Sizing Up Servers: Intel's Skylake-SP Xeon versus AMD's EPYC 7000 - The Server CPU Battle of the Decade?
by Johan De Gelas & Ian Cutress on July 11, 2017 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Intel
- Xeon
- Enterprise
- Skylake
- Zen
- Naples
- Skylake-SP
- EPYC
Pricing Comparison: AMD versus Intel
We are all hoping that the renewed competition between Intel and AMD results in more bang for the buck. Intel just launched about 50 SKUs, so we made a list of those that will go head-to-head with AMD's already announced EPYC SKUs. On average, the Intel SKUs will priced slightly higher, reflecting the fact that Intel believes buyers are willing to pay a bit more for the vendor with the better track record.
| AMD EPYC Processors (2P) | Intel Xeon Processoors (2-8P) | ||||||
| AMD EPYC SKU |
Cores |
Freq (GHz) Base-Max |
Price | Intel Xeon SKU |
Cores | Freq (GHz) Base-Max |
Price |
| Xeon 8180 (205W) | 28 | 2.5-3.8 | $10009 | ||||
| Xeon 8176M (165W) | 28 | 2.1-3.8 | $11722 | ||||
| Xeon 8176 (165W) | 28 | 2.1-3.8 | $8719 | ||||
| EPYC 7601 (180W) |
32 | 2.2 -3.2 | $4200 | Xeon 8160 (150W) | 24 | 2.1-3.7 | $4702 |
| EPYC 7551 (180W) |
32 | 2.0-3.0 | >$3400 | Xeon 6152 (140W) | 22 | 2.1-3.7 | $3655 |
| EPYC 7501 (155/170W) | 32 | 2.0-3.0 | $3400 | Xeon 6150 (165W) | 18 | 2.7-3.4 | $3358 |
| EPYC 7451 (180W) |
24 | 2.3-3.2 | >$2400 | Xeon 6140 (165W) | 18 | 2.3-3.7 | $2445 |
| EPYC 7401 (155/170W) | 24 | 2.0-3.0 | $1850 | Xeon 6130 (125W) | 16 | 2.1-3.7 | $1894 |
| Xeon 5120 (105W) | 14 | 2.2-3.2 | $1555 | ||||
| EPYC 7351 (155/170W) | 16 | 2.4-2.9 | >$1100 | Xeon 5118 (105W) | 12 | 2.3-3.2 | $1221 |
| EPYC 7301 (155/170W) | 16 | 2.2-2.7 | >$800 | Xeon 4116 (85W) |
12 | 2.1-3.0 | $1002 |
| EPYC 7281 (155/170W) | 16 | 2.1-2.7 | $650 | Xeon 4114 (85W) |
10 | 2.2-3.0 | $694 |
| EPYC 7251 (120W) |
8 | 2.1-2.9 | $475 | Xeon 4110 (85W) |
8 | 2.1-3.0 | $501 |
Several trends pop up as we look at the table above.
First of foremost, those 24-28 core CPUs are a wonder of modern multicore CPU architecture, but you sure have to pay a lot of money for them. This is especially the case for the SKUs that can support 1.5 TB per socket. Of course if you can afford SAP Hana, you can afford $10k CPUs (or so the theory goes).
Still, if we compare the new high-end Skylake-EP SKUs with the previous 22-core Xeon E5-2699 v4 ($4199), paying twice as much for a 28-core chip just because it can be used in 8 socket configuration is bad news for those of us who need a very fast 2 socket system. In fact, it is almost as Intel has no competition: we only get a little more performance for the same price. For example you can get a Xeon 6148 (20 cores at 2.4 GHz, 150W TDP) for $3072, while you had to pay $3228 last generation for a Xeon E5-2698 v4 (20 cores at 2.2 GHz, 135W). The latter had smaller L2-caches but a much larger L3-cache (45 MB vs 27.5 MB). We're still not getting big steps forward on a performance-per-dollar basis, a similar problem we had with the launch of the Xeon E5 v4 last year.
Hopefully, AMD's EPYC can put some pressure on Intel, if not exceed the 800lb gorilla entirely. AMD typically offers many more cores for the same price. At the high end, AMD offers up to 10 more cores than the similar Xeon: compare the EPYC 7551 with the Intel Xeon 6152.
On the other hand, Intel offers lower TDPs and higher turbo clocks. The 16-core EPYC CPUs in particular seem to have remarkably high TDPs compared to similar Intel SKUs. Those 16-cores look even worse as, despite the lower core count and high TDP, the turbo clock is lower than 3 GHz.
In a nutshell: looking at the current lineups we want lower prices from Intel, and more attractive mid-range SKUs from AMD.
| AMD EPYC Processors (1P) | ||||
| Cores Threads |
Frequency (GHz) | TDP | Price | |
| EPYC 7551P | 32 / 64 | 2.0 -3.0 | 180W | $2100 |
| EPYC 7401P | 24 / 48 | 2.0-3.0 | 155W/170W | $1075 |
| EPYC 7351P | 16 / 32 | 2.4-2.9 | 155W/170W | $750 |
Finally, AMD's single-socket SKUs – identified by a P suffix – are by far the most interesting to us and the most dangerous to Intel. It will be interesting to see how well two 12-core Xeon 5118s can compete with one EPYC 7551P. The clocks are similar, but AMD has 8 extra cores, a less complex server board, much more PCIe bandwidth, and a lower TDP. AMD should have serious cost advantage on paper. We hope to check that in a later review.
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Panxa - Sunday, July 16, 2017 - link
"Competition has spoiled the naming convention Intels 14 === competetions 7 or 10"The node naming convention used to be the gate length, however that has become irrelevant. Intel 14 nm gate lenghth is about 1.5x and 10 nm about 1.8x. Companies and organizations have developed quite accurate models to asses process density with equations based on process poarameters like CPP and MPP to what they call a "standard node"
"Intel used to maintain 2 year lead now grew that to 3-4year lead"
Don't belive intel propaganda. Intel takes the lead in 2014 with their 14nm process with a standard node value of 12.1. Samsung and then TSMC take the lead in 2017 with their 10nm processes having standard node values of 11.2 and 10.3 respectively. Intel will retake the the lead back when they deliver their 10nm process with a standard node value of 8.3. However it will be a short lived lead, TSMC will retake the lead back with their 7nm with a standard node of 7.9 before GLOBALFOUNDRIES takes the lead in 2018 with their 7nm process with a standard node value of 7.8. The gap is gone !!!
"yet their revenue profits grow year over year"
Wrong. Intel revenue for the last years remained fairly constant
2011 grow
2012 decline
2013 decline
2014 grow
2015 decline
2016 grow
All in all from 2011 to 2016 revenue went from 54 billion to 59 billion. If we take into account inflation $54 billion in the year 2011 is worth $58.70 billion today.
Not to mention that Samsung has overtaken Intel to become the world No.1 semiconductor company, and that a "pure play" foundry like TSMC has surpassed intel in market CAP
johnp_ - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
The Xeon Bronze Table on Page 7 seems to have an error. It lists the 4112 as having 5.50MB L3, but ark says it has 8.25MB, just like the 3104, so it looks like it has an above-average L3/Core:https://ark.intel.com/products/123551
Ian Cutress - Friday, July 14, 2017 - link
I've got Intel documents from our briefings that say it has the regular 1.375MB/core allocation, and others saying it has 8.25MB. I'm double checking.johnp_ - Friday, July 21, 2017 - link
All commercial listings and most reviews I've seen online show the processor with 8.25MB as well.Do you have any further information from Intel?
pepoluan - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
What I'm dying to know: Performance when running as virtualization host. Using Xen, VMware, and Hyper-V.Threska - Saturday, July 22, 2017 - link
Virtualization itself, and more importantly virtualization security.Sparkyman215 - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
Typo here: Intel will seven different versions of the chipset, varying in 10G and QAT support, but also varying in TDP:tmbm50 - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
One thing to consider when considering value is the Microsoft Server 2016 core tax.....assuming your mission critical apps are still tied to MS ;-)Server 2016 now chargers per core with an 8 core socket as the base. The Window license for a 32 core server is NUTS.
I'm surprised AMD and Intel are not pushing Microsoft on this. For datacenters like ourselves its pushing us to 8 core sku's with more 2U nodes.
msroadkill612 - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
Aye, its a fuuny world lad.The way the automobile panned out differently in different countries, was laargely die to fuel tax regimes, rather than technology.
i.e. what is the best way to cheat a bit on the incumbent tax rules of germany/france/uk vs a more laissez faire USA. In UK, u were taxed on horsepower, but u could cheat a bit w/ hi revs & more gears - that sort of thing.
rahvin - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
Who runs any Windows service on bare metal these days? If you haven't virtulalized your windows servers running on KVM you should.