Thursday, June 28th 2018

Prices of First-gen AMD Threadrippers Drop Like a Rock

Jun 28th, 2018 11:36 Discuss (77 Comments)

Intel's strategy against AMD's unexpected doubling in core-counts of its Ryzen Threadripper HEDT processors has been that of a headless chicken in a room painted Vantablack. It announced a 28-core processor that would require you to buy a new motherboard; and is frantically working on a 22-core processor for the existing LGA2066 platform. It's looking like AMD isn't in a mood to walk into Intel's core-count trap, and could hit Intel where it hurts the most - pricing. The top-dog 32-core part has already reared its head on German web-stores, seeking a little over 1,500€, just 500€ more than the price its previous-generation 16-core flagship, the Threadripper 1950X launched at. At 1,500€-ish, AMD could end up disrupting Intel's entire >10-core lineup that's priced between $1199 to $1999, currently occupied by 12-core, 14-core, 16-core, and 18-core SKUs.

AMD may not spare Intel's sub-$1000 Core X lineup, either. Prices of first-generation Ryzen Threadripper processors are seeing a dramatic drop, with the flagship Threadripper 1950X being priced under 650€. Prices of the 12-core Threadripper 1920X have slipped to just under 550€. The Core i9-7900X, meanwhile, continues to command a touch over 880€. The drop in prices of first-gen Threadrippers is likely retailers trying to clear out inventories to make room for 2nd generation Threadrippers. It could also be a prelude to AMD announcing more affordable 12-core and 16-core Threadrippers based on the 2nd generation "Zen+" architecture.

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77 Comments on Prices of First-gen AMD Threadrippers Drop Like a Rock

#26

csatahajos

"Clearly, Intel has a superior product line, and has no need to drastically drop prices. Just as obviously, AMD is having much trouble selling TR, and has dropped the price of their flagship CPU 4 times (so far). Intel just doesn't seem to be worried, despite the yellow journalism tactics employed by misguided editors. Strange how people spin the facts to fit their preconceived notions, as if that will magically make TR a success. Threadripper is a niche product, with very little appeal for most PC users. "

I'd suggest you check the market share and the share price changes of both companies in the last month or two. I think the numbers massively disagree with you Sir.

While TR is really just a drop in the pond it is actually the same thing as the EPYC and that thing rocks and now makes more money to AMD alone than their entire product portfolio a few years ago...and EPYC 2 is coming next year which atm I think is clearly superio to what Intel has to offer against it (at least what we know of atm).

I don'T say that Intel will go bankrupt now, but most definitely AMD put a major dent in their side and Intel is worried now for a valid reason. AMD64 times 15 years ago come to my mind...

#27

m4dn355

I was wondering if anybody knows, how many Threadrippers AMD has sold? I was thinking 10k+

#28

Absolution

JalleRThank you AMD for the price Party :), now we just need Intel to join in.

Or you know - you could just buy AMD instead of waiting for Intel to drop prices and buying Intel

This Intel, nvidia mindshare needs to go.

If AMD is providing good price for performance products, then support them by buying their products.

#29

bug

sepheronxif the 1950x goes as far down as $200 then I would get one. But till then, I better continue collecting bottles to make mortgage and pay into my habits.

That's what I was thinking as well. Measuring e-peen at the very high end is one thing, but that's not what most of us are buying anyway.

#30

dwade

csatahajos"Clearly, Intel has a superior product line, and has no need to drastically drop prices. Just as obviously, AMD is having much trouble selling TR, and has dropped the price of their flagship CPU 4 times (so far). Intel just doesn't seem to be worried, despite the yellow journalism tactics employed by misguided editors. Strange how people spin the facts to fit their preconceived notions, as if that will magically make TR a success. Threadripper is a niche product, with very little appeal for most PC users. "

I'd suggest you check the market share and the share price changes of both companies in the last month or two. I think the numbers massively disagree with you Sir.

While TR is really just a drop in the pond it is actually the same thing as the EPYC and that thing rocks and now makes more money to AMD alone than their entire product portfolio a few years ago...and EPYC 2 is coming next year which atm I think is clearly superio to what Intel has to offer against it (at least what we know of atm).

I don'T say that Intel will go bankrupt now, but most definitely AMD put a major dent in their side and Intel is worried now for a valid reason. AMD64 times 15 years ago come to my mind...

Intel made records in profit recently despite Ryzen and Epyc. They'll do fine with or without your worries.

#31

TheGuruStud

Vya DomusIt's going to be really awkward for Intel. They have two choices , maintain the prices and introduce their 28 core part at some insane price point like 3000$ and risk losing sales or massively drop prices making everyone realize just how overpriced their products were.

How much does a wafer cost them with business expenses factored in? I'm wondering if they can even turn a profit if prices go any lower on the high core count parts.

#32

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man

AMD has found a sweet spot to scale their CPUs with both cores and clocks (thanks to the MCM design.) This is the game changer for AMD because smaller dies means higher yields and "gluing" together smaller dies spreads the heat out. AMD can do this and get away with it because the yields and speed of Intel's gigantic monolithic dies can't compete, which is part of the reason why they're priced so high. AMD knows that it's going to take Intel time to release a new product to compete so a move like this is a direct stab at trying to gain market share in the server market, which is where the money is at.

Right now, AMD is in the power position. It has the least to lose and the most to gain when it comes to market share in the server market and they know that this opportunity is a limited time offer.

#33

Vayra86

HoodClearly, Intel has a superior product line, and has no need to drastically drop prices. Just as obviously, AMD is having much trouble selling TR, and has dropped the price of their flagship CPU 4 times (so far). Intel just doesn't seem to be worried, despite the yellow journalism tactics employed by misguided editors. Strange how people spin the facts to fit their preconceived notions, as if that will magically make TR a success. Threadripper is a niche product, with very little appeal for most PC users. pcpartpicker.com/product/CF7CmG/amd-threadripper-1950x-34ghz-16-core-processor-yd195xa8aewof
@btarunr - I can't help but notice that your personal rig is running an Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU. Where's all the love for AMD? I guess you voted with your wallet. Is it any wonder AMD is losing sales to Intel, when even AMD fans won't buy their hardware, despite all their rabid posts to the contrary?

Do you really type up the same nonsense on every Intel AMD topic? You're so out of touch its hilarious. Its nice how you make life so simple, I have no regrets ignoring you now, not going to miss a thing, and it saves some scrolling. Thx!

On the subject matter... wow. TR is going to be cheaper than a rebadged 8700K (8086) and the Zen arch has only just taken off... Imagine generational clock and XFR improvements alone across these core counts... Intel has every reason to be panicking.

#34

Hood

csatahajosI'd suggest you check the market share and the share price changes of both companies in the last month or two. I think the numbers massively disagree with you Sir.

I think you missed my point. I never said one word about overall market share, or about share prices. I was talking about Threadripper, which certainly doesn't guide the fortunes of either company, it's just one small part of the whole picture. My point is, does any company continuously drop the price of a product, if the product is successful? Not that I can ever recall, the opposite effect is what I have seen, over and over. They charge more when a product is in demand, not less. To me, if the product's price is dropped 4 times in less than a year, that means it's not living up to the company's expectations, and needs more incentive for people to buy it (such as dropping the price, offering 2 for price of 1, or adding "free" gifts, such as game code vouchers). NVIDIA's 1080 Ti is an example of a successful product - it's price has remained consistently high, 15 months after launch (still slightly above MSRP). AMD tried to keep Vega prices high by severely limiting available stock, and we all know how that backfired on them - now that prices are down near MSRP, nobody wants them. Remember how thousands of people were clamoring for the chance to buy Vega, when stock was non-existent? Where are they now? Almost every new PC builder asking for advice on their parts list has listed a 1060, 1070, 1080, or 1080 TI as their choice. You hardly ever see Vega on anybody's wish list anymore.

John DoeFrom your post you seem like a literate and well-educated person. A literate and well-educated person can do a simple google search and find that Threadripper CPUs have similar performance to the Intel counterparts, while being cheaper (at launch prices).
John DoeI can only assume that a literate and well-educated person who is posting alternate facts is being paid to do so.
Do you know someone who would be willing to pay me? I would love to get paid for writing about products I like. Conversely, AMD doesn't have enough money to ever get me to lie and say I like their products.
Vayra86Do you really type up the same nonsense on every Intel AMD topic? You're so out of touch its hilarious. Its nice how you make life so simple, I have no regrets ignoring you now, not going to miss a thing, and it saves some scrolling. Thx!
You are another 8700K buyer who claims they like AMD better than Intel - so what happened to "voting with your wallet" Oh, I guess you'd rather wait until AMD has something worth buying.

#35

Hardware Geek

My plan is to wait until the boards designed for the TR2 have been out for a few months and pick up a clearance TR1 and a newer board with better vrm cooling. Maybe one I can put on a closed loop liquid cooling setup. With that and 2 nvme 256GB SSDs in raid 0 and I'll be happy for a long time. I will always be able to upgrade to a TR2 if there is a great sale on them and sell the TR1.

#36

bug

@Hood If nothing else, stating that TR is just a sliver of AMD's portfolio (true, but then again that's true about any halo product) and then going on to put the whole company on the spot because of how TR is doing in the market is quite a logical fracture.

Just like Intel's HEDT, these products are just for show. And maybe testbeds for server chips. They are not meant to sell in droves, they are not an ideal pick for home PCs and in the grand scheme of things, their price is set only to stop people from buying too many of them, because they're the most difficult ones to make.

#37

Vayra86

HoodI think you missed my point. I never said one word about overall market share, or about share prices. I was talking about Threadripper, which certainly doesn't guide the fortunes of either company, it's just one small part of the whole picture. My point is, does any company continuously drop the price of a product, if the product is successful? Not that I can ever recall, the opposite effect is what I have seen, over and over. They charge more when a product is in demand, not less. To me, if the product's price is dropped 4 times in less than a year, that means it's not living up to the company's expectations, and needs more incentive for people to buy it (such as dropping the price, offering 2 for price of 1, or adding "free" gifts, such as game code vouchers). NVIDIA's 1080 Ti is an example of a successful product - it's price has remained consistently high, 15 months after launch (still slightly above MSRP). AMD tried to keep Vega prices high by severely limiting available stock, and we all know how that backfired on them - now that prices are down near MSRP, nobody wants them. Remember how thousands of people were clamoring for the chance to buy Vega, when stock was non-existent? Where are they now? Almost every new PC builder asking for advice on their parts list has listed a 1060, 1070, 1080, or 1080 TI as their choice. You hardly ever see Vega on anybody's wish list anymore.

Wrong. AMD knows that last gen TR is going to be sitting on shelves which is more costly than dropping its price. What they want with CPU is different than what they want with GPU. CPU they want to build trust and market share and they do this through pricing which makes sense. After all, TR is a very cost effective solution for them.

With Vega, they NEVER wanted to sell them to consumers because here its a Ryzen in reverse: not a cost effective product at all, still "old and monolithic" versus MCM, and coupled with an expensive memory. Vega was never a gaming product and never intended or projected to take any market by storm. Instead, you see Vega is most succesful as a consumer product when combined with Ryzen and without HBM on top of it. It is utilized for the same purpose as TR and Zen as a whole.

#38

ensabrenoir

....maybe its just me. I don't think I've ever seen two competitors do a simultaneous, 180 degree turn in my life. In spite of Intel's profits, seems like everything they've done lately has been one big long stumble. Amd lately has been powered by "WIN-ium." Like some magical switch has been flipped and poof the two companies lives has been switched. I'm cool either way, I buy what I like regardless of who name is on it but curious nonetheless.

#39

bug

ensabrenoir....maybe its just me. I don't think I've ever seen two competitors do a simultaneous, 180 degree turn in my life. In spite of Intel's profits, seems like everything they've done lately has been one big long stumble. Amd lately has been powered by "WIN-ium." Like some magical switch has been flipped and poof the two companies lives has been switched. I'm cool either way, I buy what I like regardless of who name is on it but curious nonetheless.

It's just you. We've all seen this before in the AthlonXP/64 versus Netburst days. AMD just took a break from all that with Bulldozer.

#40

B-Real

HoodClearly, Intel has a superior product line, and has no need to drastically drop prices. Just as obviously, AMD is having much trouble selling TR, and has dropped the price of their flagship CPU 4 times (so far). Intel just doesn't seem to be worried, despite the yellow journalism tactics employed by misguided editors. Strange how people spin the facts to fit their preconceived notions, as if that will magically make TR a success. Threadripper is a niche product, with very little appeal for most PC users. pcpartpicker.com/product/CF7CmG/amd-threadripper-1950x-34ghz-16-core-processor-yd195xa8aewof
@btarunr - I can't help but notice that your personal rig is running an Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU. Where's all the love for AMD? I guess you voted with your wallet. Is it any wonder AMD is losing sales to Intel, when even AMD fans won't buy their hardware, despite all their rabid posts to the contrary?

Haha. Fanboi alert.

AMD is better in multithreaded applications. No one cares if it gets that performance with more cores than Intel. What is important is the price point and the performance. I care for you mate.

"Threadripper is a niche product, with very little appeal for most PC users."

Yes, and Intel 8, 10 and so on core CPUs make more appel for most PC users!

csatahajos...

#41

Hood

B-RealYes, and Intel 8, 10 and so on core CPUs make more appel for most PC users!

I agree that Intel's HEDT CPUs make even less sense for most gamers and casual users. Nobody needs all those cores to make posts, web surf, watch videos, or even high-end games, which is maybe 90% of what I do. My quad core i7 is overkill for most of what I do. So my perspective is probably different from most people. I know a lot of people on this site have more use for the high core counts, at work or for video rendering etc. at home, but I think a lot of us hardware geeks just love the idea of having that much speed and power. I can't really afford the expensive parts anymore, may end up with Ryzen myself when this Intel system craps out. So don't take my posts personally, I just feel like I have to stick up for the underdog, which seems to be Intel these days. When I read posts from Intel-haters, I just get reactive. I guess I'm ornery that way sometimes.

#42

Melvis

Yep the 1950x is almost at $1000 now woot!....

#43

hat

Enthusiast

I think some people don't know how to handle AMD being relevant again. As PC enthusiasts, those of us who just want top performance have been on Team Intel since Core 2 Duo, which was in 2006. That means we've been saying Intel for 12 years. 12 years... let that sink in for a minute. AMD remained somewhat competitive as the value option, that is, "good enough" products at a lower price point, until Faildozer.

During this time Intel has been riding the coattails of their own success in the absence of any real competition from AMD, giving us minor generational gains, each time locking the platform down more and more. You used to be able to overclock any CPU, then you could get a little bit out of the standard CPUs, now it's totally locked down to the expensive K series CPUs only (and whatever's on the HEDT platform, which is also expensive). They got away with it too, because we showed we would pay for the performance we want.

Now, sure you can still build a better Intel system... if you have the money to spare. And I don't think the big problem lies with enthusiasts like us. For Intel, it's those running high performance servers who see that they can build a better system for less money with AMD, unless they're prepared to shell out that price premium which is in the thousands for top performance.

#44

Bones

hatNow, sure you can still build a better Intel system... if you have the money to spare. And I don't think the big problem lies with enthusiasts like us. For Intel, it's those running high performance servers who see that they can build a better system for less money with AMD, unless they're prepared to shell out that price premium which is in the thousands for top performance.

Personally I don't believe Intel is that much better than TR either, in fact I believe the two lines are very close to each other in what they're capable of. True, each has it's own advantages but I seriously doubt when you compare the two there is enough difference to make one worth way more than the other...... Maybe a few bucks but certainly not by a huge amount.

AMD knows it has to deliver the goods and also price things right to attract customers - Plus the chips have to be reliable too. When you consider the cost of building a server setup for a corporation as an example or such for a University as another, each little bit saved per chip adds up to a sizeable amount of $$ they didn't have to spend to get the same basic thing.

I believe they've got it right, I just hope they keep it that way instead of letting it slip away once more.
And in all honesty I'd grab a TR in a heartbeat if I could, old or new.

#45

R0H1T

BonesPersonally I don't believe Intel is that much better than TR either, in fact I believe the two lines are very close to each other in what they're capable of. True, each has it's own advantages but I seriously doubt when you compare the two there is enough difference to make one worth way more than the other...... Maybe a few bucks but certainly not by a huge amount.

AMD knows it has to deliver the goods and also price things right to attract customers - Plus the chips have to be reliable too. When you consider the cost of building a server setup for a corporation as an example or such for a University as another, each little bit saved per chip adds up to a sizeable amount of $$ they didn't have to spend to get the same basic thing.

I believe they've got it right, I just hope they keep it that way instead of letting it slip away once more.
And in all honesty I'd grab a TR in a heartbeat if I could, old or new.

SKL-X IPC is actually lower than CFL & except AVX512 workloads it is indeed no better than TR, AMD have a massive winner on their hands. Now all they need to do is to manage 32 cores with just quad channel mem albeit running high freq DDR4, unlike EPYC (octa channel) which is stuck at 2666MHz for obvious reasons.

#46

hat

Enthusiast

I'd expect Skylake-X to be slower than CFL. Skylake-X is just big Skylake, which is 2 generations behind Coffee Lake. Intel has a habit of releasing the newest tech to the mainstream platform first, then by the time HEDT gets it, there's new tech on the mainstream platform that's better clock for clock.

#47

phanbuey

R0H1TSKL-X IPC is actually lower than CFL & except AVX512 workloads it is indeed no better than TR, AMD have a massive winner on their hands. Now all they need to do is to manage 32 cores with just quad channel mem albeit running high freq DDR4, unlike EPYC (octa channel) which is stuck at 2666MHz for obvious reasons.

That's actually not true... When I bench the 7820x @ 4.9ghz it generally edges out single core scores of CFL at the same speed and sometimes 100Mhz faster (cinebench, cpu-z, superpi, aida etc). In games and latency tests the ringbus will always win and like you said in AVX / FPU of any kind (512 or otherwise) SKX is an absolute monster.

I do agree with you about the 32 core TR though, nothing can touch that.

#48

TheGuruStud

phanbueyThat's actually not true... When I bench the 7820x @ 4.9ghz it generally edges out single core scores of CFL at the same speed and sometimes 100Mhz faster (cinebench, cpu-z, superpi, aida etc). In games and latency tests the ringbus will always win and like you said in AVX of any kind (512 or otherwise) SKX is an absolute monster.

I do agree with you about the 32 core TR though, nothing can touch that.

Cmon, we know that synthetics are meaningless lol. That’s like saying IF is just as fast as ring bus. (yes, ryzen IPC is the same as skylake when using fast ram in synthetics).

#49

phanbuey

TheGuruStudCmon, we know that synthetics are meaningless lol. That’s like saying IF is just as fast as ring bus if you run synthetics (yes, ryzen IPC is the same as skylake when using fast ram in synthetics).

Maybe they match in Cinebench and a few encryption workloads but most of the time SK-x has better IPC. Granted not by much and zen 2 will most likely spank sk-x into next week.

I have an r7 1700 for work and a 7820x at home, they're definitely not in the same class even at the same speed.

www.techspot.com/review/1457-ryzen-7-vs-core-i7-octa-core/page3.html

#50

Bones

That's about what I was getting at - These chips aren't that far apart in what they can do.
The thing is AMD is pricing these cheap enough they'd be hard to ignore when you figure up the costs of a project like I used as examples above. AMD is looking to expand it's footprint in the server market which means big $$'s for them.

Intel will counter with something in time but with all the problems they're having ATM could be too little, too late to stop the TR train from leaving the station headed for big project stops ahead and that means AMD will snap up shares of the market.
After that it's a game of holding onto these shares and if Intel can't right the ship it's not gonna go so well for them - Certainly won't be reclaiming too much of a stake in it.

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