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
It was disabled in Alder Lake because the E-cores didn't have it, though some early chips using early BIOS can use it if E-cores are turned off.
Intel needs to realize that people don't want these nonsense E-cores. Dozens of cores are only useful for server applications, not for home PCs.
Much of the software is still poorly optimized for many cores, and even those that are optimized for multicore still overload 1 or 2 CPU cores. Therefore, Intel should abandon these nonsense/useless E-cores and put only P-cores along with 1 "Super-core" for every 3 P-cores.
This way:
Some chips seem like exceptions to the usual home user build pattern but they definitely had their time.
Pentium 233, K6-2/300, Pentium 4, Athlon 2650e, Phenom II X4 955, FX-8370, Ryzen 5 3600...These are split into three categories:
Single core low clock (antique 32-bit), Single core high clock (aging 32/64-bit), Multicore high clock (64-bit modern standard).
Sooo all of these have a place in modern day computing. The antiques are great for running old games and apps at native speed/resolution.
The newer systems are still fine for anything but modern compute and gaming. They have been obsoleted by newer chips with weird technologies.
Tell me where an E-core sits in this formula. You can't. I'm not sold on any chips with this E-core technology as there's no measurable improvement.
E-cores typically do a great job with low power idle tasks which is where my servers tend to sit 98% of the time, standing by to stand by.
So why don't they? WRONG application. If there were something relevant to having these E-cores, that impact would be visible. It's not.
So I stick with the classic general purpose core count. None of this P-core E-core mix and match. Super core is a wild idea though. Pair those for hot dual cores.
ark.intel.com/products/94033/Intel-Xeon-Phi-Processor-7210-16GB-1_30-GHz-64-coreUpdate for a broken weblink to the processor specs:
www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/94033/intel-xeon-phi-processor-7210-16gb-1-30-ghz-64-core/specifications.htmlThis is actually Not a problem of Intel. Why? Because software vendors of many home applications still do Not fully understand how to correctly use multithreading ( I'm serious about it! ) and how to properly set thread affinity of logical processors to distribute processing between processor cores.
Example 1: Correct processing on Red Hat Linux on a server with Intel Xeon Phi 64-Core processor ( 256 Logical Processors )
Example 2: Correct processing on Windows on a Mobile Workstation with Extreme Edition of 4-Core Intel CPU ( 8 Logical Processors )
Example 3: Not Correct processing on Windows on a Mobile Workstation with Extreme Edition of 4-Core Intel CPU ( 8 Logical Processors )
So it's not just the home segment that has useless e-cores.
Ironically I have one of the few workloads that would benefit from heterogenous CPUs - compiling software in parallel. But I do AMD these days and older Xeons.
These Xeons... belong in workstations. But they're too costly for that... so I expect Intel's situation to significantly worsen before it gets better on this front.This is the Intel Royal Core design and it was scrapped
www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-reportedly-dismantles-Jim-Keller-s-revolutionary-Royal-Core-project-and-cancels-Beast-Lake.871208.0.html
I really would like to see how it looks like.
13 years ago might as well be 26 in computer years.
That is brutal.
www.techpowerup.com/332232/intel-nova-lake-to-appear-with-up-to-52-cores-16p-32e-4lpe-configuration
Core scheduling may seem daunting to the human mind, but it is trivial for an OS that is properly optimized and most are. Windows and the latest Linux kernels all are.
It is mildly amusing to watch people yammer on about things though..
My understanding is that the Win11 scheduler is full of hardcoded recognition of well-known software.