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This should be interesting to watch. The new Ryzen CPUs are good, but the desktop market is a rather small portion of the overall CPU market which is dominated

by mbell 7y ago

This should be interesting to watch. The new Ryzen CPUs are good, but the desktop market is a rather small portion of the overall CPU market which is dominated by server and laptop. AMD making inroads in the server space is where they _may_ actually be able to eat up some meaningful market share. That said, I wouldn't count the chickens before they've hatched here. AMD did this once before with opteron in ~2006. For them to have holding power they need to keep it up for several cycles, only then will the big fish jump ship. I expect Intel to respond with price cuts, they've been monopolizing the server market for a decade or so now without real competition so they can charge whatever they want. At least in theory since Intel owns fabs they should win a price war.

liquid153 7y ago
Any idea when Zen2 laptops
- MrRadar 7y ago
  The APUs have so far lagged behind the CPUs by a year. Based on that we can expect Zen 2 + Navi APUs some time next year.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    I'm hoping those have an 8 core chiplet and a GPU chiplet.
ken47 7y ago
This is different than the Opteron days. Today, AMD's offering is substantially cheaper than Intel, both on an absolute and performance-adjusted basis. AMD is now ascending at a time when Intel is plagued by a never-ending stream of embarrassing security flaws, and the market has grown sick of its monopolistic exploitation of its customers. Furthermore, AMD has already designed the next generation chip! AMD could have clearly charged more for these EPYC Rome chips, but they priced low for a reason -- to grab as much market share as humanly possible as quickly as possible, and I believe they will do so.
- mbell 7y ago
  I think you're making the mistake of assuming a static market. Pricing is often assumed to be based on cost, it's not, at least not only. Intel's prices are high because they can be, not because their costs are inherently higher. In fact they should be lower given they operate their own fabs and thus don't require a built in margin for the outsourced fab. If perf/$ is deemed by the market to be important, Intel will just cut their prices. Also keep in mind no one that matters at a market scale, e.g. Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc are paying these list prices. It's entirely possible Intel is still winning the perf/$ fight in these contracts.
  - ken47 7y ago
    I disagree. If you do some research, you'll learn that the chiplet architecture employed by EPYC Rome is inherently and substantially cheaper to manufacture than the monolithic design employed for Xeon. AMD priced these chips so low because they know Intel is going to fight back with deep discounts. AMD also knows they can manufacture more cheaply for any given level of performance. It shouldn't surprise anyone if AMD is offering prices that Intel would have to counter by selling Xeon's at a loss. Furthermore, some orgs do not put a price on security. With Intel's poor security track record in the recent past, it's no surprise that Google hopped on the EPYC train. So at least one of the following two are going to play out over the next year: 1) AMD takes massive server market share. 2) INTC bleeds red to slow the loss of market share.

by mbell 7y ago

liquid153 7y ago

Any idea when Zen2 laptops

MrRadar 7y ago
The APUs have so far lagged behind the CPUs by a year. Based on that we can expect Zen 2 + Navi APUs some time next year.
- phkahler 7y ago
  I'm hoping those have an 8 core chiplet and a GPU chiplet.

ken47 7y ago

This is different than the Opteron days. Today, AMD's offering is substantially cheaper than Intel, both on an absolute and performance-adjusted basis. AMD is now ascending at a time when Intel is plagued by a never-ending stream of embarrassing security flaws, and the market has grown sick of its monopolistic exploitation of its customers. Furthermore, AMD has already designed the next generation chip! AMD could have clearly charged more for these EPYC Rome chips, but they priced low for a reason -- to grab as much market share as humanly possible as quickly as possible, and I believe they will do so.

mbell 7y ago
I think you're making the mistake of assuming a static market. Pricing is often assumed to be based on cost, it's not, at least not only. Intel's prices are high because they can be, not because their costs are inherently higher. In fact they should be lower given they operate their own fabs and thus don't require a built in margin for the outsourced fab. If perf/$ is deemed by the market to be important, Intel will just cut their prices. Also keep in mind no one that matters at a market scale, e.g. Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc are paying these list prices. It's entirely possible Intel is still winning the perf/$ fight in these contracts.
- ken47 7y ago
  I disagree. If you do some research, you'll learn that the chiplet architecture employed by EPYC Rome is inherently and substantially cheaper to manufacture than the monolithic design employed for Xeon. AMD priced these chips so low because they know Intel is going to fight back with deep discounts. AMD also knows they can manufacture more cheaply for any given level of performance. It shouldn't surprise anyone if AMD is offering prices that Intel would have to counter by selling Xeon's at a loss. Furthermore, some orgs do not put a price on security. With Intel's poor security track record in the recent past, it's no surprise that Google hopped on the EPYC train. So at least one of the following two are going to play out over the next year: 1) AMD takes massive server market share. 2) INTC bleeds red to slow the loss of market share.