David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 12/30/11 wrote:
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>The biggest problem is that the economics totally break for AMD when you are talking
>about using a different die for servers.

For a time AMD had >40% 4P x86 server market, maybe more than 50%, Intel have a specific die for this market so a new mask should pay itself, of course, for AMD it's better to earn more money without having to pay an extra mask, but since they don't have a real competitor against Westmare-EX earn without paying isn't an option anymore.

BTW, Thuban was almost a server specific die, latter it was marketed in the high-end desktop market where the volume is even lower than servers, falling later to the mid-end, where margin for such a big die is pretty low, and it lost a lot of ground on server space, what if AMD had a better server die?

Of course, using the desktop die on the server is better, but if it is not possible a server specific die pays itself.