Opteron A1100 is shipping

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AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
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Thats also true when comparing A1100 to Avotons if the cost is about 300-400

As i have explained before, you need to add more hardware to AVOTON to have a chance of competing against A1100 and that will make AVOTON TCO worse.
 
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mrmt

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2012
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Xeon D board ~= $800, Avoton and presumably A1100 (given $150 chip price) ~= $400.

Not sure where the idea $100s per unit is only a minor blip on TCO comes from, the performance/watt differences aren't that drastic for these products. It's not as if they are keeping these units for decades.

If you factor in cooling costs on datacenters it is.
 

Vesku

Diamond Member
Aug 25, 2005
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If you factor in cooling costs on datacenters it is.

Xeon D versus Avoton or A1100 would not result in $100s per unit in cooling cost savings in the tasks they are targeting that mainly stress RAM, disk and I/O. Xeon D is a premium version of Xeon L(ow Power).
 
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mrmt

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2012
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Xeon D versus Avoton or A1100 would not result in $100s per unit in cooling cost savings.

You are thinking in terms of individual units, not in terms of how many units you need for a given scenario. You should need less units with Xeon-D.
 

Vesku

Diamond Member
Aug 25, 2005
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You are thinking in terms of individual units, not in terms of how many units you need for a given scenario. You should need less units with Xeon-D.

That's not how it works for tasks like memcached or similar that are heavily dependent on non-CPU factors.
 

Phynaz

Lifer
Mar 13, 2006
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As i have explained before, you need to add more hardware to AVOTON to have a chance of competing against A1100 and that will make AVOTON TCO worse.

You're asking others for their TCO calculations, let's see yours. Let's assume a five year serviceable lifetime. Feel free to use whatever business services you wish.
 
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Vesku

Diamond Member
Aug 25, 2005
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Let's say you've got a memcached installation.

Xeon D
128GB RAM per unit
35W TDP for CPU

A1100
128GB RAM per unit
32W TDP for CPU

Where is the TCO advantage in Xeon D?
 

krumme

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2009
5,952
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Granted all that endless crap on FB is obvious candidate for a solution like a1100. Tons of streaming vids and pics of pets.
People supposed to work having this crap running.
A disgrace to the superior protestantic world.

And thas why i prior wrote FD is a customer for it. But what is the profit in a market where every little woodscrew is weighted carefully?

Amazon is eg buying into arm. Their big cloud solution is also obvious for it. And thats the competition you have then.

Try selling a1100 to amazon now!

Red ocean.
 

krumme

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2009
5,952
1,585
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Let's say you've got a memcached installation.

Xeon D
128GB RAM per unit
35W TDP for CPU

A1100
128GB RAM per unit
32W TDP for CPU

Where is the TCO advantage in Xeon D?
Even if its memcached is it then never compute limited?
What happens when you hit some crappy coding?

Another way to start:
Tell me who is using the machine you present above?
 

krumme

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2009
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1,585
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I think its interesting what happens on the software stack. We are way to focused on the cpu.
Give me some info here ?


Add a K12, cloud, consolidation and we might have what adds up to a disruptive change.
 

Vesku

Diamond Member
Aug 25, 2005
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28
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Even if its memcached is it then never compute limited?
What happens when you hit some crappy coding?

Another way to start:
Tell me who is using the machine you present above?

Most of these big data RAM disk technologies are relatively light on the CPU. Intel has marketed Avoton as their preferred comparison to these potential ARM competitors for such workloads.

Generally the concern has been amount of RAM per node. So now that A1100 is actually available it is time for Intel to finally push out the Avoton update Denverton. There may be some environments prioritizing per node latency but that means Intel is trying to get a price premium for Xeon D versus Xeon and Xeon L, Avoton/Denverton/A1100 wouldn't be in the picture.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,000
3,357
136
You asking others for their TCO calculations, let's see yours. Let's assume a five year serviceable lifetime. Feel free to use whatever business services you wish.

Nice try, im waiting for his analysis and then i will respond thank you very much. But if you would like to be the devils advocate, feel free and shoot, present us your analysis.
 

Vesku

Diamond Member
Aug 25, 2005
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28
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Nem why not Atom?

Intel C2xxx has been used for such things, that's how Intel has been marketing it "budget non-CPU intensive platform". But now that A1100 has finally shown up with 128GB capacity vs 64 for Intel C2xxx and 10Gb vs 1Gb ethernet it has some compelling features that someone looking at Intel has to step up to Xeon D, not targeted at this segment, to match at least until Intel's Denverton update is launched.
 
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krumme

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2009
5,952
1,585
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Most of these big data RAM disk technologies are relatively light on the CPU. Intel has marketed Avoton as their preferred comparison to these potential ARM competitors for such workloads.

Generally the concern has been amount of RAM per node. So now that A1100 is actually available it is time for Intel to finally push out the Avoton update Denverton. There may be some environments prioritizing per node latency but that means Intel is trying to get a price premium for Xeon D versus Xeon and Xeon L, Avoton/Denverton/A1100 wouldn't be in the picture.
What task is 128gb on 8x a57 suited for?

Now Intel dont want to hurt expensive xeon line so avoton surely was not to cheap but how did those Atom sell?
 

mrmt

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2012
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0
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Intel C2xxx has been used for such things, that's how Intel has been marketing it "budget non-CPU intensive platform". But now that A1100 has finally shown up with 128GB capacity vs 64 for Intel C2xxx and 10Gb vs 1Gb ethernet it has some compelling features that someone looking at Intel has to step up to Xeon D, not targeted at this segment, to match at least until Intel's Denverton update is launched.

I see A1100 between a rock and a hard place. If someone needs only RAM capacity two Atoms Xeons will give lower TDP, if someone needs CPU power and connectivity the Xeon-D will do the trick.

I think someone might find a scenario where A1100 makes some sense, but I think it will be a niche too small to bother by any standards.
 

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
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As i have explained before, you need to add more hardware to AVOTON to have a chance of competing against A1100 and that will make AVOTON TCO worse.

So does the A1100, no USB? wtf, also the number of SATA is really 14? why the Seattle reference platform has only 8?

The 8 PCI-E lines is a BAD idea, you already need to waste 2 of them on a USB controller and Aspeed chip.

anyway you can check here:
http://www.newegg.com/SuperMicro-Server-Motherboards/BrandSubCat/ID-1655-302

Must Avoton boards are sub-300, Xeon-D starts at 490...

If A1100 boards are really $300 to $400 we have a problem here, because Avoton retains its price/perf/features.

So what whould be the best use for A1100? And thats considering Avoton is on its way out.

Also someone has info on the features of the SATA controller on A1100? It has SAS? it has HW raid?
 
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
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Best use for A1100 is for a reference platform for those looking to deploy an ARM-based software ecosystem in their shop in the future. That is, assuming everything is at least minimally compatible with K12 or any other more-expensive ARM solution available on the market.
 

Phynaz

Lifer
Mar 13, 2006
10,140
819
126
Nice try, im waiting for his analysis and then i will respond thank you very much. But if you would like to be the devils advocate, feel free and shoot, present us your analysis.

So, when you wrote this:

As i have explained before, you need to add more hardware to AVOTON to have a chance of competing against A1100 and that will make AVOTON TCO worse.

You were pulling it out of your @@@ because you have no idea.

Gotcha.

Care to back up this?
It cost more, it consumes more and it also has higher TDP than the A1100.

All the above make TCO higher than A1100, so now TCO is not a metric ??? :rolleyes:

Probably not, I'm betting you'll do a goal post move (again) first.
 
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Vesku

Diamond Member
Aug 25, 2005
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I see A1100 between a rock and a hard place. If someone needs only RAM capacity two Atoms Xeons will give lower TDP, if someone needs CPU power and connectivity the Xeon-D will do the trick.

I think someone might find a scenario where A1100 makes some sense, but I think it will be a niche too small to bother by any standards.

Many companies will be looking for 10Gb connectivity, which is why it is supposed to be part of Atom's Denverton update.

It's not a huge part of the market, roughly 2-3%, but the category has only been around for a few years and the current trend would put it somewhere around 10-20% of server share by 2020.

Granted judging by the ~30% drop in Xeon D 1520 motherboard pricing after just a few months it looks like Intel will do its best to keep its own Atom and any competitors as low in growth as possible. They take the potential threat of ARM entering server and AMD correcting its x86 mistakes more seriously than a lot of posters here.
 
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