By: dmcq (dmcq.delete@this.fano.co.uk), August 10, 2014 2:43 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Jouni Osmala (josmala.delete@this.cc.hut.fi) on August 10, 2014 2:12 pm wrote:
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on August 10, 2014 6:18 am wrote:
> > juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 10, 2014 6:00 am wrote:
.....
> >
> > Benchmarketing or not, if AMD wants any profit, it can't sell narrow-niche product like A-series
> > Opteron for the same price as wider-niche based-on-existing-tech X-series Opteron. They would want
> > to sell it for $150 at least. But $150 BD-based Opterons are in completely different league performance
> > wise. And even faster $200 Xeon-E3s (e.g. E3-1220 v3) waiting just around the corner.
>
> The first arm chip they sell is relatively low capital cost version to establish a foothold in the market,
> and maybe get software and everything else prepared for their real goal with their inhouse arm core, in 2016.
> So they might sell it at price that is reasonable for its performance level, assuming they have prepared
> and much higher performance arm core in pipeline coming in 2016 that they use to lift the price.
Yes it would be silly of them to put in a big investment for a 2014 or 2015 chip. What they produce in 2016 should be interesting though as it will be one of the purest comparisons of the x86 ISA against the 64 bit ARM as they'll produce chips with everything the same except the core. But I guess this argument over the effect of the ISA will probably be over by 2016! :) ARM will be going against Intel whose chip designs seem to be a bit better than AMD and they have a better process so the ISA by no means determines which actual chips will be better. It'll be an interesting battle, I'd guess the Intel mobile contra revenue will be as nothing compared to what they'll do to defend their server patch from any incursions.
> Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on August 10, 2014 6:18 am wrote:
> > juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 10, 2014 6:00 am wrote:
.....
> >
> > Benchmarketing or not, if AMD wants any profit, it can't sell narrow-niche product like A-series
> > Opteron for the same price as wider-niche based-on-existing-tech X-series Opteron. They would want
> > to sell it for $150 at least. But $150 BD-based Opterons are in completely different league performance
> > wise. And even faster $200 Xeon-E3s (e.g. E3-1220 v3) waiting just around the corner.
>
> The first arm chip they sell is relatively low capital cost version to establish a foothold in the market,
> and maybe get software and everything else prepared for their real goal with their inhouse arm core, in 2016.
> So they might sell it at price that is reasonable for its performance level, assuming they have prepared
> and much higher performance arm core in pipeline coming in 2016 that they use to lift the price.
Yes it would be silly of them to put in a big investment for a 2014 or 2015 chip. What they produce in 2016 should be interesting though as it will be one of the purest comparisons of the x86 ISA against the 64 bit ARM as they'll produce chips with everything the same except the core. But I guess this argument over the effect of the ISA will probably be over by 2016! :) ARM will be going against Intel whose chip designs seem to be a bit better than AMD and they have a better process so the ISA by no means determines which actual chips will be better. It'll be an interesting battle, I'd guess the Intel mobile contra revenue will be as nothing compared to what they'll do to defend their server patch from any incursions.
