By: David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com), January 29, 2013 1:35 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Richard Cownie (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on January 29, 2013 7:01 am wrote:
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on January 29, 2013 6:09 am wrote:
>
> > How competition from low-margin Qualcomm is different from competition from low-margin
> > AMD server chips? Of from Intel's own medium-margin Xeon-E3 line?
>
> AMD did in fact put a dent in Intel's server business when they had relatively
> good throughput-per-dollar, plus innovations like better virtualization support.
> But over the last few years their cores have been
> too slow to match up, without offering the system-level advantages in
> throughput-per-watt and throughput-per-1U-rack that ARM-based products are
> likely to offer.
Why can't Intel match these? I mean, they certainly can slap together a pile of Atom cores, memory controllers, PCI-E, networking and SATA controller.
> And AMD's business model - sell something not quite as good
> as Intel's product, for a bit less - is not at all like the hyper-competitive
> ARM mobile-cpu business.
> They also established a bad reputation for missing schedules and delivering
> parts which didn't perform as predicted - again, competitors emerging from
> the ARM mobile space have probably already learnt that lesson.
Except most of them have 0 experience with server processors, platforms, etc. and are subject to potential foundry delays.
> Competition from Intel's mid-range parts is definitely a factor, and that comes
> down to Intel's internal decisions about whether they're willing to cannibalize
> their own ultra-high-margin server cpu business before someone else eats it.
> I could easily imagine that Intel might retain their 85% market share, but only
> at much lower ASP and lower margin, if they're willing to accept that.
Intel already offers 4C/8T Xeon processors for around $200 list. That's really really inexpensive and I don't see how an ARM vendor is going to compete well.
While $200 sounds like a lot, there's an awful lot of unique NRE for server stuff. It's not like you can just use the same memory controllers for a cell phone and a server.
> The one thing I can see that might change this would be for Intel to come up with
> a much better main-memory technology (and I guess die-stacking might be a possibility):
> but if everyone is stuck with the same DDR3/DDR4 standard, with the same number
> of pins and the same effective-bandwidth-per-pin, then they're all going to be in
> the same ballpark for server throughput, regardless of ISA and process-node
> differences.
That ignores caching and potentially compute bound apps. Also, there's no reason to assume that everyone designs equally competent memory controllers. The evidence really points in the other direction.
David
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on January 29, 2013 6:09 am wrote:
>
> > How competition from low-margin Qualcomm is different from competition from low-margin
> > AMD server chips? Of from Intel's own medium-margin Xeon-E3 line?
>
> AMD did in fact put a dent in Intel's server business when they had relatively
> good throughput-per-dollar, plus innovations like better virtualization support.
> But over the last few years their cores have been
> too slow to match up, without offering the system-level advantages in
> throughput-per-watt and throughput-per-1U-rack that ARM-based products are
> likely to offer.
Why can't Intel match these? I mean, they certainly can slap together a pile of Atom cores, memory controllers, PCI-E, networking and SATA controller.
> And AMD's business model - sell something not quite as good
> as Intel's product, for a bit less - is not at all like the hyper-competitive
> ARM mobile-cpu business.
> They also established a bad reputation for missing schedules and delivering
> parts which didn't perform as predicted - again, competitors emerging from
> the ARM mobile space have probably already learnt that lesson.
Except most of them have 0 experience with server processors, platforms, etc. and are subject to potential foundry delays.
> Competition from Intel's mid-range parts is definitely a factor, and that comes
> down to Intel's internal decisions about whether they're willing to cannibalize
> their own ultra-high-margin server cpu business before someone else eats it.
> I could easily imagine that Intel might retain their 85% market share, but only
> at much lower ASP and lower margin, if they're willing to accept that.
Intel already offers 4C/8T Xeon processors for around $200 list. That's really really inexpensive and I don't see how an ARM vendor is going to compete well.
While $200 sounds like a lot, there's an awful lot of unique NRE for server stuff. It's not like you can just use the same memory controllers for a cell phone and a server.
> The one thing I can see that might change this would be for Intel to come up with
> a much better main-memory technology (and I guess die-stacking might be a possibility):
> but if everyone is stuck with the same DDR3/DDR4 standard, with the same number
> of pins and the same effective-bandwidth-per-pin, then they're all going to be in
> the same ballpark for server throughput, regardless of ISA and process-node
> differences.
That ignores caching and potentially compute bound apps. Also, there's no reason to assume that everyone designs equally competent memory controllers. The evidence really points in the other direction.
David
