Tuesday, January 28th 2025
Intel Cuts Xeon 6 Prices up to 30% to Battle AMD in the Data Center
Intel has implemented substantial price cuts across its Xeon 6 "Granite Rapids" server processor lineup, marking a significant shift in its data center strategy. The reductions, quietly introduced and reflected in Intel's ARK database, come just four months after the processors' September launch. The most dramatic cut affects Intel's flagship 128-core Xeon 6980P, which saw its price drop from $17,800 by 30% to $12,460. This aggressive pricing positions the processor below AMD's competing EPYC "Turin" 9755 128-core CPU both absolute and per-core pricing, intensifying the rivalry between the two semiconductor giants. AMD's SKU at 128 cores is now pricier at $12,984, with higher core count SKUs reaching up to $14,813 for 192-core EPYC 9965 CPU based on Zen 5c core. Intel is expected to release 288-core "Sierra Forest" Xeon SKUs this quarter, so we can get an updated pricing structure and compare it to AMD.
Additionally, Intel's price adjustments extend beyond the flagship model, with three of the five Granite Rapids processors receiving substantial reductions. The 96-core Xeon 6972P and 6952P models have been marked down by 13% and 20% respectively. These cuts make Intel's offerings particularly attractive to cloud providers who prioritize core density and cost efficiency. However, Intel's competitive pricing comes with trade-offs. The higher power consumption of Intel's processors—exemplified by the 96-core Xeon 6972P's 500 W requirement, which exceeds AMD's comparable model by 100 W—could offset the initial savings through increased operational costs. Ultimately, most of the data center buildout will be won by whoever can serve the most CPU volume shipped (read wafer production capacity) and the best TCO/ROI balance, including power consumption and performance.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
Additionally, Intel's price adjustments extend beyond the flagship model, with three of the five Granite Rapids processors receiving substantial reductions. The 96-core Xeon 6972P and 6952P models have been marked down by 13% and 20% respectively. These cuts make Intel's offerings particularly attractive to cloud providers who prioritize core density and cost efficiency. However, Intel's competitive pricing comes with trade-offs. The higher power consumption of Intel's processors—exemplified by the 96-core Xeon 6972P's 500 W requirement, which exceeds AMD's comparable model by 100 W—could offset the initial savings through increased operational costs. Ultimately, most of the data center buildout will be won by whoever can serve the most CPU volume shipped (read wafer production capacity) and the best TCO/ROI balance, including power consumption and performance.
35 Comments on Intel Cuts Xeon 6 Prices up to 30% to Battle AMD in the Data Center
The problem is that it's more competitive against Zen4 than Zen5.
So what's the point of trying to sell something inferior for much more?
Most Intel desktop branded products are in my point of view overpriced.
EPYC Turin actually crushes new Xeons in performance, as comprehensively measured by Phoronix, leaving Intel almost two generations behind in server CPU performance.
www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9965-9755-benchmarks
Don't have time to scroll the entire article, but it seems like the 9755 is better than the 6980P in the majority of tests.
I guess it appeared too stupid to give 50% discounts and thus they lowered official prices.
Compared to that, AMD needs a huge and complex switch with 16 ports in the middle to make a 128-core Epyc. Obviously it works very well for them but their solution has its own bottlenecks, and 12-core or 16-core CCDs with a smaller, simpler IOD would make a better system overall.Xeons have those DSA/UAA/QAT/DLB/TLA/ETC/WTH accelerators, Phoronix made a few brief comments about them here but I didn't see them doing any benchmarks. I'm wondering what's the situation with accelerators, has Intel mostly given up regarding their usability or do they offer substantial support to large customers, which the general public doesn't know or care about?
The smaller IOD is available on AM5 with EPYC 4000 series which physically are basically Ryzens, but there are some features unavailable on the desktop variants. 16-core CCDs might be available in EPYC 4005 when Zen 5 enters that segment, it would actually be quite interesting to see.Accelerators provide a tangible benefit only if software is specifically written for them. Intel is providing a lot of that, but adoption is not at the level they want it at. In order to develop and test those solutions developers have to have access to hardware containing them, and historically Intel has been segmenting their availability (not the case with Granite AP so far).
On the other hand AMD's improvements to their cores affect every piece of x86 software, and features like AVX-512 are available even in their laptop chips.
Now they joined to queue of economical cost-competitive corporations, finally.
Epyc 7601 - 32 cores - $4,200 (2 sockets)
Epyc 7742 - 64 cores - $6,950 (2 sockets)
Epyc 7763 - 64 cores - $7,890 (2 sockets)
Epyc 9654 - 96 cores - $11,805 (2 sockets)
Epyc 9755 - 128 cores - $12,984 (2 sockets)
versus Intel
Xeon Platinum 8180M - 28 cores - $13,011 (8 sockets)
Xeon Platinum 8284 - 28 cores - $15,460 (8 sockets)
Xeon Platinum 8380 - 40 cores - $8,099 (2 sockets)
Xeon Platinum 8490H - 60 cores - $17,000 (8 sockets)
Xeon Platinum 8593Q - 64 cores - $12,400 (2 sockets)
Xeon 6 6980P - 128 cores - $17,800 (2 sockets)
Intel was charging a premium for low core counts but high socket counts but AMD destroyed the high socket count market with high core counts that Intel stopped releasing 4/8 socket products altogether. However, Intel didn't stop charging a premium for Xeon 6 as the two socket SKUs were priced like 8 socket SKUs from the past. That is until today when they realized that a 128 core count Xeon is nothing special and they can't charge a premium over the competition.
Edit: Now that I'm looking at the pricing above, it looks like Intel thought that AMD would go up in pricing between Zen 4 and 5 based on the increase in cores. AMD did so between Zen 3 and 4. This would have meant a $17,800 price for the Epyc 9755. Instead, AMD kept the pricing roughly the same. Sneaky!!!
If IO and memory are more important for you, and you can get an intel system cheaper than an AMD one, I guess that'd be the point.
In most other cases an AMD setup would make more sense.
I always thought competition was good.
Quite strange, hmmmm…..