4 ms·
> custom AMD EPYC processors I wonder, how much effort does that entail? Is this some TDP and firmware tweaks, or is it actually different silicon? If the late
by piinbinary 8y ago
> custom AMD EPYC processors
I wonder, how much effort does that entail? Is this some TDP and firmware tweaks, or is it actually different silicon? If the later, that sounds like a reasonably big bet that there will be a lot of AMD chips sold to AWS.
- monocasa 8y agoI've heard on the grapevine that nearly all of the large customers ask for (and receive) custom silicon features. The complete set of these special features technically exist on all these chips as they share the same mask, but the different private SKUs have their special features fused/lasered off or hidden behind an MSR knock like all other binning. EDIT: These features tend to be stuff like first class connections to in house security chips and the like. It's more about integration with their systems than any cool feature or isntruction that only "special" customers are cool enough to get.
- vesrah 8y agoWired did an article about how Intel does this https://www.wired.com/2013/05/facebook-and-intel/ https://www.wired.com/2013/05/facebook-and-intel/
- wmf 8y agoIt's never different silicon.
- babypuncher 8y agoIt sometimes is if the customer is buying chips in large enough quantities https://www.wired.com/2013/05/facebook-and-intel/ https://www.wired.com/2013/05/facebook-and-intel/
- wmf 8y agoIntel may have originally designed Xeon D for Facebook, but now it's available to everyone and the Xeon D that you buy is the same silicon as the Xeon D that Facebook buys.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoLikely with different microcode.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]