Intel peddles latest Xeon CPUs – E-series and 48-core Cascade Lake AP – to soothe epyc mygrayne

Intel will today talk up two new Xeon processor family members: the 48-core Cascade Lake Advanced Performance (AP), and the single-socket E-2100. Both are, it seems, direct responses to AMD's Epyc data-center processors, which are themselves chiseling away bit by bit at Intel's monopoly in the global server market. The US …

[Shadow Systems]

Cascade Lake Advanced Performance?

So if you go with Intel you'll get the CLAP?

*Cough*

If I were in the market for a server (or a entire farm of them) then I'd be inclined to go with AMD anyway. It seems like every time AMD releases a chip with X cores, Intel announces one with X+Y & claims it'll be better. But then it actually hits the market, gets compared to the AMD it's supposed to replace, & turns out to be either the same as or even slightly worse than the AMD. Meanwhile AMD has come out with X+Y+Z & is running merry rings around Intel like a happy yappy little UnderDog that is all too delighted to piddle on Intels feet.

Even if AMD is only a few percentage points +/- Intels offerings, that still means Intel has to *work* to earn our business. THAT means they can't just sit back on their fat arses, charge us the moon for microscopic increments, & call it a day. With AMD nipping at their heels & stealing bites of their market share, it means Intel has to do some actual work to stay in a potential buyer's Rolodex.

"Let's see. I need a small server. I can get one from Intel for a couple thousand £££... or I can get one from AMD for HALF? Fek Intel! I'm calling AMD..."

[hellwig]

Re: Cascade Lake Advanced Performance?

This type of behavior (behaviour?) should really upset Intel customers. Intel appears to be selling only the minimum to keep it's advantage. When a competitor comes out with something a little better... Intel says "oh look, we also have something even a little more better". Why didn't they release that in the first place?

[Duncan Macdonald]

6 cores vs 32 ??

The EPYC has up to 32 cores, up to 2TB max memory and 128 PCIe lanes vs up to 6 cores and 64GB (128 GB later) and 16 PCIe lanes for the E 2100 series.

(Even the Threadripper 2950X has 16 cores, up to 1TB memory and 60 available PCIe lanes.)

The only advantage of the E2100 series is a higher clock frequency - for most server workloads this will fail to meet the performance advantage of the extra cores of the Threadripper let alone the EPYC.

The E 2100 series is NOT a competitor to the EPYC - it is not even much of a competitor to the Threadripper 2950X.

[ToddRundgrensUtopia]

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

@ Duncan McDonald.

It said 48 cores for the Cascade Lake thingy!

[Duncan Macdonald]

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

Only the E 2100 series is available at the moment - the CLAP series are not due before 2019.

I was therefore comparing what is available (as something other than a PowerPoint presentation!!).

(The correct comparison with the top of the E 2100 series is a Ryzen 2700X not EPYC.)

[Will Godfrey]

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

What!

You used {gasp} reality?

Are you insane?

[bombastic bob]

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

good luck getting a WINDOWS OS to properly leverage all of those cores [at least for a desktop/workstation].

Now, with virtualization, pretty easily done with any decent work load.

I'd like one of those 'threadripper' CPUs on my desktop workstation, though. I have need of "that many cores" and I'd use FreeBSD and/or Linux...

[devTrail]

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

Actually they have on the market a lot of manycores processors, but prices are outrageously high. If they really want to compete with AMD they'll have to cut them drastically, the huge profits they keep reporting tells me that there's a lot of room for those price cuts, unless they will affect managers' bonuses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chipzilla?

Getting more like Chipzookie with each passing year.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Chipzilla?

How about Chipoodle?

[Steve Todd]

This the day before

AMD are expected to announce the 64 core 7nm EPYC. Desperate much Intel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy!!! :-)

I can't wait to see what exploits come with these new chips!

[Anonymous Coward]

Roadmap timing

So Cascade Lake SP Is still coming this year? CLAP is sometime next year? and is that select customers or widespread.

I think Cascade lake SP is available now on Google VMs.... or is it? Feels like they are announcing follow on products before previous product ships.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: Roadmap timing

Well, Epyc is already being shipped with the next-gen coming soon, so Intel just HAD to announce something -anything- just to look like they're not sitting on their arse milking customers dry.

[Sideways]

So a probable 7nm 64 core 128 threads Rome chip v's .... this...thing???

Lmao... jings it looks bad for the blue team.

[dnicholas]

I think AMD will take serious server share with next gen Epyc. The only question is how much. There are too many businesses that will buy Intel from fear of reprisals

[Roo]

IMO AMD will have to maintain their edge for a couple more years to make a big inroad into Intel's market share, simply because it takes many months if not years for a large corp to switch over to new gear.

AMD do have a great opportunity to go for the jugular. Four years ago Intel gear was seen as fast and reliable, but multiple rounds of patching BIOSes and OSes to fix Intel faults (not forgetting basic stuff like default admin creds in their 'security' related offerings) has changed people's perceptions, Intel gear is now seen as slow, insecure and flaky.

Let's hope AMD keep pushing forward, make patching a rare and painless process (in contrast to Intel) and don't make any major missteps - it'll be good for everyone. Having a viable alternative architecture that exhibits stable performance characteristics over time is very useful (I can't say critical because we got by with Intel's random 10 million variables and BIOS settings to work out what your clock rate might be technology for so long).

[firestingerx]

The reason why Intel announced it today is to steal some thunder from AMD's "Next Horizon" event today (6 Nov 2018) where AMD will reveal more details on their 7nm datacentre products - probably Epyc 2 codenamed "Rome" and Vega/Navi GPUs.