News Arm-Based 128-Core Ampere CPUs Cost a Fraction of x86 Price

[Admin]

Extreme core count does not mean extreme price.

Arm-Based 128-Core Ampere CPUs Cost a Fraction of x86 Price : Read more

 

[waltc3]

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out why the EPYCs are selling so much better...there are very likely a lot of reasons why people pay more. You guys should understand that the number of cores is but one consideration when companies buy these high core-count CPUs. There are many other considerations, as well, that explain it. Check into it...

 

[vinay2070]

Cost a fraction? Its almost 80+% of the X86 processors.

 

[frogr]

8/10 is a fraction.

 

[mikewinddale]

Wooh, Alchian-Allen effect!!!!

"Meanwhile, for high-performance machines used in the enterprise a lower CPU price will not matter much since the cost of processors in many types of enterprise servers does not play a huge role as these machines are equipped with plenty of memory as well as a high-performance storage subsystem."

This is an example of a phenomenon described by Armen Alchian and William R Allen, and since called the "third law of demand." To quote Wikipedia:

"It states that when the prices of two substitute goods, such as high and low grades of the same product, are both increased by a fixed per-unit amount such as a transportation cost or a lump-sum tax, consumption will shift toward the higher-grade product. This is because the added per-unit amount decreases the relative price of the higher-grade product."

For example, suppose mediocre apples cost $1 while excellent apples cost $3. If there's a $10 shipping charge, then their prices rise to $11 and $13. The mediocre apples are still cheaper, but the excellent apples are now barely more expensive, being only 13/11 times more expensive rather than 3/1 times. So if apples must be shipped for $10, then consumption will relatively shift in favor of $3 excellent apples against $1 mediocre apples. Thus, the law is sometimes called the "good apples ship out law," because it implies that whenever a good is exported with a relatively high transportation charge, only the highest quality will be worth shipping. The mediocre goods will stay in the vicinity of where they were produced.

In this case, the memory and storage are a high fixed cost, similar to a transportation charge.

 

[TerryLaze]

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out why the EPYCs are selling so much better...there are very likely a lot of reasons why people pay more. You guys should understand that the number of cores is but one consideration when companies buy these high core-count CPUs. There are many other considerations, as well, that explain it. Check into it...

EPYCs are selling so much better, than what?!
You gotta give some context here.
According to AMD they sold 1.6 bil worth of Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment, so including ps5 and xbox.
While they sold 2.25 bil of "normal" CPUs/GPUs.
So EPYCs don't even sell as well as AMD CPUs, you gotta add some context on what you meant.
https://ir.amd.com/news-events/pres...reports-second-quarter-2021-financial-results

 

[OriginFree]

Wooh, Alchian-Allen effect!!!!

"Meanwhile, for high-performance machines used in the enterprise a lower CPU price will not matter much since the cost of processors in many types of enterprise servers does not play a huge role as these machines are equipped with plenty of memory as well as a high-performance storage subsystem."

This is an example of a phenomenon described by Armen Alchian and William R Allen, and since called the "third law of demand." To quote Wikipedia:

"It states that when the prices of two substitute goods, such as high and low grades of the same product, are both increased by a fixed per-unit amount such as a transportation cost or a lump-sum tax, consumption will shift toward the higher-grade product. This is because the added per-unit amount decreases the relative price of the higher-grade product."

For example, suppose mediocre apples cost $1 while excellent apples cost $3. If there's a $10 shipping charge, then their prices rise to $11 and $13. The mediocre apples are still cheaper, but the excellent apples are now barely more expensive, being only 13/11 times more expensive rather than 3/1 times. So if apples must be shipped for $10, then consumption will relatively shift in favor of $3 excellent apples against $1 mediocre apples. Thus, the law is sometimes called the "good apples ship out law," because it implies that whenever a good is exported with a relatively high transportation charge, only the highest quality will be worth shipping. The mediocre goods will stay in the vicinity of where they were produced.

In this case, the memory and storage are a high fixed cost, similar to a transportation charge.

We covered a similar concept (both microeconomics) back in the late ... OMG I'm getting old ... 1980s with marginal utility theory. Different perspective but same end result. The additional benefit between the two items are always the same but the cost for that benefit drops as additional costs are factored in until the "higher-grade product" is effectively cheaper on a per unit of benefit basis. Or something like that, it has been 30+ years.

 

[Rob1C]

Sadly for us x86 fans ARM is doing well with this chip: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ampere-altramax-benchmarks&num=4

But I'm awaiting 2022-2023 Epyc, with the dozen groundbreaking hardware changes coming. I also prefer the software legacy for x86.

If only IBM Power could be so low priced, that's the ship I'd jump for.

I'll stick to keeping ARM in my phone, which I'm quite happy with; and x86 I'd not prefer.

If only there were a motherboard that accepted one z16 mainframe processor, I'd switch for the coolness factor; if only there were shareware software, instead of ARM and Kidney priced application suites.