Same platform - Whitley. Segmentation between 1-2S and 4-8S - the customers for the 4 to 8 socket Cooper Lake are quite different from the 1 to 2 socket Ice Lake SP.
Ice Lake SP is general purpose, Cooper Lake is geared more towards AI and Hyperscalers.
Are you sure? The leaked roadmaps a few months ago say that only the mainstream Cooper MCMs (since cancelled) are on Whitley, and the 4-8s Coopers are on their own platform, Cedar Island.
You are correct - seems that all Cooper Lakes will be on the Cedar Island platform and not Whitley. They will share a variant of the new socket with Ice Lake SP. It was my understanding that Whitley was split - 2S for ICL SP and 4-8 for the 28C Cooper, with the 56C MCMs being on Cedar
If the MCMs were canceled (some have been produced and gone into super computers using 1st Xeon Scalable based systems) then it makes sense for Cooper to be on Cedar Island now.
So I stand corrected on the platform. The markets are still quite different for Cooper and ICL, it seems just the platform changed for Cooper.
Epyc 3rd gen doesn't exist today, and 4/8s x86 is mostly a specialized high-end market (much of it driven by replacement of RISC/UNIX systems) where AMD doesn't play. Whether the pricing is justified is obviously open for debate, but there's historical precedent for higher costs for 8s-capable parts.
are u suggesting these will compete with IBM z platform or something else on reliability? clearly this is not a reliability play. its commodity x86. and if max core count and max memory and max IO of 8s server does not beat a 4s EPYC, not sure what the selling point is, never mind charging a premium.
unless there is particular order from like facebook for BFloat16 its not going anywhere. with a 2x perf disadvantage even that wont be enof for long.
Not on reliability, just on scalability. 4s/8s x86 is largely replacing RISC/UNIX (*not* z, which is a separate animal.)
As for 4s Epyc... you realize that Epyc only goes to 2s, right? If you want a really big tightly-bound x86 system, whether to replace RISC/UNIX or just because you have an interconnect-sensitive app that eats a lot of RAM, Intel goes higher than AMD. That's not a value judgment, it's a statement of fact. That's also an incredibly niche market and always has been - but it's one with good margins, which presumably is why Intel still bothers.
No Eypc can scale further than that. Second, these chips top out at 28 cores. AMD is at a double density advantage (Actually it's worse) . Hell you have to go to 8S on these parts just to beat out the 2S AMD counter parts. The power and density lost is crazy. These are super niche parts. Aside from FaceBook I don't see anyone else getting these.
And it seems to the people making the decisions about what goes into the Datacenter - AMD supposed "advantages" are meaningless. The 4 and 8 socket Cooper Lake is destined for hyperscalers.
Ice Lake SP has 76 cores and offers 128 lanes of PCIe4 in a dual socket system - this is the mainstream platform - most servers in traditional data centers are 2 socket... makes for an efficient VM farm - better to have 2 dual socket than a single 4 socket. And with the significant IPC increase the Sunny Cove brought (~20%) makes the 76 cores in a dual socket config equivalent to 90 or 91 cores when compared to Skylake derived Comet and Cooper and by extension Epyc. So Epyc may have 128 cores in a dual socket config - that really is not a huge advantage anymore - and with the same # of PCIe4 lanes.. Epyc shows little advantage here.
You would be hard pressed to find any motherboard that supports more the 2 Epyc CPUs. there is a poster on Reddit Optilasgar that explains why more than 2 sockets on Epyc are basically not possible https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6jogw9/are_t...
Yeah the 4/8 socket will go mostly to the hyper scalers - Facebook was one of the driving factors for Cooper Lake at 4 or 8 sockets - but you can bet they won't be the only hyper scalers getting them.
Apparently what you see as AMDs advantage isn't what the large customers - hyper scalers or traditional data centers want - revenue show that to be true.
@Deicidum "the significant IPC increase the Sunny Cove brought (~20%) makes the 76 cores in a dual socket config equivalent to 90 or 91 cores when compared to Skylake derived Comet and Cooper and by extension Epyc."
What's this "by extension Epyc" nonsense? Everybody knows Epyc has better IPC than Skylake.
We don't know the clock speeds for Ice Lake SP either, but if it ends up anything like the mobile variants then the IPC increase will be eaten by the clock speed decrease.
Yeah server variants with 270W are going to have the same clocks as the 15W mobile variant,,,
you are really grasping at straws. AMD Epyc are roughly comparable to Skylake derived cores - so Comet Lake and Cooper Lake are Skylake derived cores, and Epyc is trying to compete with Skylake - therefore - by extension.. means that Sunny Cove has a 20% IPC advantage over Skylake - which is Comet Lake, Cooper Lake, and AMD Epyc.
Then why are the 'rate' numbers for SPEC CPU 2017 Dominated by EPYC? spots #1, #2, and #3 are all EPYC, with socket count of 16, 24, and 32. While the "glue" in this case is software instead of a hardware node-controller, it still makes for a scale-up server; the same technology is also used with Xeons for customers running workloads like SAP HANA - it makes for a far cheaper and more flexible architecture to scale up your memory.
i was kind of suspicious epyc 4 socket might not exist when i said that, but still i dont think it makes much of difference if you need commodity x86 compute, just buy two servers. it will still take less space and be more power efficient as long as its TSMC 7nm vs intel 14nm++
what would make a difference is: max memory. if there is a server from intel that has double the max memory than biggest from AMD, then i guess there would be niche. but if such a customer exists surly AMD can rectify that if they simply choose to.
Unless you are using Optane DIMMs, Xeon cannot compete with AMD in terms of RAM capacity. For non Optane Xeon you would need a 4 socket host to surpass what Epyc can do in a single socket. However, 256GB LRDIMMs are INSANELY expensive, ~$5000/DIMM. Even 128GB LRDIMMs are still $1100/DIMM minimum compared to $350/DIMM for 64GB RDIMMs.
I can tell you from personal experience that running SAP HANA on Epyc does work, at least in a virtualized environment. It will even pass the SAP HANA PRD Performance test. Despite what SAP, probably Intel as well, says, you do not need Xeon to run HANA. The 8 channel RAM makes things a lot nicer in getting enough RAM for multiple HANA DBs or one massive DB as well.
Not to mention to use Optane you actually have to have your software written/configured around it. You can't just slap it in and experience wonderful performance.
I've never used Optane, but I do know that VMware has 2 different modes for it. https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2019/04/announcin... I don't know what the performance will be if the software isn't written for it, but hopefully the hypervisor can at least help.
Optane persistent memory is kinda non feature in the Vmware world. Yes you can use it, you can pass it as either very fast disk or pmem dev to the VMs that understands this, but you lose HA with that. There is no mechanism to protect (replicate) Optane mem content in case of the node failure. For me the only viable scenario for Optane persistent memory is the cache layer in the SDS.
I have been told it was not a big lift to get accomplished. SAP already has been shipping with Optane DIMM support - we can move to Optane DIMMs with our SAP install if we want. Our install is small in comparison to the systems and installs at Fortune companies.
Pretty sure Oracle support is already baked in as well.
You are aware though that the disadvantage will be worse memory performance in any other operations ? Optane DIMMs have worse throughput and worse latency. I don't know how often SAP HANA environments are restarted. I'd be surprised if that would be more than once per quarter.
Intel 4S and 8S also increase the memory bandwidth vs a 1S solution, since more memory channels per each socket, right?
also ... Ice Lake Server will have Sunny Cove
from 12/12/2018 ARS Technica article:
"Both Intel and AMD have shared these limits since 2003. No longer: Sunny Cove extends virtual addresses to 57 meaningful bits (with the top 7 bits again either all zeroes or all ones, copying bit 56), with physical memory addresses of up to 52 bits. To handle this requires a fifth level in the page table. The new limits enable 128PB of virtual address space and 4PB of physical memory."
Agreed - 2 dual socket is preferable to 1 quad socket.
The comparison should be between the 2 socket Ice Lake SP and not the Cooper Lake 4 and 8 sockets. Ice Lake SP will be 38C per socket, 76 cores and 128 PCIe4 lanes in a dual socket system. Ice Lake's Sunny Cove brings a 20% increase in IPC - so that 76C performs more like a 90 or 91 core Cooper Lake. So 128 AMD cores vs 90 Intel cores - and the same 128 PCIe4 lanes and the same 8 channel memory - and the ability to use Optane DIMMs
Due to VMware's change in licensing, no one is going to buy a 38c Ice Lake same as no one will buy a 48c Epyc. The only people who might are cloud providers running open source hypervisors. IDK if you know how the licensing changed, but VMware has changed their license to 32c/socket/license. If you are running a 38c Ice Lake you will need 2 licenses for it, same as the 48 or 64c Epyc. The difference is the 64c Epyc at least maximizes the cores/socket requirement.
When Ice Lake is released, it won't be competing against Zen2 Epyc, it will be competing against Zen3 Epyc.On the PCIe lane Ice Lake is still at a disadvantage in a dual socket setup. Depending on configuration, Epyc can have 160 PCIe 4.0 lanes for IO and still have 96 lanes for CPU-CPU communication. Even with 96 CPU communication lanes EPYC still provides ~50% more CPU-CPU bandwidth than an Ice Lake with 6 UPI links. In all honesty Ice Lake only has caught up with 1st Gen Epyc on IO but 2nd Gen on IPC.
Intel will sell as many ICL 38 cores as it can produce - I agree that most will be 32C IF they are destined for a VMware farm..
Epyc has 128 PCIe4 Lanes PERIOD. in a dual socket Epyc - 64 lanes on EACH CPU is used to communicate with the other CPU. Leaving 128 PCIe4 lanes for IO. and 64 PCIe4 lanes for CPU to CPU communications..
Wrong. There are 2 different dual socket setups possible. The 128 lane IO lane setup and the 160 lane IO setup. https://www.servethehome.com/amd-epyc-7002-series-... In the 128 IO setup there are also 128 lanes for Cpu-CPU
each CPU has 128 PCIe4 lanes - in a 2 socket system, 64 of them are used as CPU to CPU communications - please explain how you can add additional processors and still have PCIe lanes for, you know, IO.
As you can already estimate/derive from the provided graph, Epyc does not compete with Xeon's in DL/ML-Tasks, simply because of missing features. A 4S system based on low priced Xeon's should already be enough to outperform a high-end Epyc system with two 7742. AVX-512, VNNI and DLBoost provide a much higher relative performance due to specialization for these types of workloads. AMD will provide semi custom Zen3-Epyc's for the Frontier with good cause. ;-)
All programming needs good programmers... most of the organizations that will have a use for ZVX will be able to draw upto existing libraries to integrate into a custom program...
It will be interesting if Milan supports bfloat16 as well. Unless AMD segregates enterprise chips (they will at some point), it would mean that bfloat16 trickles down to desktop chips.
There's no such thing as a "low priced" 4S Xeon system, though. The processors are expensive and so are the servers you put them into.
That's been AMD's pitch the whole time - consolidate more cores into fewer sockets for a lower cost of ownership. If you want to do DL/ML you put in accelerators for those jobs, which again, will be cheaper than trying to reach the same performance with a Xeon.
Intel are trying to find niches for their CPUs to occupy, but those niches are better occupied by products that cater to them specifically.
That seems to be the only retort that you ever have for Intel. What you fail to realize is that given time those numbers will change if Intel continues to falter. Ice Lake is very late and when it comes out will be competing against 3rd Gen Epyc. We already know from laptops that Zen 2 competes quite well with Ice Lake on a performance side. We also know that Ice Lake has had frequency problems and has high power draw relative to Zen 2. Those things don't bode well for it in the data center. We already are seeing more companies moving to Epyc, especially those that have CTOs/CIOs that don't follow the Intel only mantra. In the enterprise world the tables are turning for Intel, much the same way it did for IBM years ago. It used to be that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM" now it is "no one was ever fired for buying Intel." That first statement eventually died and was replaced by the 2nd, and the 2nd is starting to die as well.
It's the same line every time. It's like listening to a realtor trying to sell a house on a cliff-side.
"Lovely ocean views, hasn't fallen into the sea any time in the past 20 years, so why would you ever expect it to?"
It also sets up the weird false dichotomy that Intel can't be executing poorly if they're still selling lots of their products; as if the global CPU market would just go away tomorrow just because Intel were selling junk.
Yeah - revenues and profits are never used to measure a business. It's about fee fees and the # of rabid AMD supporters...
Sorry that Intel consistently provides what the market wants, and make record revenue quarter after quarter - and AMD Epycs are sitting in systems at the OEMs - since no one is buying them
Just because someone makes profit doesn't mean it makes what the market wants. Sometimes there is only one option so by design you will make a profit. Doesn't mean that just because you are the only player that your product is what people want. More often than not the product does an OK job but people want something different. In IT data centers the people making the decisions are often times older or just don't know any better. Not to mention when trying to come into a market in which 1 player has >=95% of the mark share it will take time to make inroads.
What low price 4S Xeon ? A 16 core 4 socket 4.5TB Xeon (the 6328HL) has a list price of $4779 so 4 of these gives a list price of over $19,000 - for comparison a single 7702P costs $4600 and has the same 64 cores as the 4 Xeon CPUs put together and a maximum memory of 4TB (and for good measure has 128 PCIe 4 lanes vs 20 PCIe lanes per Xeon CPU). By the time that you include the price of the required extras for a 4 socket system (4 socket motherboard, special power supplies etc) the 4S Intel system is far more costly than the single socket AMD system.
Unless you're a FB or Intel employee, no one has any idea what the real price they pay for these processors. And only AMD and Intel know the margins that can be sacrificed to secure a crucial design win. You also have to balance the manufacturing capacity that can be brought to the table at a given price point. That's a huge advantage for Intel even with all the bad press their manufacturing has received. They can choose to pull capacity from low margin retail products if needed. AMD would have to negotiate with TSMC and compete against their other critical clients for capacity.
Technically AMD can also choose to pull capacity from their desktop processor sales if needs be, but you're right that the overall constraints on their manufacturing capacity are more severe.
Also worth noting that there's a difference between how much these things cost at list price, how much they cost for a massive organisation buying a few hundred units, and how much they cost for SMEs buying from resellers. I used to work for a large EU reseller and can confirm that even with the customary discounts and bids in place, 4S systems carry a substantial premium over 2S.
who cares about some fictional EU retailer you "worked for"...
2 socket cost more than a single socket 4 socket cost more than 2 socket 8 socket cost more than 4 socket.
The higher socket count are more expensive per socket than the lower socket count systems - due to the workload and specialized nature of a use case that requires 8 sockets.
No one, even someone like me only buying 60, are paying any where near MSRP. and for big customers like FB which would likely install hundreds if not thousands of these systems - the MSRP is irrelevent. ~$11K list - my Q60 order was less than $9K per.
The only bad press is from the fanboys.. some of them are editors... So yes, was delayed - yet record revenue - so yeah not a bad deal. Companies like FB don't care what the manufacturing process is - they ask "can it do what I need it to do right now?" And apparently 14nm PCIe3 Cooper Lake does.
If you are buying 60 hosts @ $9k/host I see a lot of waste. At that cost you aren't getting much in a Xeon. You could save huge amounts of money by reducing your number of hosts and sockets.
16 - Engineering workstations - dual socket - single CPU installed 2 - my engineering workstation - dual socket with dual CPU installed
16 - 4 dual node servers - 2 nodes x 2 sockets - primary datacenter (Colorado) 16 - 4 dual node servers - 2 nodes x 2 sockets - secondary datacenter (Dallas) 6 - 3 single node dual socket - flash arrays - 1 at primary, 1 at secondary, 3rd for engineering 4 - dual node server, 2 nodes x 2 sockets - systems used by IT for testing new software
2 are basically spares, today. The 8 CPUs for the SAP server were originally intended for a different purpose - for a possible replacement for my large SGI TP16000 array - which never materialized (the array is the only remaining IB system in the mix - a Mellanox SwitchX-2 SX6710G made the conversion between the 8 40Gb/s IB to 8 40Gb/s Ethernet).
When we moved to SAP, we had no baseline whatsoever - so it went on it's own physical server in our datacenter in Colorado - with a mirror at Level 3 in Dallas. After a year, we decided to virtualize - and after the move to virtual, added the 4th server (nodes 7&8) to the pool - changes made in Colorado are made in Dallas as well.
When we replace the servers in the next ~12 months, the plan is to go back to 6 nodes - whether that is another 2U 2 node configuration, or as individual servers remains to be seen - will most likely be Ice Lake SP to be able to leverage PCIe4 to use dual 100Gb/s Ethernet for the planned network upgrade.
So initially the SAP system was on a dual node, 4 socket total physical server.
The CPUs were $9K per - not the hosts - hosts are servers. I can see why you say hosts - you missed the context.
"The MSRP is irrelevant. ~$11K list - my Q60 order was less than $9K per"
The $11K was in response to flgt post "Unless you're a FB or Intel employee, no one has any idea what the real price they pay for these processors." which was a response to Duncan Macdonald's post about "A 16 core 4 socket 4.5TB Xeon (the 6328HL) has a list price of $4779"
So talking about MSRP/List prices - Duncan made a claim about MSRP prices, flgt responded that very large customers pay less per unit - and I responded with my own experience with purchasing a very small number of CPUs compared to FB prices "even someone like me only buying 60, are paying any where near MSRP."
My post needed to be edited to be "even someone like me only buying 60, are *NOT* paying any where near MSRP
so $9K per CPU - not $9K per host. You missed the context.
You need to try to be more civil - the constant effort to refute everything I say is fine - but you also need to understand the context, rather than immediately sniping. I have no problem debating the merits of whatever - but the mindless / reactionary responses from you and people like Korguz need to stop. He never offers anything to the conversation and just lies in wait - with probable screen captures to try and make his point - which is "I suck".
Sorry that I didn't choose your preference for my systems - sorry that you and others feel attacked whenever someone states the facts about AMD. I prefer Intel (along with 95% of the server market). When you are putting together a PO to buy the servers and switches, etc for your business - you can choose what you wish, and what your budget will allow.
I have 10 people in my IT department, with over 200+ years of experience between us. The decision for hardware are not made on the fly. Other than now having a 7th and 8th node that is not needed, I have been pretty happy with the decisions we have made. Business continuity and performance were our primary goals, and both were met. The opinions held by posters on a tech forum do not come into play
thing is 4 socket motherboards for Intel exist - they don't for Epyc.
If you are buying a 4 socket Intel system - you would buy either and Inspur or a Supermicro - which would be the motherboard, case, those "special power supplies" etc...
Those "special power supplies" are redundant and hot swap - something companies like Sun, SGI, Cisco and every single OEM have had for ages - they are considered STANDARD - not special.
It looks like that, plus using Optane offers very fast persistent storage which depending on bandwidth needs can replace DRAM. Either way, having a large amount of very fast storage vs. a split between DRAM and secondary storage seems to have a benefit if you believe Intel's marketing materials.
Ever been involved with a very large SAP install? Once the system is in production and needs to be restarted - the amount of time it takes to bring down and back up can take hours and hours - all the while it is not able to be used. Systems like SAP runs entirely out of memory - and so during a reboot, a ton of data needs to be loaded from storage to memory - with NVDIMMs alot of that data can be available with only a cursory check, rather than having to be loaded from relatively slow storage - allowing the system to come up much quicker - even saving a couple hours on a reboot means the business can be back up and running, saving hours on lost productivity. In most large companies - nothing happens without SAP.
Intel's marketing materials are based on having 95% market share in the Datacenter and a long relationship with businesses and their needs. So not like they are trying to cram on more cores to convince businesses that is what they need - and making few sales.
A PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive can easily transfer over 250GB/Min so each terabyte of persistent (Optane or equivalent) memory gives a startup advantage of 4 minutes - hardly a massive advantage
I have and you are very wrong. Just SAP itself isn't an in RAM program, it is a set of different types of programs. SAP itself can run on multiple different DBs (Sybase, MSSQL, Oracle, MaxDB, DB2, or HANA) and with the exception of S4 HANA you need a separate system for your application server. Of those only HANA is a in RAM DB. Shutting down SAP doesn't take that long itself, shutting down HANA on the other hand can take a while depending on the storage subsystem you have. A 128GB RAM HANA DB can take up to 20 minutes to shutdown or restart on a 8Gb Fibre Channel SAN with 10k spinning disks. However, moving to a Software Defined Storage (SDS) array with NVMe disk and dual port 25Gb iSCSI interfaces changed that same shutdown & restart to less than 2 minutes. I have started a 1000GB HANA DB on that same SDS array in about 5 minutes. When you are restarting a physical HANA appliance the thing that takes the most time is the RAM check. I've restarted appliances with 2TB RAM and the RAM check itself can take about 10-20 minutes.
Cramming more cores onto an Intel CPU is very difficult. The 28 core CPU is already near the top of the recital limit with an estimated size of 698mm2. https://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-sky... That right there means that they cannot add more cores to their monolithic die. I can guarantee you that they would if it would fit.
Those systems are running on large multi socket systems... so the individual socket core count is not really that big of a deal. Most ERP is more IO intensive than purely compute intensive.
I haven't dealt with a large SAP install - last one I was involved with was a SAP R/3 on a Sun Starfire server... and my SAP HANA is well handled by available RAM, and we don't need to worry about scheduling downtime across multiple world time zones.
1TB is not that large of an install - but larger than what I run... You have much more upto date experience than I do - i left the day to day years ago.
"Those systems are running on large multi socket systems... so the individual socket core count is not really that big of a deal." It is if it means they can run the same sized instance on cheaper systems with fewer sockets. :|
"Most ERP is more IO intensive than purely compute intensive." Then having that computer power attached to the fastest *and* widest IO available surely counts for something? Especially if, once again, it means you can get the same IO bandwidth from fewer sockets.
You're basically saying "AMD is bad for this" with a bunch of faux-authoritative statements based on outdated or inaccurate information, and then when you're called on it, you dissemble with a bunch of reasons which imply that in reality AMD could probably be quite a good fit for some people.
I wish AMD had a quad socket offering available via DIY for EPYC. I wish bot AMD and Intel would consider a dual socket offering for HEDT. I suppose the power/cooling requirements might be too high.
I was an Intel HEDT user - when the time came to replace our engineering workstations I looked into the HEDT socket 2066 offerings, and ultimately decided on going to a dual socket 3647 Xeon Scalable motherboard and CPU. More memory channels and the ability (in our case never used, due to upgrade from a small Pascal based DGX to 2 large Volta DGX-2s) a second socket. So the people who have needed the additional power have moved to Xeon already. So HEDT is largely dead - the i9900K/i10900K can handle the lower end parts of the market - and if ISV certifications are required for support (Autodesk/etc) - then the Intel/Nvidia is really the only game in town.
a Dual socket AMD or Intel aren't really that power intensive - and active CPU coolers are available for both - so chilled datacenter air would not be required (most servers use a passive heat sink, due to DC air). So if your use case requires dual socket - it's not that hard to accomplish.
"So HEDT is largely dead - the i9900K/i10900K can handle the lower end parts of the market - and if ISV certifications are required for support (Autodesk/etc) - then the Intel/Nvidia is really the only game in town." The HEDT all depends on what you are doing. If you are running applications that can be done with max 256GB RAM and scale above 10c/20t, then HEDT is still viable. Especially if you need maximum CPU performance. https://www.servethehome.com/amd-ryzen-threadrippe...
The ISV certification claim you make is total BS. https://www.amd.com/en/support/certified-drivers (that is just Radeon Pro) For CPU that is simple since it is x86-64 and anything that runs x86-64 will work with it just fine.
The vendor we used back then would only offer Support on end to end systems they supplied - so it was Intel and Nvidia - at this point AMD was not in a competitive position. Looking at the dates of the drivers - they were not certified at the time. We used Win 7 at that time.
I don't know what you want - sorry if my experience is different that what the AMD website has to say. I chose Intel and will continue to choose Intel. I don't care what you choose as I don't care.
Sorry that Intel has a dominant position in almost every single segment, also sorry that Nvidia has been destroying AMD in GPUs. Sorry that at the time when I purchased a system for the then new Window 7 that AMD was not an option for CPU or GPU. My businesses run off of Intel and Nvidia. When making the decisions for the now current system I evaluated TR and it came up short, WAY SHORT. I don't expect to eval TR or Epyc for the replacements early next year. Sorry that it somehow affects you.
I don't care what you choose, just don't come in and state things as fact when your information is 10 years old. Remember that when you make false and misleading claims people will call you out. There are a lot of IT Pros who read this website for the new tech that is coming out or because they are system builders as well. We know what we are talking about because our job is to stay on top of the trends.
If you don't care what your CTO thinks, believes, or does for your infrastructure then you are a moron of a CEO. At that point why even have a CTO since you know best about everything. If I were to come to you and state I can save you $500K today on your upgrade all while increasing performance plus more savings on power and cooling you would be an idiot not to listen. However, since you don't want to trust you CTO you will just burn money.
Wasn't aware that I hired you as my CTO. I am not the CEO - I am the owner of the business. I hired the CEO and CTO and COO for that matter. What my CTO says matters. What a forum poster on a tech forum says does not matter.
Dude, you've done this twice on the same article - waxed lyrical about "how things are", then when someone challenges you, backed out by saying it's just "how things were" or "how I decided to do things ten years ago". If you're going to make informed claims about the present then you need to be using info from the present; if you're not, then they're not really informed in any meaningful sense.
schujj07, Spunjji, you know damn well he wont ever do that. you call him out on any of his bs and fud, and all he does is resort to name calling, condesending remarks, and insults. his whole attitude is : how dare you call me out ? i know what i am talking about, and its fact, ( even though he rarely, if ever posts proof ) so dont argue with me !!! or runs away and hides.
hey, has McDonalds hired you back yet ? or are you still layed off cause of covid 19 ?
" have nothing substantive to say " oh like you do al the time ? your posts are pure fiction, and BS just like your life. your living rent free at your parents house, so point is ? the way you talk, and ALWAYS resort to insults, name calling and condescending remarks shows your are not what you claim to be. clean the basement ? what for ? when i would just make a brat like you do it.
I am not laid off - I own the businesses. Most of my employees in the largest business I own are idled at the moment - with only about 150 returning to work due to the construction sites in Texas and Florida being reopened. So, yes quite a few of my employees in that business are idled - I don't work for the businesses - I own them. Might be hard for you to understand.
Parents are both dead - I am 49yo, married, 3 kids - own not only the home I am at right now typing this, but also 4 others. So not paying rent or mortgage.
I am sorry that your zero useful content posts are responded to condescendingly - but that is all they warrant. Maybe you can put up that screen shot of a post I made, and when I responded quite a few people told you you needed to stop already. Not calling anyone names, little buddy - you do need to clean the basement, you are the brat that has that job.
Have a wonderful day, I hope that tomorrow brings some accomplishment that allows you to grow as an individual and finally start making posts that are not just reactionary posts to something that I have posted.
Interesting...mentioning Intel's "custom" non-SKU versions is fine, but AMD does exactly the same thing...;) Also, it sure looks as if TSMC is 5-7 years ahead of Intel fabrication at the moment. That's an amazing leap forward, imo.
TSMC's definitely ahead but I'm not sure that it's by that much. It's pretty obvious that Intel repeatedly shot itself in the foot with 10nm, but from the last update I know of (March) their 7nm was still on track for 2021, which will put it at ROUGH parity with TSMC's 5nm.
And past a point, arguing that a comparable process from Intel or TSMC is better than the other is kind of a fool's errand - you can't just say that just because say, EUV is used in X layers its better, or that the denser one wins: One company might decide to dial down density or increase the size of certain gates in libraries because they think it'll ultimately enable the best designs. You've also got to consider frequency scaling, yields and cost, and no one has hard numbers for those from both companies.
Intel has worked out the issues with Cobalt - not just minor features, but entire conductive layers - neither TSMC nor Samsung have even begun.
Intel 7nm will be FULL EUV - ALL 12-15 layers will be EUV - nothing on TSMC roadmap has them doing full EUV / no DUV.
But yeah, Intel traditionally had 3 variants of each node - 1 was frequency optimized, 1 was density optimized and 1 was power optimized - wasn't uncommon to get 2 in one product.
Skylake is most definitely frequency optimized - and the most recent 14nm iteration is significantly denser than the 1st 14nm iteration.
Agree on the yields - Intel announced couple years ago that it's 2018 10nm (10nm-?) had major yield issues - which somehow follows them to 10nm and 10nm+ - but that's mostly the fanboys. Intel's issue with 10 was that instead of trying for a ~2x density, they tried and failed to skip a generation with a 2.7x. 10nm is 2X and 10nm+ is that 2.7x density increase - boneheaded mistake to be sure - and in the mean time they could not produce 14nm fast enough to meet demand.
schujj07, you know he doesnt have ANY proof of this FUD he keeps spitting out. and he will NEVER post any proof what so ever of it. his posts, are 100% his own thoughts, misinformation, and FUD, specially if it means he has a chance to bash amd, and praise his gods intel and nvidia.
he will just run away and hide, like he always does when someone calls him out on his made up fud, or, resort to his usual name calling, insults and condescending remarks
Shall we use 14+X6 to keep track of Intel manufacturing process updates? To be clear this is the sixt iteration of 14nm process introduced in 2014. And God save the Queen.
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Zizy - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
BF16 maintains range, not accuracy.ABR - Sunday, June 21, 2020 - link
Yes, what the article SHOULD have said, rather than spending a paragraph dancing around it and then finally giving the table.SarahKerrigan - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
So in other words: "one platform from 1s to 8s" is dead and Xeon-EX is back. Okay then, Intel.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Same platform - Whitley. Segmentation between 1-2S and 4-8S - the customers for the 4 to 8 socket Cooper Lake are quite different from the 1 to 2 socket Ice Lake SP.Ice Lake SP is general purpose, Cooper Lake is geared more towards AI and Hyperscalers.
SarahKerrigan - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Are you sure? The leaked roadmaps a few months ago say that only the mainstream Cooper MCMs (since cancelled) are on Whitley, and the 4-8s Coopers are on their own platform, Cedar Island.https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/0...
Deicidium369 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
You are correct - seems that all Cooper Lakes will be on the Cedar Island platform and not Whitley. They will share a variant of the new socket with Ice Lake SP. It was my understanding that Whitley was split - 2S for ICL SP and 4-8 for the 28C Cooper, with the 56C MCMs being on CedarIf the MCMs were canceled (some have been produced and gone into super computers using 1st Xeon Scalable based systems) then it makes sense for Cooper to be on Cedar Island now.
So I stand corrected on the platform. The markets are still quite different for Cooper and ICL, it seems just the platform changed for Cooper.
Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Who needs honesty when you have most of the market snugly in your back pocket? 😂YB1064 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Okay, but can it run Crysis?Dragonstongue - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
better question, does it smoke any AMD products such as the Threadripper 3xxx or EPYC 3rd gen?I didnt think so, not sure why Intel is charging such a high price per core etc
SarahKerrigan - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Epyc 3rd gen doesn't exist today, and 4/8s x86 is mostly a specialized high-end market (much of it driven by replacement of RISC/UNIX systems) where AMD doesn't play. Whether the pricing is justified is obviously open for debate, but there's historical precedent for higher costs for 8s-capable parts.azfacea - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
are u suggesting these will compete with IBM z platform or something else on reliability? clearly this is not a reliability play. its commodity x86. and if max core count and max memory and max IO of 8s server does not beat a 4s EPYC, not sure what the selling point is, never mind charging a premium.unless there is particular order from like facebook for BFloat16 its not going anywhere. with a 2x perf disadvantage even that wont be enof for long.
SarahKerrigan - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Not on reliability, just on scalability. 4s/8s x86 is largely replacing RISC/UNIX (*not* z, which is a separate animal.)As for 4s Epyc... you realize that Epyc only goes to 2s, right? If you want a really big tightly-bound x86 system, whether to replace RISC/UNIX or just because you have an interconnect-sensitive app that eats a lot of RAM, Intel goes higher than AMD. That's not a value judgment, it's a statement of fact. That's also an incredibly niche market and always has been - but it's one with good margins, which presumably is why Intel still bothers.
kc77 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
No Eypc can scale further than that. Second, these chips top out at 28 cores. AMD is at a double density advantage (Actually it's worse) . Hell you have to go to 8S on these parts just to beat out the 2S AMD counter parts. The power and density lost is crazy. These are super niche parts. Aside from FaceBook I don't see anyone else getting these.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
And it seems to the people making the decisions about what goes into the Datacenter - AMD supposed "advantages" are meaningless. The 4 and 8 socket Cooper Lake is destined for hyperscalers.Zibi - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Like Facebook OCP Delta Lake Cooper Lake perhaps ?Too bad it's 2S xD
Deicidium369 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Cooper Lake is 4 and 8 sockets - designed for AI / Hyper scalersIce Lake SP is single and dual socket 38C and 64 PCIe4 lanes per socket.
Deicidium369 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Ice Lake SP has 76 cores and offers 128 lanes of PCIe4 in a dual socket system - this is the mainstream platform - most servers in traditional data centers are 2 socket... makes for an efficient VM farm - better to have 2 dual socket than a single 4 socket. And with the significant IPC increase the Sunny Cove brought (~20%) makes the 76 cores in a dual socket config equivalent to 90 or 91 cores when compared to Skylake derived Comet and Cooper and by extension Epyc. So Epyc may have 128 cores in a dual socket config - that really is not a huge advantage anymore - and with the same # of PCIe4 lanes.. Epyc shows little advantage here.You would be hard pressed to find any motherboard that supports more the 2 Epyc CPUs. there is a poster on Reddit Optilasgar that explains why more than 2 sockets on Epyc are basically not possible
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6jogw9/are_t...
Yeah the 4/8 socket will go mostly to the hyper scalers - Facebook was one of the driving factors for Cooper Lake at 4 or 8 sockets - but you can bet they won't be the only hyper scalers getting them.
Apparently what you see as AMDs advantage isn't what the large customers - hyper scalers or traditional data centers want - revenue show that to be true.
Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
@Deicidum"the significant IPC increase the Sunny Cove brought (~20%) makes the 76 cores in a dual socket config equivalent to 90 or 91 cores when compared to Skylake derived Comet and Cooper and by extension Epyc."
What's this "by extension Epyc" nonsense? Everybody knows Epyc has better IPC than Skylake.
We don't know the clock speeds for Ice Lake SP either, but if it ends up anything like the mobile variants then the IPC increase will be eaten by the clock speed decrease.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Yeah server variants with 270W are going to have the same clocks as the 15W mobile variant,,,you are really grasping at straws. AMD Epyc are roughly comparable to Skylake derived cores - so Comet Lake and Cooper Lake are Skylake derived cores, and Epyc is trying to compete with Skylake - therefore - by extension.. means that Sunny Cove has a 20% IPC advantage over Skylake - which is Comet Lake, Cooper Lake, and AMD Epyc.
mtfbwy - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Then why are the 'rate' numbers for SPEC CPU 2017 Dominated by EPYC? spots #1, #2, and #3 are all EPYC, with socket count of 16, 24, and 32.While the "glue" in this case is software instead of a hardware node-controller, it still makes for a scale-up server; the same technology is also used with Xeons for customers running workloads like SAP HANA - it makes for a far cheaper and more flexible architecture to scale up your memory.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Find one motherboard that is more than 2 sockets for AMD. Just 1.azfacea - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
i was kind of suspicious epyc 4 socket might not exist when i said that, but still i dont think it makes much of difference if you need commodity x86 compute, just buy two servers. it will still take less space and be more power efficient as long as its TSMC 7nm vs intel 14nm++what would make a difference is: max memory. if there is a server from intel that has double the max memory than biggest from AMD, then i guess there would be niche. but if such a customer exists surly AMD can rectify that if they simply choose to.
schujj07 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Unless you are using Optane DIMMs, Xeon cannot compete with AMD in terms of RAM capacity. For non Optane Xeon you would need a 4 socket host to surpass what Epyc can do in a single socket. However, 256GB LRDIMMs are INSANELY expensive, ~$5000/DIMM. Even 128GB LRDIMMs are still $1100/DIMM minimum compared to $350/DIMM for 64GB RDIMMs.I can tell you from personal experience that running SAP HANA on Epyc does work, at least in a virtualized environment. It will even pass the SAP HANA PRD Performance test. Despite what SAP, probably Intel as well, says, you do not need Xeon to run HANA. The 8 channel RAM makes things a lot nicer in getting enough RAM for multiple HANA DBs or one massive DB as well.
kc77 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Not to mention to use Optane you actually have to have your software written/configured around it. You can't just slap it in and experience wonderful performance.schujj07 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I've never used Optane, but I do know that VMware has 2 different modes for it.https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2019/04/announcin...
I don't know what the performance will be if the software isn't written for it, but hopefully the hypervisor can at least help.
Zibi - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Optane persistent memory is kinda non feature in the Vmware world. Yes you can use it, you can pass it as either very fast disk or pmem dev to the VMs that understands this, but you lose HA with that. There is no mechanism to protect (replicate) Optane mem content in case of the node failure.For me the only viable scenario for Optane persistent memory is the cache layer in the SDS.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I have been told it was not a big lift to get accomplished. SAP already has been shipping with Optane DIMM support - we can move to Optane DIMMs with our SAP install if we want. Our install is small in comparison to the systems and installs at Fortune companies.Pretty sure Oracle support is already baked in as well.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
The advantages to using Intel on SAP HANA will be the reduced boot times when Optane DIMMs are used.Zibi - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
You are aware though that the disadvantage will be worse memory performance in any other operations ? Optane DIMMs have worse throughput and worse latency. I don't know how often SAP HANA environments are restarted. I'd be surprised if that would be more than once per quarter.JayNor - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Worse performance than the database not fitting in memory? I don't think so...JayNor - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Intel 4S and 8S also increase the memory bandwidth vs a 1S solution, since more memory channels per each socket, right?also ... Ice Lake Server will have Sunny Cove
from 12/12/2018 ARS Technica article:
"Both Intel and AMD have shared these limits since 2003. No longer: Sunny Cove extends virtual addresses to 57 meaningful bits (with the top 7 bits again either all zeroes or all ones, copying bit 56), with physical memory addresses of up to 52 bits. To handle this requires a fifth level in the page table. The new limits enable 128PB of virtual address space and 4PB of physical memory."
Deicidium369 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Agreed - 2 dual socket is preferable to 1 quad socket.The comparison should be between the 2 socket Ice Lake SP and not the Cooper Lake 4 and 8 sockets. Ice Lake SP will be 38C per socket, 76 cores and 128 PCIe4 lanes in a dual socket system. Ice Lake's Sunny Cove brings a 20% increase in IPC - so that 76C performs more like a 90 or 91 core Cooper Lake. So 128 AMD cores vs 90 Intel cores - and the same 128 PCIe4 lanes and the same 8 channel memory - and the ability to use Optane DIMMs
Not much of an advantage anymore.
schujj07 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Due to VMware's change in licensing, no one is going to buy a 38c Ice Lake same as no one will buy a 48c Epyc. The only people who might are cloud providers running open source hypervisors. IDK if you know how the licensing changed, but VMware has changed their license to 32c/socket/license. If you are running a 38c Ice Lake you will need 2 licenses for it, same as the 48 or 64c Epyc. The difference is the 64c Epyc at least maximizes the cores/socket requirement.When Ice Lake is released, it won't be competing against Zen2 Epyc, it will be competing against Zen3 Epyc.On the PCIe lane Ice Lake is still at a disadvantage in a dual socket setup. Depending on configuration, Epyc can have 160 PCIe 4.0 lanes for IO and still have 96 lanes for CPU-CPU communication. Even with 96 CPU communication lanes EPYC still provides ~50% more CPU-CPU bandwidth than an Ice Lake with 6 UPI links. In all honesty Ice Lake only has caught up with 1st Gen Epyc on IO but 2nd Gen on IPC.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Intel will sell as many ICL 38 cores as it can produce - I agree that most will be 32C IF they are destined for a VMware farm..Epyc has 128 PCIe4 Lanes PERIOD. in a dual socket Epyc - 64 lanes on EACH CPU is used to communicate with the other CPU. Leaving 128 PCIe4 lanes for IO. and 64 PCIe4 lanes for CPU to CPU communications..
Cool story
schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Wrong. There are 2 different dual socket setups possible. The 128 lane IO lane setup and the 160 lane IO setup. https://www.servethehome.com/amd-epyc-7002-series-... In the 128 IO setup there are also 128 lanes for Cpu-CPUDeicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
There are no 4 socket Epycs.each CPU has 128 PCIe4 lanes - in a 2 socket system, 64 of them are used as CPU to CPU communications - please explain how you can add additional processors and still have PCIe lanes for, you know, IO.
AnGe85 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
As you can already estimate/derive from the provided graph, Epyc does not compete with Xeon's in DL/ML-Tasks, simply because of missing features.A 4S system based on low priced Xeon's should already be enough to outperform a high-end Epyc system with two 7742. AVX-512, VNNI and DLBoost provide a much higher relative performance due to specialization for these types of workloads.
AMD will provide semi custom Zen3-Epyc's for the Frontier with good cause. ;-)
mode_13h - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
But, if you really care about deep learning performance, then you wouldn't use a CPU for it. That's why Intel just spent $2B to acquire Habana Labs.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Or FPGAs configured as Tensor cores or tensor coresmode_13h - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Also, AVX-512 has significant performance pitfalls. It's close to being an anti-feature.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Not in the case of BFloat they don't. Stick to desktops.AlexDaum - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
AVX-512 is great for performance, but it requires good programmers to make use of it, since it is no easy task creating an AVX optimised codepath.Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
All programming needs good programmers... most of the organizations that will have a use for ZVX will be able to draw upto existing libraries to integrate into a custom program...eek2121 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
It will be interesting if Milan supports bfloat16 as well. Unless AMD segregates enterprise chips (they will at some point), it would mean that bfloat16 trickles down to desktop chips.Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Well Intel comes out with a feature, and then AMD copies it - so pretty sure bfloat is coming to AMD and AVX-512...Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
There's no such thing as a "low priced" 4S Xeon system, though. The processors are expensive and so are the servers you put them into.That's been AMD's pitch the whole time - consolidate more cores into fewer sockets for a lower cost of ownership. If you want to do DL/ML you put in accelerators for those jobs, which again, will be cheaper than trying to reach the same performance with a Xeon.
Intel are trying to find niches for their CPUs to occupy, but those niches are better occupied by products that cater to them specifically.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
most of Cooper Lake will be for hyper scalers - not just, but most.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Smokes them in number shipped, market adoption, market share and revenues. From a business standpoint that is all that mattersschujj07 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
That seems to be the only retort that you ever have for Intel. What you fail to realize is that given time those numbers will change if Intel continues to falter. Ice Lake is very late and when it comes out will be competing against 3rd Gen Epyc. We already know from laptops that Zen 2 competes quite well with Ice Lake on a performance side. We also know that Ice Lake has had frequency problems and has high power draw relative to Zen 2. Those things don't bode well for it in the data center. We already are seeing more companies moving to Epyc, especially those that have CTOs/CIOs that don't follow the Intel only mantra. In the enterprise world the tables are turning for Intel, much the same way it did for IBM years ago. It used to be that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM" now it is "no one was ever fired for buying Intel." That first statement eventually died and was replaced by the 2nd, and the 2nd is starting to die as well.AlexDaum - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
The main advantage of the Intel Xeons over Epyc is AVX-512 Support, which can have a large performance impact in some Software that can make use of itSpunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
It's the same line every time. It's like listening to a realtor trying to sell a house on a cliff-side."Lovely ocean views, hasn't fallen into the sea any time in the past 20 years, so why would you ever expect it to?"
It also sets up the weird false dichotomy that Intel can't be executing poorly if they're still selling lots of their products; as if the global CPU market would just go away tomorrow just because Intel were selling junk.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Yeah - revenues and profits are never used to measure a business. It's about fee fees and the # of rabid AMD supporters...Sorry that Intel consistently provides what the market wants, and make record revenue quarter after quarter - and AMD Epycs are sitting in systems at the OEMs - since no one is buying them
schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Just because someone makes profit doesn't mean it makes what the market wants. Sometimes there is only one option so by design you will make a profit. Doesn't mean that just because you are the only player that your product is what people want. More often than not the product does an OK job but people want something different. In IT data centers the people making the decisions are often times older or just don't know any better. Not to mention when trying to come into a market in which 1 player has >=95% of the mark share it will take time to make inroads.Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Threadripper isn't a competitor for this product.Duncan Macdonald - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
What low price 4S Xeon ? A 16 core 4 socket 4.5TB Xeon (the 6328HL) has a list price of $4779so 4 of these gives a list price of over $19,000 - for comparison a single 7702P costs $4600 and has the same 64 cores as the 4 Xeon CPUs put together and a maximum memory of 4TB (and for good measure has 128 PCIe 4 lanes vs 20 PCIe lanes per Xeon CPU). By the time that you include the price of the required extras for a 4 socket system (4 socket motherboard, special power supplies etc) the 4S Intel system is far more costly than the single socket AMD system.
flgt - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Unless you're a FB or Intel employee, no one has any idea what the real price they pay for these processors. And only AMD and Intel know the margins that can be sacrificed to secure a crucial design win. You also have to balance the manufacturing capacity that can be brought to the table at a given price point. That's a huge advantage for Intel even with all the bad press their manufacturing has received. They can choose to pull capacity from low margin retail products if needed. AMD would have to negotiate with TSMC and compete against their other critical clients for capacity.Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Technically AMD can also choose to pull capacity from their desktop processor sales if needs be, but you're right that the overall constraints on their manufacturing capacity are more severe.Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Also worth noting that there's a difference between how much these things cost at list price, how much they cost for a massive organisation buying a few hundred units, and how much they cost for SMEs buying from resellers. I used to work for a large EU reseller and can confirm that even with the customary discounts and bids in place, 4S systems carry a substantial premium over 2S.Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
who cares about some fictional EU retailer you "worked for"...2 socket cost more than a single socket
4 socket cost more than 2 socket
8 socket cost more than 4 socket.
The higher socket count are more expensive per socket than the lower socket count systems - due to the workload and specialized nature of a use case that requires 8 sockets.
Didn't need to work somewhere to know that.
Korguz - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
and who cares the BS and FUD that you claim is your own fictional life, but yet, you constantly brad boast and keep making it up as you go along.Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
No one, even someone like me only buying 60, are paying any where near MSRP. and for big customers like FB which would likely install hundreds if not thousands of these systems - the MSRP is irrelevent. ~$11K list - my Q60 order was less than $9K per.The only bad press is from the fanboys.. some of them are editors... So yes, was delayed - yet record revenue - so yeah not a bad deal. Companies like FB don't care what the manufacturing process is - they ask "can it do what I need it to do right now?" And apparently 14nm PCIe3 Cooper Lake does.
schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
If you are buying 60 hosts @ $9k/host I see a lot of waste. At that cost you aren't getting much in a Xeon. You could save huge amounts of money by reducing your number of hosts and sockets.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
60 CPUs purchased16 - Engineering workstations - dual socket - single CPU installed
2 - my engineering workstation - dual socket with dual CPU installed
16 - 4 dual node servers - 2 nodes x 2 sockets - primary datacenter (Colorado)
16 - 4 dual node servers - 2 nodes x 2 sockets - secondary datacenter (Dallas)
6 - 3 single node dual socket - flash arrays - 1 at primary, 1 at secondary, 3rd for engineering
4 - dual node server, 2 nodes x 2 sockets - systems used by IT for testing new software
2 are basically spares, today. The 8 CPUs for the SAP server were originally intended for a different purpose - for a possible replacement for my large SGI TP16000 array - which never materialized (the array is the only remaining IB system in the mix - a Mellanox SwitchX-2 SX6710G made the conversion between the 8 40Gb/s IB to 8 40Gb/s Ethernet).
When we moved to SAP, we had no baseline whatsoever - so it went on it's own physical server in our datacenter in Colorado - with a mirror at Level 3 in Dallas. After a year, we decided to virtualize - and after the move to virtual, added the 4th server (nodes 7&8) to the pool - changes made in Colorado are made in Dallas as well.
When we replace the servers in the next ~12 months, the plan is to go back to 6 nodes - whether that is another 2U 2 node configuration, or as individual servers remains to be seen - will most likely be Ice Lake SP to be able to leverage PCIe4 to use dual 100Gb/s Ethernet for the planned network upgrade.
So initially the SAP system was on a dual node, 4 socket total physical server.
The CPUs were $9K per - not the hosts - hosts are servers. I can see why you say hosts - you missed the context.
"The MSRP is irrelevant. ~$11K list - my Q60 order was less than $9K per"
The $11K was in response to flgt post "Unless you're a FB or Intel employee, no one has any idea what the real price they pay for these processors." which was a response to Duncan Macdonald's post about "A 16 core 4 socket 4.5TB Xeon (the 6328HL) has a list price of $4779"
So talking about MSRP/List prices - Duncan made a claim about MSRP prices, flgt responded that very large customers pay less per unit - and I responded with my own experience with purchasing a very small number of CPUs compared to FB prices "even someone like me only buying 60, are paying any where near MSRP."
My post needed to be edited to be "even someone like me only buying 60, are *NOT* paying any where near MSRP
so $9K per CPU - not $9K per host. You missed the context.
You need to try to be more civil - the constant effort to refute everything I say is fine - but you also need to understand the context, rather than immediately sniping. I have no problem debating the merits of whatever - but the mindless / reactionary responses from you and people like Korguz need to stop. He never offers anything to the conversation and just lies in wait - with probable screen captures to try and make his point - which is "I suck".
Sorry that I didn't choose your preference for my systems - sorry that you and others feel attacked whenever someone states the facts about AMD. I prefer Intel (along with 95% of the server market). When you are putting together a PO to buy the servers and switches, etc for your business - you can choose what you wish, and what your budget will allow.
I have 10 people in my IT department, with over 200+ years of experience between us. The decision for hardware are not made on the fly. Other than now having a 7th and 8th node that is not needed, I have been pretty happy with the decisions we have made. Business continuity and performance were our primary goals, and both were met. The opinions held by posters on a tech forum do not come into play
schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
How many of the $9k hosts are your SAP HANA hosts?Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
thing is 4 socket motherboards for Intel exist - they don't for Epyc.If you are buying a 4 socket Intel system - you would buy either and Inspur or a Supermicro - which would be the motherboard, case, those "special power supplies" etc...
Those "special power supplies" are redundant and hot swap - something companies like Sun, SGI, Cisco and every single OEM have had for ages - they are considered STANDARD - not special.
brucethemoose - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
So I guess the use case is training on enormous datasets that don't fit into the VRAM of a GPU/AI accelerator?xenol - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
It looks like that, plus using Optane offers very fast persistent storage which depending on bandwidth needs can replace DRAM. Either way, having a large amount of very fast storage vs. a split between DRAM and secondary storage seems to have a benefit if you believe Intel's marketing materials.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Ever been involved with a very large SAP install? Once the system is in production and needs to be restarted - the amount of time it takes to bring down and back up can take hours and hours - all the while it is not able to be used. Systems like SAP runs entirely out of memory - and so during a reboot, a ton of data needs to be loaded from storage to memory - with NVDIMMs alot of that data can be available with only a cursory check, rather than having to be loaded from relatively slow storage - allowing the system to come up much quicker - even saving a couple hours on a reboot means the business can be back up and running, saving hours on lost productivity. In most large companies - nothing happens without SAP.Intel's marketing materials are based on having 95% market share in the Datacenter and a long relationship with businesses and their needs. So not like they are trying to cram on more cores to convince businesses that is what they need - and making few sales.
Duncan Macdonald - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
A PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive can easily transfer over 250GB/Min so each terabyte of persistent (Optane or equivalent) memory gives a startup advantage of 4 minutes - hardly a massive advantageDeicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Funny admins of extremely large SAP and other ERP installs say otherwise.JayNor - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
The SSD speed depends on the block sizes and whether the data is restored serially.The other issue is that the data may not have been stored to the SSD.
schujj07 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I have and you are very wrong. Just SAP itself isn't an in RAM program, it is a set of different types of programs. SAP itself can run on multiple different DBs (Sybase, MSSQL, Oracle, MaxDB, DB2, or HANA) and with the exception of S4 HANA you need a separate system for your application server. Of those only HANA is a in RAM DB. Shutting down SAP doesn't take that long itself, shutting down HANA on the other hand can take a while depending on the storage subsystem you have. A 128GB RAM HANA DB can take up to 20 minutes to shutdown or restart on a 8Gb Fibre Channel SAN with 10k spinning disks. However, moving to a Software Defined Storage (SDS) array with NVMe disk and dual port 25Gb iSCSI interfaces changed that same shutdown & restart to less than 2 minutes. I have started a 1000GB HANA DB on that same SDS array in about 5 minutes. When you are restarting a physical HANA appliance the thing that takes the most time is the RAM check. I've restarted appliances with 2TB RAM and the RAM check itself can take about 10-20 minutes.Cramming more cores onto an Intel CPU is very difficult. The 28 core CPU is already near the top of the recital limit with an estimated size of 698mm2. https://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-sky... That right there means that they cannot add more cores to their monolithic die. I can guarantee you that they would if it would fit.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Those systems are running on large multi socket systems... so the individual socket core count is not really that big of a deal. Most ERP is more IO intensive than purely compute intensive.I haven't dealt with a large SAP install - last one I was involved with was a SAP R/3 on a Sun Starfire server... and my SAP HANA is well handled by available RAM, and we don't need to worry about scheduling downtime across multiple world time zones.
1TB is not that large of an install - but larger than what I run... You have much more upto date experience than I do - i left the day to day years ago.
Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
"Those systems are running on large multi socket systems... so the individual socket core count is not really that big of a deal."It is if it means they can run the same sized instance on cheaper systems with fewer sockets. :|
"Most ERP is more IO intensive than purely compute intensive."
Then having that computer power attached to the fastest *and* widest IO available surely counts for something? Especially if, once again, it means you can get the same IO bandwidth from fewer sockets.
You're basically saying "AMD is bad for this" with a bunch of faux-authoritative statements based on outdated or inaccurate information, and then when you're called on it, you dissemble with a bunch of reasons which imply that in reality AMD could probably be quite a good fit for some people.
eek2121 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I wish AMD had a quad socket offering available via DIY for EPYC. I wish bot AMD and Intel would consider a dual socket offering for HEDT. I suppose the power/cooling requirements might be too high.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I was an Intel HEDT user - when the time came to replace our engineering workstations I looked into the HEDT socket 2066 offerings, and ultimately decided on going to a dual socket 3647 Xeon Scalable motherboard and CPU. More memory channels and the ability (in our case never used, due to upgrade from a small Pascal based DGX to 2 large Volta DGX-2s) a second socket. So the people who have needed the additional power have moved to Xeon already. So HEDT is largely dead - the i9900K/i10900K can handle the lower end parts of the market - and if ISV certifications are required for support (Autodesk/etc) - then the Intel/Nvidia is really the only game in town.a Dual socket AMD or Intel aren't really that power intensive - and active CPU coolers are available for both - so chilled datacenter air would not be required (most servers use a passive heat sink, due to DC air). So if your use case requires dual socket - it's not that hard to accomplish.
schujj07 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
"So HEDT is largely dead - the i9900K/i10900K can handle the lower end parts of the market - and if ISV certifications are required for support (Autodesk/etc) - then the Intel/Nvidia is really the only game in town." The HEDT all depends on what you are doing. If you are running applications that can be done with max 256GB RAM and scale above 10c/20t, then HEDT is still viable. Especially if you need maximum CPU performance. https://www.servethehome.com/amd-ryzen-threadrippe...The ISV certification claim you make is total BS. https://www.amd.com/en/support/certified-drivers (that is just Radeon Pro) For CPU that is simple since it is x86-64 and anything that runs x86-64 will work with it just fine.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
SighThe vendor we used back then would only offer Support on end to end systems they supplied - so it was Intel and Nvidia - at this point AMD was not in a competitive position. Looking at the dates of the drivers - they were not certified at the time. We used Win 7 at that time.
I don't know what you want - sorry if my experience is different that what the AMD website has to say. I chose Intel and will continue to choose Intel. I don't care what you choose as I don't care.
Sorry that Intel has a dominant position in almost every single segment, also sorry that Nvidia has been destroying AMD in GPUs. Sorry that at the time when I purchased a system for the then new Window 7 that AMD was not an option for CPU or GPU. My businesses run off of Intel and Nvidia. When making the decisions for the now current system I evaluated TR and it came up short, WAY SHORT. I don't expect to eval TR or Epyc for the replacements early next year. Sorry that it somehow affects you.
schujj07 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
I don't care what you choose, just don't come in and state things as fact when your information is 10 years old. Remember that when you make false and misleading claims people will call you out. There are a lot of IT Pros who read this website for the new tech that is coming out or because they are system builders as well. We know what we are talking about because our job is to stay on top of the trends.Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Yeah and you work for people like me. And I don't care what you think, believe or do.schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
If you don't care what your CTO thinks, believes, or does for your infrastructure then you are a moron of a CEO. At that point why even have a CTO since you know best about everything. If I were to come to you and state I can save you $500K today on your upgrade all while increasing performance plus more savings on power and cooling you would be an idiot not to listen. However, since you don't want to trust you CTO you will just burn money.Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
Wasn't aware that I hired you as my CTO. I am not the CEO - I am the owner of the business. I hired the CEO and CTO and COO for that matter. What my CTO says matters. What a forum poster on a tech forum says does not matter.Spunjji - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Dude, you've done this twice on the same article - waxed lyrical about "how things are", then when someone challenges you, backed out by saying it's just "how things were" or "how I decided to do things ten years ago". If you're going to make informed claims about the present then you need to be using info from the present; if you're not, then they're not really informed in any meaningful sense.Korguz - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
schujj07, Spunjji, you know damn well he wont ever do that. you call him out on any of his bs and fud, and all he does is resort to name calling, condesending remarks, and insults. his whole attitude is : how dare you call me out ? i know what i am talking about, and its fact, ( even though he rarely, if ever posts proof ) so dont argue with me !!! or runs away and hides.Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Hey little buddybored? have nothing substantive to say? thinking about me? Living rent free in that low rent run down tenement in your head.
Now do as you mother has asked - and go clean the basement.
Korguz - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
hey, has McDonalds hired you back yet ? or are you still layed off cause of covid 19 ?" have nothing substantive to say " oh like you do al the time ? your posts are pure fiction, and BS just like your life. your living rent free at your parents house, so point is ? the way you talk, and ALWAYS resort to insults, name calling and condescending remarks shows your are not what you claim to be. clean the basement ? what for ? when i would just make a brat like you do it.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
I am not laid off - I own the businesses. Most of my employees in the largest business I own are idled at the moment - with only about 150 returning to work due to the construction sites in Texas and Florida being reopened. So, yes quite a few of my employees in that business are idled - I don't work for the businesses - I own them. Might be hard for you to understand.Parents are both dead - I am 49yo, married, 3 kids - own not only the home I am at right now typing this, but also 4 others. So not paying rent or mortgage.
I am sorry that your zero useful content posts are responded to condescendingly - but that is all they warrant. Maybe you can put up that screen shot of a post I made, and when I responded quite a few people told you you needed to stop already. Not calling anyone names, little buddy - you do need to clean the basement, you are the brat that has that job.
Have a wonderful day, I hope that tomorrow brings some accomplishment that allows you to grow as an individual and finally start making posts that are not just reactionary posts to something that I have posted.
WaltC - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Interesting...mentioning Intel's "custom" non-SKU versions is fine, but AMD does exactly the same thing...;) Also, it sure looks as if TSMC is 5-7 years ahead of Intel fabrication at the moment. That's an amazing leap forward, imo.sing_electric - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
TSMC's definitely ahead but I'm not sure that it's by that much. It's pretty obvious that Intel repeatedly shot itself in the foot with 10nm, but from the last update I know of (March) their 7nm was still on track for 2021, which will put it at ROUGH parity with TSMC's 5nm.And past a point, arguing that a comparable process from Intel or TSMC is better than the other is kind of a fool's errand - you can't just say that just because say, EUV is used in X layers its better, or that the denser one wins: One company might decide to dial down density or increase the size of certain gates in libraries because they think it'll ultimately enable the best designs. You've also got to consider frequency scaling, yields and cost, and no one has hard numbers for those from both companies.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Intel has worked out the issues with Cobalt - not just minor features, but entire conductive layers - neither TSMC nor Samsung have even begun.Intel 7nm will be FULL EUV - ALL 12-15 layers will be EUV - nothing on TSMC roadmap has them doing full EUV / no DUV.
But yeah, Intel traditionally had 3 variants of each node - 1 was frequency optimized, 1 was density optimized and 1 was power optimized - wasn't uncommon to get 2 in one product.
Skylake is most definitely frequency optimized - and the most recent 14nm iteration is significantly denser than the 1st 14nm iteration.
Agree on the yields - Intel announced couple years ago that it's 2018 10nm (10nm-?) had major yield issues - which somehow follows them to 10nm and 10nm+ - but that's mostly the fanboys. Intel's issue with 10 was that instead of trying for a ~2x density, they tried and failed to skip a generation with a 2.7x. 10nm is 2X and 10nm+ is that 2.7x density increase - boneheaded mistake to be sure - and in the mean time they could not produce 14nm fast enough to meet demand.
schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
What proof do you have for any of those claims. Please link actual sources instead of your own thoughts.Korguz - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
schujj07, you know he doesnt have ANY proof of this FUD he keeps spitting out. and he will NEVER post any proof what so ever of it. his posts, are 100% his own thoughts, misinformation, and FUD, specially if it means he has a chance to bash amd, and praise his gods intel and nvidia.schujj07 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
I know he doesn't have proof. I just want to see if he will try or just give up.Korguz - Sunday, June 21, 2020 - link
he will just run away and hide, like he always does when someone calls him out on his made up fud, or, resort to his usual name calling, insults and condescending remarksDeicidium369 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Intel-pursuing-Cobalt...https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-manufacturers/i...
https://semiengineering.com/dealing-with-resistanc...
Pretty simple to Google - http://www.google.com type in what you are searching for.
Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
Intel 10nm+ is roughly equal to TSMC "7nm"LMAO - so no, no where near 5-7 years - stick to flipping burgers.
Korguz - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
" stick to flipping burgers. " like you used to do before you were layed off from McDonalds?Deicidium369 - Thursday, June 25, 2020 - link
So clever. Wow, your massive intellect has beaten me. Oh what shall I do.WuMing2 - Tuesday, July 7, 2020 - link
Shall we use 14+X6 to keep track of Intel manufacturing process updates? To be clear this is the sixt iteration of 14nm process introduced in 2014. And God save the Queen.