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Regular EPYC CPUs have too high a TDP for smaller server installations, such as so-called edge servers. EPYC Embedded is still stuck on Zen 1. Intel hasn't upgr

by wahern 6y ago

Regular EPYC CPUs have too high a TDP for smaller server installations, such as so-called edge servers. EPYC Embedded is still stuck on Zen 1. Intel hasn't upgraded their comparable line of mid-range server CPUs (e.g. Xeon D line), either, but AMD won't win on performance alone. Intel has a huge SKU lineup, much more volume, and a much richer vendor and platform ecosystem. If the vendor demand isn't there to push AMD on EPYC Embedded, Ryzen Emedded, and other market segments, AMD should build demand, otherwise they'll just recapitulate their rise & fall during the 2000s.

xigency 6y ago
Cloudflare recently announced that they would be building out some data centers with EPYC CPUs. Do you believe that the situation has changed since February? They did a pretty exhaustive analysis [0] of price, performance, and power where they saw an advantage in switching away from Intel for that generation at least. If the existing server hardware is already in a decent spot, then maybe they need to spend more resources on sales rather than making changes to keep it cutting edge. [0] https://blog.cloudflare.com/an-epyc-trip-to-rome-amd-is-cloudflares-10th-generation-edge-server-cpu/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/an-epyc-trip-to-rome-amd-is-clou...
- wahern 6y ago
  I think Cloudflare is a different kind of "edge" service than what EPYC Embedded targets, and I would think Cloudflare uses regular EPYC chips. The "edge" that EPYC Embedded, Xeon D, etc target is, I think, more about the hardware configurations (smaller enclosures, minimal number of drives and other devices) and the type of facility (usually not a colocation facility, so power and heat are of significantly more concern). But the workloads are still very much server-class. EPYC Embedded chips are competitive with Intel's offerings (Xeon D, etc), but as I said Intel's ecosystem is richer--for example, more, better motherboards. It's not enough that AMD's chips are competitive with Intel's. AMD has a huge ecosystem handicap, and so either they need to improve the ecosystem or sell chips that are dramatically better than Intel's, and for EPYC Embedded neither is the case. Long term a better ecosystem is necessary for AMD to survive because a broader product and customer base brings consistent income and mindshare--staying power. I would hope and assume AMD is working closely with cloud vendors on their proprietary hardware, but the results are opaque; judging by traditional channels (Supermicro, etc), AMD hasn't even begun to close the gap.
  - pdpi 6y ago
    I don’t think survival is at stake. AMD powers both XBox and PlayStation for the second generation in a row and that ought to help keeping them alive. It’s more a matter of whether they can capture enough of the market so they’re not merely “surviving”.
    - wahern 6y ago
      Fair enough. Survive was a poor choice. What I had in mind was surviving as a contender at the high-end, so we can continue to benefit from competition for server-class chips. Alpha, SPARC, and POWER all lost the high-end market (their only market) to Intel at a time when Intel was inferior. AMD previously failed because Intel surpassed them, but that's because AMD couldn't leverage their initial advantage to secure their markets and thus their ability to keep investing. Without volume and mindshare failure is inevitable. Providing the best high-end chips is insufficient to remain competitive long-term. The reasons for previous failures were complex (ISA, operating system, sales channels, etc), but ultimately it comes down to something like diversity--customer and product diversity provide buffers in terms of sales as well as changes in market direction. AMD's chips are indisputably better than Intel's right now, but even with Intel's mindboggingly massive fumbles they're barely sweating in terms of current and prospective revenue.
      - galaxyLogic 6y ago
        > Providing the best high-end chips is insufficient to remain competitive long-term Reason Alpha SPARC and POWER failed was they did not support the de facto standard X86 instruction-set, I believe. So the fastest most power efficient chip is not enough unless it can also run the most common software
        minot 6y ago
        > most common software Maybe it is different this time because well for one Intel and AMD are on the same architecture but more importantly for arm or other platform, maybe this time is different because the servers mostly run on open source software. Given the potential revenue, I'd imagine it should be pretty straightforward to port common server software to any architecture if it isn't already?
- MikusR 6y ago
  And before that Cloudfare announced that they are migrating to Arm servers.
  - no_wizard 6y ago
    Turns out it just wasn't performant enough for their applications, per this follow up post: https://blog.cloudflare.com/technical-details-of-why-cloudflare-chose-amd-epyc-for-gen-x-servers/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/technical-details-of-why-cloudfl... ARM just needs to be a little bit more competitive on performance per watt and a few other metrics...I think when Apple inevitably either proves ARM can be a very powerful platform via their migration to complete ARM based computing, we'll see a lot more movement and investment here, I'd say ~5 years is a good timeframe to start seeing serious long term shifts to ARM. If Apple fails to do this within that time frame, I think that may push it out longer. They're already pushing the limits of ARM as a platform with their custom chipsets I think nvidia's long term strategy is going to be built around this, among other things, otherwise I believe they overpaid for ARM holdings. They'll need to make sure they can expand the market for ARM CPUs to drive ever more GPU sales in the future. They haven't been as successful getting their embedded GPUs into the ARM market if I recall correctly
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
AMD and Hector Ruiz sat on their temporary advantage and were in denial of Intel's investment in the Core architecture. AMD is keeping the throttle down this time.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> but AMD won't win on performance alone. Yup. Let's talk about price and TDP... > Intel has a huge SKU lineup, Why is that supposed to be an advantage? > much more volume, ok > and a much richer vendor and platform ecosystem This is just marketing-speak. richer vendor...ecosystem = more resellers richer...platform ecosystem - what does that even mean? > AMD should build demand How? And have you noticed how many people here saying they want to buy intel? > otherwise they'll just recapitulate their rise & fall during the 2000s. Who's in the stronger position now in terms of price and performance?
- kristopolous 6y ago
  A huge sku lineup according to every marketing book every made is a terrible idea here. I hope they don't view it as a strength. I'd be slashing like hell.

by wahern 6y ago

xigency 6y ago

Cloudflare recently announced that they would be building out some data centers with EPYC CPUs. Do you believe that the situation has changed since February? They did a pretty exhaustive analysis [0] of price, performance, and power where they saw an advantage in switching away from Intel for that generation at least. If the existing server hardware is already in a decent spot, then maybe they need to spend more resources on sales rather than making changes to keep it cutting edge. [0] https://blog.cloudflare.com/an-epyc-trip-to-rome-amd-is-cloudflares-10th-generation-edge-server-cpu/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/an-epyc-trip-to-rome-amd-is-clou...

wahern 6y ago
I think Cloudflare is a different kind of "edge" service than what EPYC Embedded targets, and I would think Cloudflare uses regular EPYC chips. The "edge" that EPYC Embedded, Xeon D, etc target is, I think, more about the hardware configurations (smaller enclosures, minimal number of drives and other devices) and the type of facility (usually not a colocation facility, so power and heat are of significantly more concern). But the workloads are still very much server-class. EPYC Embedded chips are competitive with Intel's offerings (Xeon D, etc), but as I said Intel's ecosystem is richer--for example, more, better motherboards. It's not enough that AMD's chips are competitive with Intel's. AMD has a huge ecosystem handicap, and so either they need to improve the ecosystem or sell chips that are dramatically better than Intel's, and for EPYC Embedded neither is the case. Long term a better ecosystem is necessary for AMD to survive because a broader product and customer base brings consistent income and mindshare--staying power. I would hope and assume AMD is working closely with cloud vendors on their proprietary hardware, but the results are opaque; judging by traditional channels (Supermicro, etc), AMD hasn't even begun to close the gap.
- pdpi 6y ago
  I don’t think survival is at stake. AMD powers both XBox and PlayStation for the second generation in a row and that ought to help keeping them alive. It’s more a matter of whether they can capture enough of the market so they’re not merely “surviving”.
  - wahern 6y ago
    Fair enough. Survive was a poor choice. What I had in mind was surviving as a contender at the high-end, so we can continue to benefit from competition for server-class chips. Alpha, SPARC, and POWER all lost the high-end market (their only market) to Intel at a time when Intel was inferior. AMD previously failed because Intel surpassed them, but that's because AMD couldn't leverage their initial advantage to secure their markets and thus their ability to keep investing. Without volume and mindshare failure is inevitable. Providing the best high-end chips is insufficient to remain competitive long-term. The reasons for previous failures were complex (ISA, operating system, sales channels, etc), but ultimately it comes down to something like diversity--customer and product diversity provide buffers in terms of sales as well as changes in market direction. AMD's chips are indisputably better than Intel's right now, but even with Intel's mindboggingly massive fumbles they're barely sweating in terms of current and prospective revenue.
    - galaxyLogic 6y ago
      > Providing the best high-end chips is insufficient to remain competitive long-term Reason Alpha SPARC and POWER failed was they did not support the de facto standard X86 instruction-set, I believe. So the fastest most power efficient chip is not enough unless it can also run the most common software
      - minot 6y ago
        > most common software Maybe it is different this time because well for one Intel and AMD are on the same architecture but more importantly for arm or other platform, maybe this time is different because the servers mostly run on open source software. Given the potential revenue, I'd imagine it should be pretty straightforward to port common server software to any architecture if it isn't already?
MikusR 6y ago
And before that Cloudfare announced that they are migrating to Arm servers.
- no_wizard 6y ago
  Turns out it just wasn't performant enough for their applications, per this follow up post: https://blog.cloudflare.com/technical-details-of-why-cloudflare-chose-amd-epyc-for-gen-x-servers/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/technical-details-of-why-cloudfl... ARM just needs to be a little bit more competitive on performance per watt and a few other metrics...I think when Apple inevitably either proves ARM can be a very powerful platform via their migration to complete ARM based computing, we'll see a lot more movement and investment here, I'd say ~5 years is a good timeframe to start seeing serious long term shifts to ARM. If Apple fails to do this within that time frame, I think that may push it out longer. They're already pushing the limits of ARM as a platform with their custom chipsets I think nvidia's long term strategy is going to be built around this, among other things, otherwise I believe they overpaid for ARM holdings. They'll need to make sure they can expand the market for ARM CPUs to drive ever more GPU sales in the future. They haven't been as successful getting their embedded GPUs into the ARM market if I recall correctly

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

AMD and Hector Ruiz sat on their temporary advantage and were in denial of Intel's investment in the Core architecture. AMD is keeping the throttle down this time.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

> but AMD won't win on performance alone. Yup. Let's talk about price and TDP... > Intel has a huge SKU lineup, Why is that supposed to be an advantage? > much more volume, ok > and a much richer vendor and platform ecosystem This is just marketing-speak. richer vendor...ecosystem = more resellers richer...platform ecosystem - what does that even mean? > AMD should build demand How? And have you noticed how many people here saying they want to buy intel? > otherwise they'll just recapitulate their rise & fall during the 2000s. Who's in the stronger position now in terms of price and performance?

kristopolous 6y ago
A huge sku lineup according to every marketing book every made is a terrible idea here. I hope they don't view it as a strength. I'd be slashing like hell.