rwessel (rwessel.delete@this.yahoo.com) on January 28, 2023 8:41 am wrote:
> Chris G (chrisg.delete@this.chrisg.com) on January 28, 2023 3:24 am wrote:
> > None of the Sapphire Rapids SKUs with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) have In-memory Analytics Accelerators
> > or QuickAssist Technology accelerators enabled. None of the SKUs with HBM support Intel On Demand
> > so there is no way for customers to pay extra for these accelerators even if they want to. The
> > SKUs with HBM have recommended customer prices of $8k (32 cores) to $13k (56 cores). Intel should
> > enable all of the on-die accelerators on expensive parts like these. The silicon area of the dedicated
> > accelerators is small so their effect on yield is insignificant.
> >
> > The Intel On Demand scheme is penny wise and pound foolish because it will accelerate adoption of
> > AMD and ARM processors. This is the type of dumb idea that gets implemented when marketing people
> > are in charge. Intel probably spent a similar amount of engineering implementing their scheme for
> > metered usage of on-die accelerators as they spent on implementing the actual accelerators.
>
>
> Without commenting on desirability and ethics, IBM, for example, has long done things like that with
> the big POWER boxes and Z. On Z you can even do things like short term memory and CPU upgrades (mostly
> non-disruptively too), so you can handle things like seasonal workloads spikes or special situations.
> You can even get a boost while booting/IPLing the system. The situations aren't perfectly parallel,
> but there's clearly people out there who are willing to buy into that sort of thing.

IBM has no competitors for folks who want to run z-OS. The margin is reasonably high, so they can over-provision servers.

Intel is in a different situation. Although they can further segment their customer base.
1) I agree with Chris about driving people toward AMD and arm,
2) accidentally creating a certification nightmare.
3) Pissing off customers and purchasing departments which now would have to deal with predicting future costs of using these features. Can the prices for these features fluctuate after I purchase the server ...

Thank you David for teaching me to correctly spell various citrus species.