This will be good for a server that requires parallelization but not high single-thread performance - similar to EPYC.
But someone who needs not only parallelization, but also single-threaded performance will buy a 4.x GHz ThreadRipper / ThreadRipper Pro, not an EPYC, and not this.
lemurbutton, you are missing the point. AMD is the underdog and a fraction of Intel's size. The competitive position (or lack thereof) Intel finds itself in is utterly embarrassing and could only happen after 6 continuous years of manufacturing advancement failures. The company has been through nearly as many CEO's in that time, and reminds my of the Mark Hurd fiasco HP (though HP was actually performing well when they dumped him) and went through a number of CEO's in a few years from Cathie Lesjak to the disastrous Léo Apotheker who is legendary for saying "smartphones are not the future" and decided to dissolve Palm and sell into LG's IP portfolio, who was promptly fired and replaced by Meg Whitman.
Revolving-door CEO turnover is extremely volatile to a company as large as Intel or HP, as they have a lot of initial power to make dangerous business decisions (thousands of historical examples of freshman CEO's, experienced or not, architecting monolithic transactions, buyouts, mergers or product portfolio changes which tank - or nearly tank - the enterprise)
it's hardly a revolving door. if anything intel's board were too stupid and lazy to get rid of Krzanich even when he'd constantly lie about the progress their fabs were making and set completely insane timelines and density targets. hell they didn't even fire him for incompetence, they fired him for having an affair within the company.
Swan was always meant to be an interim CEO, it's not like they tossed him out, he was never meant to be in the seat and managed the company until they found a long term replacement.
You're right, but Intel still hold most of the cards for setting prices - even when they're not competitive on performance. They've never attempted to significantly undercut AMD in desktop and server processors even when they've had an inferior product (see: Rocket Lake) because they still have an overwhelming advantage in volume and market penetration. The one time I recall them really pushing hard on cost was with the contra revenue scheme for Atom where they basically paid people to take them.
This is still a bit more expensive than AMD charges for 24 cores and an 8-channel memory controller, though Intel is giving you more capable cores and a significantly lower latency 8-channel memory controller for your extra $200.
Intel's cores are more capable only for tasks that are limited by floating-point multiplications, because Intel cores have a double number of FP multipliers.
For anything else, AMD cores are much more capable, due to higher clock frequencies and much larger cache sizes.
While the Intel memory controller can be better, you need to buy Xeon Gold 63xx or Platinum, because all the other cheaper models, like the Xeon 5320 mentioned in the article, have crippled memory controllers, with lower throughput than the AMD memory controllers.
Because Intel has lowered the prices, there are 3 or 4 models of Ice Lake Server that are competitive with Epyc, e.g. Xeon Gold 6312U, which would be a good choice for the motherboard showed in the article. Nevertheless, even such models are a good choice only if you intend to use them for HPC tasks or for other tasks that can benefit from AVX-512.
Are we actually going to see a real targeted workstation chip out of Intel again? The Sky Lake generation got its own socket, LGA 2066 for that segment vs. LGA1155 for consumer vs LGA 3467 for server. Intel didn't have anything last year and nothing is seemingly lined up for this year in that narrow segment. As Intel's roadmap has been derailed, the workstation market has been ignored. X299 and C422 are four years old at this point and still technically current (though anyone looking at this platforms would be better off with an AMD alternative, highend consumer Intel or low end Intel server).
Right now AMD has this market squared away with ThreadRipper and ThreadRipper Pro. They just need to roll out Zen3 based models which I thought would have been introduced at this years Computex. What is AMD waiting for?
I think AMD are waiting for the moment when they have more Zen 3 chiplets than they can sell into the product areas they're already selling them in - which may not be for a while, yet.
Isn't TR made from harvested EPYC parts? If yields are good, maybe there just aren't enough flawed Zen 3 EPYCs yet, like they don't seem to have enough flawed Ryzen 5s to sell any as Ryzen 3.
I'm a little surprised at the apparent push for single-socket Ice Lake; if you like memory bandwidth you presumably like twice as much memory bandwidth even more, and generally the single-socket boards don't seem to be half the price of dual-socket ones.
Generally n/2 cores per socket costs a good deal less than half as much as n cores; if you want 40 cores you might well want two $1000 4316 chips rather than one $8100 8380 chip, if you wanted more than 40 cores in the system you needed dual-socket anyway.
A complete single-socket Ice Lake Server computer with a decent SKU, e.g. 6312U and with a decent amount of RAM, e.g. 128 GB, would be less than $3000.
A dual socket computer would be at least $5500.
For a large company, the dual-socket can be better, but for most individuals or small businesses only the single-socket would be affordable.
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twotwotwo - Friday, June 18, 2021 - link
Whoa, so...the 3955WX/3960X range got a little more interesting? I wouldn't pick this, but it's not Skylake!Mikewind Dale - Friday, June 18, 2021 - link
More of a competitor for EPYC, not ThreadRipper / ThreadRipper Pro. The Ice Lake Xeons are all 3.x GHZ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Ice_La...This will be good for a server that requires parallelization but not high single-thread performance - similar to EPYC.
But someone who needs not only parallelization, but also single-threaded performance will buy a 4.x GHz ThreadRipper / ThreadRipper Pro, not an EPYC, and not this.
Samus - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
Imagine if AMD were not where they are now, this kit would be costing twice as much.lemurbutton - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
Imagine if Intel isn't where it is now, Threadrippers would cost twice as much as...oh wait, we need Intel to be competitive too because AMD can/will drastically increase prices.
Samus - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
lemurbutton, you are missing the point. AMD is the underdog and a fraction of Intel's size. The competitive position (or lack thereof) Intel finds itself in is utterly embarrassing and could only happen after 6 continuous years of manufacturing advancement failures. The company has been through nearly as many CEO's in that time, and reminds my of the Mark Hurd fiasco HP (though HP was actually performing well when they dumped him) and went through a number of CEO's in a few years from Cathie Lesjak to the disastrous Léo Apotheker who is legendary for saying "smartphones are not the future" and decided to dissolve Palm and sell into LG's IP portfolio, who was promptly fired and replaced by Meg Whitman.Revolving-door CEO turnover is extremely volatile to a company as large as Intel or HP, as they have a lot of initial power to make dangerous business decisions (thousands of historical examples of freshman CEO's, experienced or not, architecting monolithic transactions, buyouts, mergers or product portfolio changes which tank - or nearly tank - the enterprise)
whatthe123 - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
it's hardly a revolving door. if anything intel's board were too stupid and lazy to get rid of Krzanich even when he'd constantly lie about the progress their fabs were making and set completely insane timelines and density targets. hell they didn't even fire him for incompetence, they fired him for having an affair within the company.Swan was always meant to be an interim CEO, it's not like they tossed him out, he was never meant to be in the seat and managed the company until they found a long term replacement.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link
If you’re winning strongly no one knows about the scandalous behavior. If you’re expendable it suddenly becomes salient.Spunjji - Monday, June 21, 2021 - link
You're right, but Intel still hold most of the cards for setting prices - even when they're not competitive on performance. They've never attempted to significantly undercut AMD in desktop and server processors even when they've had an inferior product (see: Rocket Lake) because they still have an overwhelming advantage in volume and market penetration. The one time I recall them really pushing hard on cost was with the contra revenue scheme for Atom where they basically paid people to take them.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link
Imagine having high-quality of competition in tech rather than a series of duopolies.TomWomack - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
This is still a bit more expensive than AMD charges for 24 cores and an 8-channel memory controller, though Intel is giving you more capable cores and a significantly lower latency 8-channel memory controller for your extra $200.AdrianBc - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
Intel's cores are more capable only for tasks that are limited by floating-point multiplications, because Intel cores have a double number of FP multipliers.For anything else, AMD cores are much more capable, due to higher clock frequencies and much larger cache sizes.
While the Intel memory controller can be better, you need to buy Xeon Gold 63xx or Platinum, because all the other cheaper models, like the Xeon 5320 mentioned in the article, have crippled memory controllers, with lower throughput than the AMD memory controllers.
Because Intel has lowered the prices, there are 3 or 4 models of Ice Lake Server that are competitive with Epyc, e.g. Xeon Gold 6312U, which would be a good choice for the motherboard showed in the article. Nevertheless, even such models are a good choice only if you intend to use them for HPC tasks or for other tasks that can benefit from AVX-512.
Kevin G - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
Are we actually going to see a real targeted workstation chip out of Intel again? The Sky Lake generation got its own socket, LGA 2066 for that segment vs. LGA1155 for consumer vs LGA 3467 for server. Intel didn't have anything last year and nothing is seemingly lined up for this year in that narrow segment. As Intel's roadmap has been derailed, the workstation market has been ignored. X299 and C422 are four years old at this point and still technically current (though anyone looking at this platforms would be better off with an AMD alternative, highend consumer Intel or low end Intel server).Right now AMD has this market squared away with ThreadRipper and ThreadRipper Pro. They just need to roll out Zen3 based models which I thought would have been introduced at this years Computex. What is AMD waiting for?
TomWomack - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
I thought that the three single-processor Ice Lake SKUs (in particular the $1450 24-core 6312U) were intended for that market segment.Spunjji - Monday, June 21, 2021 - link
I think AMD are waiting for the moment when they have more Zen 3 chiplets than they can sell into the product areas they're already selling them in - which may not be for a while, yet.Gache8598 - Monday, June 21, 2021 - link
Isn't TR made from harvested EPYC parts? If yields are good, maybe there just aren't enough flawed Zen 3 EPYCs yet, like they don't seem to have enough flawed Ryzen 5s to sell any as Ryzen 3.Toadster - Friday, June 18, 2021 - link
4 x M.2 NVMe with VROC would be awesome for some accelerated storageTomWomack - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
I'm a little surprised at the apparent push for single-socket Ice Lake; if you like memory bandwidth you presumably like twice as much memory bandwidth even more, and generally the single-socket boards don't seem to be half the price of dual-socket ones.Wereweeb - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
You're surprised by the fact that not everyone needs a dual-socket system? I'm surprised by your surprise.TomWomack - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
Generally n/2 cores per socket costs a good deal less than half as much as n cores; if you want 40 cores you might well want two $1000 4316 chips rather than one $8100 8380 chip, if you wanted more than 40 cores in the system you needed dual-socket anyway.Yojimbo - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
I'd think you wouldn't get an 8380 for a 1S system, you'd get, perhaps, an 8351N, which has 36 cores and costs $3000.AdrianBc - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - link
A complete single-socket Ice Lake Server computer with a decent SKU, e.g. 6312U and with a decent amount of RAM, e.g. 128 GB, would be less than $3000.A dual socket computer would be at least $5500.
For a large company, the dual-socket can be better, but for most individuals or small businesses only the single-socket would be affordable.
watersb - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
What's the price at Newegg for the 4TB of RAM?(Asking for a friend.)
TomWomack - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
https://www.newegg.com/nemix-ram-256gb-288-pin-ddr...suggests $46,223.84 for sixteen 256GB sticks.
yetanotherhuman - Monday, June 21, 2021 - link
Sadly, Ice Lake Xeons don't look compelling at all.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link
Is Newegg still selling used parts without telling buyers?