Feb 16, 2020
3
0
10
So I was wondering, why is it that a 68-core Xeon phi, one that was thousands upon release, less than 100 bucks today (on eBay)? What about the 64 core Xeon platinums that show up often for under 100? Also, why are the boards $350+? That seems expensive for a board with a single socket, and you can't find them used. Thanks!
 
Solution
There has never been a 64 core Intel Xeon, any $100 Ebay product is a fake. Why are Phi coprocessor card cheap? Because the have very limited usefulness. If you don't have software that uses the card, it is just an inefficient heater.
The boards for these processors were more rare than the processors, and while the processors had a lot of cores, each core wasn't terribly fast. I've seen someone run win10 on one of these though and the passmark was the fastest every tested, lol.

Rarity of the boards outside of blades and other datacenter type of hardware is what makes them expensive. No one used these on the desktop.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spdrcrv6tt