an affordable price. $999 seemed to be the previous, top end price limit, for high end extreme cpus. (Outside of Xeon many core server cpus, which could go for many times the $999 price point).

I'd be SCARED to overclock/overvoltage a $1723 cpu!

 

[Arachnotronic]

I'd be SCARED to overclock/overvoltage a $1723 cpu!

Buy protection :thumbsup:

https://click.intel.com/tuningplan/

 

[YBS1]

The people who are into extreme gaming and/or overclocking, and have/will spend many $1,000's on the rest of the kit, with one or more top end graphics cards, multiple expensive monitors, water cooling etc etc. $999 or $1723 extra for the best cpu, does NOT make that much difference, since they are paying several thousand dollars or more on their prized setup anyway.

But it is disappointing for the rest of us, who would also like to buy the latest 10 core cpu, for their PC. At an affordable price. $999 seemed to be the previous, top end price limit, for high end extreme cpus. (Outside of Xeon many core server cpus, which could go for many times the $999 price point).

I'd be SCARED to overclock/overvoltage a $1723 cpu!

Really? Because I have more money in cooling alone than the 6950X costs, but I still won't pay that for a 6950X unless they start showing some really good increases once in the wild on the overclocking front. I don't care if the CPU is $2000, but they better show me something worth the money, and regression in single thread performance (with OCing taken in consideration) to this degree from a 6700K and possibly even from my current 5960X isn't worth the $1700 to me. And it's partly the principal of the thing, I feel like they are doing the nVidia gouge.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Buy protection :thumbsup:

https://click.intel.com/tuningplan/

Good point. I'd forgotten about that!

But it would be so sad, if a person spends $6000 on their PC, with the $1723 cpu, only to find the silicon lottery gives them a very poor overclocking cpu.

tl;dr
Protects against physical abuse/damage but not a cpu which refuses to significantly overclock. So still a partial financial risk.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Good point. I'd forgotten about that!

But it would be so sad, if a person spends $6000 on their PC, with the $1723 cpu, only to find the silicon lottery gives them a very poor overclocking cpu.

tl;dr
Protects against physical abuse/damage but not a cpu which refuses to significantly overclock. So still a partial financial risk.

I guess if you get a dud, you could just feed that sucker a ton of voltage and murder it. But I would feel ridiculously bad intentionally killing a fine piece of silicon.

 

[YBS1]

I guess if you get a dud, you could just feed that sucker a ton of voltage and murder it. But I would feel ridiculously bad intentionally killing a fine piece of silicon.

LOL, I'd be afraid it would take out my motherboard before the CPU.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Really? Because I have more money in cooling alone than the 6950X costs, but I still won't pay that for a 6950X unless they start showing some really good increases once in the wild on the overclocking front. I don't care if the CPU is $2000, but they better show me something worth the money, and regression in single thread performance (with OCing taken in consideration) to this degree from a 6700K and possibly even from my current 5960X isn't worth the $1700 to me.

I agree with you. Because software often uses only a single thread, and even for somewhat multi-threaded applications, single thread performance can/is still very important. Because part of the software, is still only single threaded (while setting up other threads etc). So overall performance gets messed up, if single thread performance is too slow.

Because of practical limits on how effective cooling can be (WITHOUT using liquid nitrogen etc), above a certain number of cores, it will probably just get slower and slower (as regards maximum clock frequency with all cores running at full speed), to keep the power dissipation down to safe limits (unsafe = greater than the max cooling).