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  • Ninhalem - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Those fully enable EPYC chips come at a big price jump. From the Dell PowerEdge R6415 configuration page:

    Base Price: $2179.00

    + AMD EPYC™ 7251 2.1GHz/2.9GHz, 8C/16T, 32M Cache (120W) DDR4-2400 (Included in Price)
    + AMD EPYC™ 7281 2.1GHz/2.7GHz, 16C/32T, 32M Cache (155W/170W) DDR4-2400/2666 (+$313.43)
    + AMD EPYC™ 7351P 2.4GHz/2.9GHz, 16C/32T, 32M Cache (155W/170W) DDR4-2400/2666 (+$407.46)
    + AMD EPYC™ 7401P 2.0GHz/2.8GHz, 24C/48T, 64M Cache (155W/170W) DDR4-2400/2666 (+$877.61)
    + AMD EPYC™ 7551P 2.00GHz/2.55GHz, 32C/64T, 64M Cache (180W) DDR4-2666 (+$2131.35)
    + AMD EPYC™ 7601 2.20GHz/2.7GHz, 32C/64T, 64M Cache (180W) DDR4-2666 (+$4011.96)
  • MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    All things being equal (which would be quite the oversimplification), the price per CPU core (using the final system price) of the base model is $272, where the 7601 price per core is $193. In such a metric, the best "deal" per core is the 7401P, at $127. So in the grand scheme of things, the CPU upgrade prices are not so bad.
  • ajp_anton - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    The 32-core 7551P isn't far behind at $135 per core.

    The 7401P also has the best performance per $, assuming roughly that the CPU will run at the "base" frequency with all cores, narrowly beating the 7551P and 7351P.
  • IGTrading - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    These are very good specs with very, very competitive prices, but we need some real world storage, RAM and computing benchmarks to get an idea of how these compare with similarly priced Intel solutions.

    Also, it would be perfect if, from now on, we would include the new Qualcomm server platform in the benchmarks.
  • ZolaIII - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Well Epyc P Linux benchmarks you can find for long time now on Phoronix.
  • Hurr Durr - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Says the character that was not so long ago publicly lamenting how he regrets recommending intel to somebody. Oh shills.
  • silverblue - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    You must be wonderfully paranoid if you believe every recommendation to be the work of shills.
  • kgardas - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Looks like Dell is also on the EPYC wave finally since EPYC CPUs all more or less provide great perf per $ spent. It's great to see them provided also in at least some of Dell systems...
  • Tewt - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    I was talking with my boss regarding AMD's recent rise. He has nothing but bad experience(I have the opposite) including buying servers where I don't have any experience. He pointed out something interesting to me that has me worried(I own some AMD stock) because of the high core count. I was hoping AMD could claw back server share but he says Microsoft changed their licensing from sockets to core count with Server 2016, making the AMD solution much more expensive to implement, possibly negating the benefits of its price/performance ratio in core counts vs Intel.

    Is this true or is there more server share in OSes like Linux where core count doesn't matter? Any other major issues that AMD has to overcome to gain back marketshare? I'm thinking with Intel's current 99% share, do they have to worry about software that is not as compatible where it could affect performance or functionality?
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Aaaand you came to this news article to ask that question? :|
  • Tewt - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    Yeaahhh, I follow AMD closely and am curious how well the EPYC line will do. They've executed their consumer line well so now I want to see how they do with businesses. There are usually much more informed people here that I like to learn from. Unfortunately, I have to get past ignorant comments first.
  • richough3 - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    I believe Microsoft makes you buy a minimum of an 8 core license per processor and a minimum of 16 cores per server for Server 2016, so you can feel okay going with a higher core server than trying to stick with a dual core or quad core server. And remember, this is core count total, not thread total.

    I think AMD loss a lot of face with their Opteron processors based on the Bulldozer architecture but their new Zen architecture shows a lot of promise. It will still take AMD a while to build that trust back up fully, but they are definitely headed in the right direction.
  • duploxxx - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    Its the same for the intel solutions BTW, as you can buy also 28cores there, the only difference is that for those cpu you will pay 3* the price of the amd 32 core version. So I wonder how well your boss is educated on technolgie and not just the usual old school IT guy. Sure those Intel are faster from a cpu cycle perf but not by such a margin like it used to be. THe Epyc are way more close to the skylake perf then before and they are a bunch cheaper once you up the core count. If you have to watch prices you better look at the 16core variants, MS license has that core count as baseline. But then again every server needs to be licensed so there is a tradeoff and you better calculate the real total cost. You are still better off price wise with 2*24 or 2*32 then doubling servers. connection costs - service cost - base hw cost etc vs sw lics. Indeed it is a stupid licensing schema, they are going the oracle way....
  • ilt24 - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    If you wanted a Windows Datacenter license for a dual socket, EPYC 7061 (32 core), you would buy:
    1 x Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Base License (24 Core)
    2 x Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Additional Core License (16 core)
    2 x Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Additional Core License (4 core)

    For a dual socket server with a Xeon 8180 (28 core) you would not have to buy the pair of 4 core additional core licenses, that would save you about $1400.

    However that extra $1400, as mentioned by duploxxx, is dwarfed by the premium Intel charges for it's Xeon's vs. what AMD charges for it's EPYC processors.
  • msroadkill612 - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    Dunno, but I get the distinct impression MS would bend over backwards to avoid a monopoly in the cpu market. If a pricing scheme penalises amd unduly, it can be changed.
  • Threska - Saturday, February 10, 2018 - link

    Don't know why? They get their pound of flesh no matter who's CPU gets used. The real reason the server space is getting rejiggered is MELTDOWN which impacted the cloud a lot more than it did individuals, showing the dangers of a monopoly for something so critical.
  • msroadkill612 - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    Re amdS credibility problem with server partners from the brief popularity of opteron?, this is different.

    It is the modular processor architecture which yields their killer edge. Intel didn't see it coming and will have no response for years.
  • Tewt - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link

    I hope this is true. 99% server marketshare doesn't even give the appearance of competition but rather a monopoly as far as I'm concerned. AMD needs a good 3+ years of solid financials, not just a quarter here or there as they have been getting for the past few years. Hopefully they can keep Intel shenanigans(i.e. paying vendors NOT to sell AMD products) away from true competition.

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