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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

by 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?
    - HelloNurse 6y ago
      In this case "most common software" meant proprietary and nonportable operating systems and applications. Would you buy a server that will run the software you want to use either never (Windows and Windows applications developed on Windows) or maybe, eventually, as long as the new platform is a success (only slightly more portable proprietary Unix variants)?
  - wmil 6y ago
    > Alpha, SPARC, and POWER all lost the high-end market (their only market) to Intel at a time when Intel was inferior What's interesting is that the industry was so sure that Itanium / Windows NT was going to crush everything that many of them just gave up. Compaq and Silicon Graphics specifically tired to switch to Itainium, which was years late and never a huge success. They probably could have gotten another generation or two in. Might have saved SGI.
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  With the kind of marketshare ryzen has gotten on custom builds plus several % increase in server( which has large margins) I don't think amd has financial issues right now. They'll probably target gpus next, go for the low hanging fruit and then slowly iterate on the rest of their products.

by wahern 6y ago

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?
  - HelloNurse 6y ago
    In this case "most common software" meant proprietary and nonportable operating systems and applications. Would you buy a server that will run the software you want to use either never (Windows and Windows applications developed on Windows) or maybe, eventually, as long as the new platform is a success (only slightly more portable proprietary Unix variants)?
- wmil 6y ago
  > Alpha, SPARC, and POWER all lost the high-end market (their only market) to Intel at a time when Intel was inferior What's interesting is that the industry was so sure that Itanium / Windows NT was going to crush everything that many of them just gave up. Compaq and Silicon Graphics specifically tired to switch to Itainium, which was years late and never a huge success. They probably could have gotten another generation or two in. Might have saved SGI.
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
With the kind of marketshare ryzen has gotten on custom builds plus several % increase in server( which has large margins) I don't think amd has financial issues right now. They'll probably target gpus next, go for the low hanging fruit and then slowly iterate on the rest of their products.