AMD has deployed a team of folks to charm enterprise server users ahead of the debut of its Zen designed-from-scratch x86 processor microarchitecture and the message they're sending is that the new silicon represents a chance to supersize servers.
As explained to The Register by Vinay Sinha, AMD's senior director for enterprise in Asia Pacific and Japan, the company's plan is first and foremost to convince enterprise that Zen will be stonking x86 CPUs. Beyond that, the company will point out that its significantly-lower-than-Xeon prices mean a chance to supersize servers with other nice-to-haves, perhaps more RAM or some lovely AMD GPUs.
AMD's tried this play in the PC market, where its newly-hired enterprise sales folks have had some success in price-sensitive markets like government and education where buyers want maximum bang for buck and don't see challenger brands as a risk. Big PC-makers also enjoy the company's pricing, as it gives them different price points. Speaking to The Reg at the Canalys Channels Forum in Macau, Sinha takes great heart from the fact that the likes of HP Inc. now offer AMD-powered premium notebooks. HPE, he said, will offer enterprise servers based on Zen. He feels other top-tier manufacturers won't be shy about practicing Zen and the art of server design so they too can show Chipzilla it can't take their business for granted.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @04:47PM
Getting so tired of journalists and their goddamn ridiculous article titles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @05:39PM
And are they REALLY selling these CPUs for something like $5? I don't think so, but if they told you the price, they wouldn't have been able to put in the McDonalds reference.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by steveha on Friday October 28 2016, @06:30PM
I'm very fond of my HP microservers using old AMD Turion II "mobile" processor: http://n40l.wikia.com/wiki/HP_MicroServer_N40L_Wiki [wikia.com]
I would very much like an update with a faster CPU.
HP's current microservers [hpe.com] are using Intel chips, but I am hoping that they will have AMD models again once Zen launches.
P.S. I try very hard to not buy any Intel products because I don't believe in supporting a company that cheats. They are currently making better CPUs than AMD so they could win even if they were playing fairly, and even still they are cheating. The Intel C and C++ compilers deliberately emit code that runs poorly on any non-Intel processors; it's always code that works, but just really slow code, to make the competition look bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_C++_Compiler#Criticism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 28 2016, @06:34PM
AMD really fell behind. While Intel is cranking out 14nm CPUs now, AMD isn't even at 22nm, no they're still stuck at 28nm at best. Zen is a big jump to 14nm, but they'll still be behind as Intel plans to have 10nm CPUs coming out about the same time.
I am really liking the 14nm stuff. Takes such little power to achieve the same performance as 100W desktops from 8 years ago that it doesn't need a fan. These pocket sized stick computers for $100 are great.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday October 28 2016, @07:00PM
Bought one of those ECS Liva's, the XBat or whatever its called. 1.5GHz dual core Atom, 64GB eMMC, and 2GB RAM in what 100x50mm?. Runs Linux Mint perfectly and a USB 3.0 hub connected to HDD's, keyboard and mouse. Runs a web browser just fine and a few other desktop applications. For $100, its a good deal. My only beef is the two USB ports and they discontinued that model in favor of more costly and bulky models.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @09:36PM
Many times the cost of those chips is not the chip themselves. I can usually if I get something off market for half of the cost of a in market price. This is the whole gamut of hardware. I pay extra for 'you will fix this in 2 hours or less'. That means they have to keep a spare (that works) on the shelf for 'just incase'. That costs them money and time. That is what I am paying for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @09:35PM
Just wanted to point out that the XXnm naming, though it used to be an actual thing, has been nothing but marketing BS for a few years now. I'm not saying that AMD isn't lagging behind, but people should stop use that as proof of it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tibman on Friday October 28 2016, @07:16PM
Just ship the chips please, i'm ready to build a new gaming machine. Stop wasting time hiring these sales people and hire some truck drivers to move product to newegg, asap : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @11:00PM
How many of you really trust AMD chips now that they have an AMD-signed TrustZone kernel running on them potentially spying on everything you do, or at least allowing malicious software a chance to exploit the system at a higher than hypervisor/supervisor level of control?
AMD with FM2+ has gone to the same place Intel went with the Q45+ MEs: the land of untrustworthy computing. Every x86 processor (outside of AM3+/C32/G34, maybe?) produced in the last 4-7 years carries essentially a generally programmable clipper chip in it, capable of spying on your every electronic action.
Do you really want to give Intel, AMD, (pick your ARM device vendor that doesn't leave the bootloader/TrustZone exec enviro unsigned/disabled) the keys to your kingdom in a very real and potentially automated way?
Think carefully on your next CPU/motherboard purchase, because if you continue on the path society is going, only the Authoritarians are going to win, and they will make the SS, STASI, and other similiar groups look downright benign in comparison.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 28 2016, @11:50PM
Why do we still support 16 and 32 bits on 64 bit processors?
The x86 architecture has some instructions that stall the pipeline. Your code runs faster if you don't use them, rather one uses the "RISC-like" instructions. Remove the instructions that stall the pipeline.
This would need some compiler support but then modifying the compilers is much easier than designing a whole new chip.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday October 29 2016, @02:46AM
Some of us run 32 bit and even 16 bit programs on processors that are capable of doing 64 bit.
When in 64 bit mode, those 16 bit instructions do not run.
There is probably no reason that the compiler can't avoid those instructions that stall the pipeline.
Intel (and/or AMD) could introduce a new architecture that is based on X64 and lose all the customers with legacy programs etc. Perhaps third time would be lucky, but I doubt it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Saturday October 29 2016, @03:50AM
I've been running a 32bit version of Linux Mint lately because WebEx refuses to allow me to use audio on the 64bit version. Considering that the Linux client is Java, there's really no excuse for that bug being there, but it is and Cisco doesn't seem to care about it.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday October 29 2016, @03:46AM
Because not all programs benefit from running in 64bit mode to the point where it's worth compiling them with support. Compiling it in 32bit mode allows it to run on pretty much anything whereas compiling with 64 bits requires a 64bit OS and the rest of it.
For many programs modern 32bit mode is more than enough for what they're needing to accomplish.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2016, @04:15AM
Almost nobody compiles their own software, and nobody wants to buy hardware that can't run their current software.