Thursday, February 6th 2025
Intel Xeon Server Processor Shipments Fall to a 13-Year Low
Intel's data center business has experienced a lot of decline in recent years. Once the go-to choice for data center buildout, nowadays, Xeon processors have reached a 13-year low. According to SemiAnalysis analyst Sravan Kundojjala on X, the once mighty has fallen to a 13-year low number, less than 50% of its CPU sales in the peak observed in 2021. In a chart that is indexed to 2011 CPU volume, the analysis gathered from server volume and 10K fillings shows the decline that Intel has experienced in recent years. Following the 2021 peak, the volume of shipped CPUs has remained in free fall, reaching less than 50% of its once-dominant position. The main cause for this volume contraction is attributed to Intel's competitors gaining massive traction. AMD, with its EPYC CPUs, has been Intel's primary competitor, pushing the boundaries on CPU core count per socket and performance per watt, all at an attractive price point.
During a recent earnings call, Intel's interim c-CEO leadership admitted that Intel is still behind the competition with regard to performance, even with Granite Rapids and Clearwater Forest, which promised to be their advantage in the data center. "So I think it would not be unfathomable that I would put a data center product outside if that meant that I hit the right product, the right market window as well as the right performance for my customers," said Intel co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus, adding that "Intel Foundry will need to earn my business every day, just as I need to earn the business of my customers." This confirms that the company is now dedicated to restoring its product leadership, even if its internal foundry is not doing okay. It will take some time before Intel CPU volume shipments recover, and with AMD executing well in data center, it is becoming a highly intense battle.
Source:
Sravan Kundojjala on X
During a recent earnings call, Intel's interim c-CEO leadership admitted that Intel is still behind the competition with regard to performance, even with Granite Rapids and Clearwater Forest, which promised to be their advantage in the data center. "So I think it would not be unfathomable that I would put a data center product outside if that meant that I hit the right product, the right market window as well as the right performance for my customers," said Intel co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus, adding that "Intel Foundry will need to earn my business every day, just as I need to earn the business of my customers." This confirms that the company is now dedicated to restoring its product leadership, even if its internal foundry is not doing okay. It will take some time before Intel CPU volume shipments recover, and with AMD executing well in data center, it is becoming a highly intense battle.
43 Comments on Intel Xeon Server Processor Shipments Fall to a 13-Year Low
Seeing is believing... I think Intel does need that, a breather. Yes, you won't release something for a year. And then you make something that's competitive again.
Client CPUs are a different story with Intel shipping way more CPUs into the laptop and desktop space than anyone else.
They need to basicly go back to engineering again build up some new CPU's from the ground up. They need to think Low Power, Massive ammount of cores, and Solid and good pricing.
Intel has lost the Server market, Lost the Desktop Market. Lost the workstation market to AMD. I mean low in sales do you need to go before you catch on. I have had intels for a long time. Each time I looked at upgrading I wanted a double ammount of cores. Like going from a core 2 duo to a core 2 quad, Then I went into a core i7 2600k to a 3770k. Then I wanted 8 cores so I when with a core i9 9900 KFC still running this CPU today in my gaming box. I been wanting to upgrade but I see nothing in intel that interests me. Not a single pure 16 core CPU for desktop anywhere. Only option is AMD. Kinda leaning towards a Ryzen 9 9950X3D.
I'm quite Sure AMD will release a 32 core Desktop CPU in the next couple of years. At that point if intel does not have something in those lines might as well go out of business.
In 2004 I wanted the Pentium 4 because high core clock and 2x threads. It was a workhorse but a high voltage thermal bomb at best.
In 2009 I went Phenom II X4. First 64-bit chip, factory speeds breaching beyond 3GHz and quad core/thread. Great chip limited by 4GB of the worst memory.
I was on that until the VR era before hopping over to FX-8370 and kinda stayed there until curious about Ryzen's SMT and new storage technology like M.2.
While the jump from 8c/8t to 6c/12t is weird and underwhelming, it definitely stirred enough efficiency improvements that I'm satisfied with it.
89W->125W->125W->65W is a wild roadmap when you consider that I've been running them all on the same water cooling technology the entire time.
I've never been able to consider a Xeon chip when new or used. There's just nothing exciting about them other than dirt cheap used prices.
A few years ago I picked up a 1c/1t eMachines dono to do my heavy lifting and it works GREAT. Not flawless but 1c/1t 15W running 2 HDDs 24/7 is fantastic.
Everyone has different needs but some of us push everything into the extremes just because it can be done. We do need more low power chips on the market.
Expect a headline like this for client segment coming soon. Was in a best buy the other day, and saw 14900Ks on the shelf for $499, there's a price those will sell at, but its not that.
I was using an Intel Xeon Phi server for many months to port a medium size C/C++ project. All my feelings I would describe as follows ( some kind of transitions ):
Very Excited -> I have a lot of questions -> Sorry, but that does Not work Too Fast and I need More memory! -> On one morning the Project was cancelled. Oops...
Here is my quick summary:
Low power - Intel Atom based low power cores did Not help. The Intel Xeon Phi servers were using a lot of power.
Number of Cores - Looked good but out of 256 Logical Processors only 64 had to be used in order to achieve top HPC performance ( in FLOPS ).
Note: There was only one physical FPU ( Floating Point Unit ) for 4 Logical Processors in a physical core.
Pricing - All these Intel Xeon Phi servers were very-very expensive.
In the server space it wasn't anything like Zen 4 > Zen 5, even factoring in Zen 5's sizeable performance increase in server applications. It's more like they jumped two straight generations.
This downward spiral isn't stopping anytime soon. Right now they're just trying to hold on to the markets they have by giving heavy discounts to SI's.
As far as I have seen the Xeons have at least been problem free.
ark.intel.com/products/94033/Intel-Xeon-Phi-Processor-7210-16GB-1_30-GHz-64-core
Intel Xeon Phi Processor 7210 ( 16GB, 1.30 GHz, 64 core )
Processor name: Intel(R) Xeon Phi(TM) 7210
Packages ( sockets ): 1
Cores: 64
Processors ( CPUs ): 256
Cores per package : 64
Threads per core: 4
Peak Processing Power: 2.662 TFLOPs
Note: Calculated as follows: 1.30 * 64 * ( 512-bit / 32-bit ) * 2 = 2662.4 GFLOPs for Single-Precision FPU data type
Another tech-mess was related to AVX-512 because of fragmentation the AVX-512 ISA.
It was hard to imaging that Intel did it!
...
Intel AVX-512 family of fnstructions:
- Intel AVX-512F Foundation instructions.
- Intel AVX-512CD Conflict Detection instructions.
- Intel AVX-512ER Exponential and Reciprocal instructions.
- Intel AVX-512PF Prefetch instructions.
- Intel AVX-512BW Integer operations on 8-bit and 16-bit operands.
- Intel AVX-512DQ Enhanced Integer and Floating-Point operations on 32-bit and 64-bit operands.
- Intel AVX-512VL Vector Length Extensions.
Intel Xeon Phi processor x200 products support:
- Intel AVX-512F Foundation instructions.
- Intel AVX-512CD Conflict Detection instructions.
- Intel AVX-512ER Exponential and Reciprocal instructions.
- Intel AVX-512PF Prefetch instructions.
Intel Xeon processors support:
- Intel AVX-512F Foundation instructions.
- Intel AVX-512CD Conflict Detection instructions.
- Intel AVX-512BW Integer operations on 8-bit and 16-bit operands.
- Intel AVX-512DQ Enhanced Integer and Floating-Point operations on 32-bit and 64-bit operands.
- Intel AVX-512VL Vector Length Extensions.
...
Intel's managers must think the world is still in the 80s and 90s... They will reap all what they sow...