Intel's Flagship 128-Core Xeon 6980P Processor Sets Record $17,800 Flagship Price

[lexluthermiester]

Intel's Flagship 128-Core Xeon 6980P Processor Sets Record $17,800 Flagship Price

I have recently bought cars for less than that.. Damn.

Haven't seen the most important question, which is... does it run Crysis?

You're kidding right? That CPU could run Crysis 64 times over simultaneously. It could likely run 16 instances of CyberPunk at the same time. So...

 

[ypsylon]

Intel never really was afraid to set new $ record. This bad boy for the moment in that segment deserves the price with simply colossal performance uplift over everything that came before it. On top of this IIRC you can put 8 of those in one node so tremendous amount of compute at a cost & power. Of course people who need them don't really ask those questions. They usually have nuclear reactors at their disposal.

Most of customers don't get top of the line server SKUs, but say when you ask military how many of 6980Ps they want, answer is: Yes.

What I hope is they get one of these "small socket" 4710 coming Q1 2025, trim it down a bit from superfluous fluff and release as new Xeon-W for "the masses". Refresh of Sapphire Rapids was mockery of first order. Sure they have some niche applications, but c'mon 10nm+++++ in 2024 is new running joke.

 

[csendesmark]

There are less and less individuals being able to afford enthousiast components by the day.
Watch what they are taking from us!

These kind of products are not made to sell them to "individuals"
This stuff made for big faceless corporations.

does it run Crysis?

That CPU can run it in software render

 

[Wirko]

I have recently bought cars for less than that.. Damn.

Old cars, I suppose. But what good is a car if it doesn't have a microcontroller in every button and in every lamp?

These kind of products are not made to sell them to "individuals"

Not just bare processors. It will probably be very hard to find a reseller willing to sell a big Xeon-based server (rack module or whatever shape they will exist in) to a retail customer, with retail warranty. They won't even understand the question if you call them and ask for a quote for, erm, "one".

 

[lexluthermiester]

Old cars, I suppose.

Not that old.

But what good is a car if it doesn't have a microcontroller in every button and in every lamp?

Right? Cars need to just be cars.

 

[Jism]

There are less and less individuals being able to afford enthousiast components by the day.
Watch what they are taking from us!

The smaller the node, the more expensive it becomes.

 

[Caring1]

The more you buy, the more you save?

 

[ratirt]

So, I'm guessing, the race to "which CPU is most expensive" has started rather than which one is more efficient or has the highest performance.
How things have changed.

 

[Wirko]

To a layman, it would be best to divide all the specs by 6 for example, except for the clocks and temps, and get numbers that they (we) can comprehend.

Xeon 1163.33P

Socket: LGA 1255
Intel 3 node
83 W TDP
21 cores (with mesh interconnect)
84 MB L3
2 memory channels
Up to 512 GB RAM
MDRIMM 8800 GT/s (that's guaranteed to work, not an extreme overclock)
16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 (which you can split in almost any way, down to x2 links)

Price: $2970

RAM bandwidth is scarce but otherwise it's not that bad for a small server, hah. Especially if the TDP stays close to the spec.

And you can get a 20-core model, the Xeon 1163.17P, for $2625.

 

[Nhonho]

They just wont learn, they're no longer in a position to ask for such an astronomical price premium, a 9754 is like half the price, crazy.

And the person/company that will use it will need an active cooler of a size of a refrigerator to cool it.

They just wont learn, they're no longer in a position to ask for such an astronomical price premium, a 9754 is like half the price, crazy.

I won't mention names...

The problem is the illegal business practices that have been and continue to be practiced. A certain dominant sales company has always practiced illegal business practices, only offering large discounts to PC and server assemblers if they only buy its CPUs. If these assemblers also buy CPUs from the other CPU manufacturer, the dominant company does not sell its CPUs with the large discounts and, therefore, the companies that assemble and sell PCs and servers are stuck with the first company (also for reasons of greed) to dont lose the large discounts.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So, I'm guessing, the race to "which CPU is most expensive" has started rather than which one is more efficient or has the highest performance.
How things have changed.

I think you missed some of the finer points of the article. Just throwing it out there..

 

[ratirt]

I think you missed some of the finer points of the article. Just throwing it out there..

I didn't but this article's title speaks for itself thus my remark.
I would say, I don't care about the price for this product but all in all it will get to the desktop segment as well. I'm just hoping it wont happen.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I didn't but this article's title speaks for itself thus my remark.
I would say, I don't care about the price for this product but all in all it will get to the desktop segment as well. I'm just hoping it wont happen.

No, the consumer/desktop market is not what this CPU is aimed at. Not even in the ballpark.

 

[ratirt]

No, the consumer/desktop market is not what this CPU is aimed at. Not even in the ballpark.

Again, I know but I worry this "race" will fall on the desktop market as well or at least impact it in a way or two. I hope not and I guess we will see.
I was referring to the price constantly increasing not the product itself.

 

[Solaris17]

Again, I know but I worry this "race" will fall on the desktop market as well or at least impact it in a way or two. I hope not and I guess we will see.
I was referring to the price constantly increasing not the product itself.

I doubt it. The consumer gear prices rising are just a sign of the times. We dont get these CPUs for that much, not when you are buying entire trays. These kinds of ARK prices are to /stop/ consumers from buying them.

Also as far as core counts go, it is very impressive, but the accelerators are what puts $x,xxx on the pricetag.

Please understand also the clock rates differentials. Linux and windows experiences with this CPU would be vastly different, and these arent going to get anywhere NEAR the 5.6ghz for multiple seconds that your used to with your gaming CPU.

For MT it would destroy you, for ST it will lag behind for sure. Boosting helps quite a bit but you cant ever directly correlate these chips and consumer stuff, literally ever.

It is legit like comparing a ferrari with a bus.

My cpu and my test server CPUs will happily sit at 800mhz all day in windows. I /might/ get 1900mhz when playing a game. Clock rates are based on lots of things, but one of the big ones is load % and there are so many cores the load is tragically low all the time, you have to tweak power plans to keep the clock rate up if you want to do something like play games. I dont mean "switch to high performance" either, tweaking the hidden settings can do a great deal, but of course this is where having that many cores shows its teeth, since you are basically running a microwave in regards to power draw at that point. If I choose ultimate performance I idle at about 170w thats just the CPU.

Interestingly heat really isnt a big deal on these CPUs at all, not in the server socket sizes anyway since atleast cascade lake (3647). They are so massive in die area and the IHS is basically a dinner plate so you dont get the thermal soak you do on consumer stuff.

 

[ratirt]

I doubt it. The consumer gear prices rising are just a sign of the times. We dont get these CPUs for that much, not when you are buying entire trays. These kinds of ARK prices are to /stop/ consumers from buying them.

Also as far as core counts go, it is very impressive, but the accelerators are what puts $x,xxx on the pricetag.

Please understand also the clock rates differentials. Linux and windows experiences with this CPU would be vastly different, and these arent going to get anywhere NEAR the 5.6ghz for multiple seconds that your used to with your gaming CPU.

For MT it would destroy you, for ST it will lag behind for sure. Boosting helps quite a bit but you cant ever directly correlate these chips and consumer stuff, literally ever.

It is legit like comparing a ferrari with a bus.

My cpu and my test server CPUs will happily sit at 800mhz all day in windows. I /might/ get 1900mhz when playing a game. Clock rates are based on lots of things, but one of the big ones is load % and there are so many cores the load is tragically low all the time, you have to tweak power plans to keep the clock rate up if you want to do something like play games. I dont mean "switch to high performance" either, tweaking the hidden settings can do a great deal, but of course this is where having that many cores shows its teeth, since you are basically running a microwave in regards to power draw at that point. If I choose ultimate performance I idle at about 170w thats just the CPU.

Interestingly heat really isnt a big deal on these CPUs at all, not in the server socket sizes anyway since atleast cascade lake (3647). They are so massive in die area and the IHS is basically a dinner plate so you dont get the thermal soak you do on consumer stuff.

Why would someone want to stop consumers to buy it? The companies will buy them either way but the companies are limited in resources and they can go somewhere else. Why not letting consumers also get the product for a reasonable price? It is still sales for the company producing it and if you sell 1m to the companies for bulk price 1000k pieces, if you have a good price, another 1m will be sold to consumers. I really dont understand your argument here by not selling to the consumers instead only companies in bulk. You come with a notion of the bus and a Ferrari to prove that there are different use case scenarios?The only thing I can think of right now here is to perception of the product being somewhat luxurious or special in a sense only few can afford it. Just like Ferrari cars or other luxurious cars. It is only for certain people not for everyone thus the price is so high.

I'm pretty sure the price should be high due to what the product is offering but does it really need to be that high and constantly going up?

MT ST is pretty obvious for all of us here. If you want ST you would not go for this product obviously but there are more and more apps and branches of economy that would enable regular people to utilize the cores fully in what they are doing. CPU heat was never my concern.

My problem here is not the MT high performance and low ST. My problem is the price being so high for regular costumers not being able to afford it. The other problem is your justification about the price being high so only companies can get it in bulk. If the price was right, I'm pretty sure regular customers would burst through the doors to get these for their work and it would have exceeded what the companies buy. I mean, i might be wrong on that one but it would have doubled the sales at least. It makes me wonder, how much lower the price is if you buy in bulk? 50% off? 10% off?
This is the deciding factor of why the product is so expensive. I'm pretty sure, companies would not disclose what money they need to spend to make these.

 

[Draconis]

I have nothing to contribute on forcing end users out. As to prices going up, while it might not justify the price but die size, packaging, wafer costs for advanced nodes, defect rate etc contribute to the price. With newer nodes getting more expensive product prices will follow.

Edit: Spelling

 

[Solaris17]

Why would someone want to stop consumers to buy it? The companies will buy them either way but the companies are limited in resources and they can go somewhere else. Why not letting consumers also get the product for a reasonable price? It is still sales for the company producing it and if you sell 1m to the companies for bulk price 1000k pieces, if you have a good price, another 1m will be sold to consumers. I really dont understand your argument here by not selling to the consumers instead only companies in bulk. You come with a notion of the bus and a Ferrari to prove that there are different use case scenarios?The only thing I can think of right now here is to perception of the product being somewhat luxurious or special in a sense only few can afford it. Just like Ferrari cars or other luxurious cars. It is only for certain people not for everyone thus the price is so high.

I'm pretty sure the price should be high due to what the product is offering but does it really need to be that high and constantly going up?

MT ST is pretty obvious for all of us here. If you want ST you would not go for this product obviously but there are more and more apps and branches of economy that would enable regular people to utilize the cores fully in what they are doing. CPU heat was never my concern.

My problem here is not the MT high performance and low ST. My problem is the price being so high for regular costumers not being able to afford it. The other problem is your justification about the price being high so only companies can get it in bulk. If the price was right, I'm pretty sure regular customers would burst through the doors to get these for their work and it would have exceeded what the companies buy. I mean, i might be wrong on that one but it would have doubled the sales at least. It makes me wonder, how much lower the price is if you buy in bulk? 50% off? 10% off?
This is the deciding factor of why the product is so expensive. I'm pretty sure, companies would not disclose what money they need to spend to make these.

You didn’t understand my post well at all it seems. I was not implying the cpu was a Ferrari at all from a value perspective .

As for not letting consumers buy you should study up on it. This happens to more companies than just intel. MS for example charges a ton when you go through them for there enterprise agreements.

These companies do not want to deal with you. The person. They price you into going with a VAR where they have b2b contracts etc.

It seems you haven’t had to deal or seen this kind of stuff from a business perspective I’ll just leave it at that.

 

[ratirt]

You didn’t understand my post well at all it seems. I was not implying the cpu was a Ferrari at all from a value perspective .

As for not letting consumers buy you should study up on it. This happens to more companies than just intel. MS for example charges a ton when you go through them for there enterprise agreements.

These companies do not want to deal with you. The person. They price you into going with a VAR where they have b2b contracts etc.

It seems you haven’t had to deal or seen this kind of stuff from a business perspective I’ll just leave it at that.

I know the business practice but that doesn't mean I agree with it right? I work a big corp and we have the same practice and I dont agree with it. I guess you have misunderstood my point here.
These companies like Intel? Intel does not want to deal with customers. I sincerely think you are mistaken here. As a matter of fact, they want to sell their products. As many as possible so what you are saying does not make much sense since these are profit making companies. The reason behind it must be different. wouldn't you say?
It is not a matter of not want to deal with the simple customer and b2b does not guarantee, you can get the product right? That is my issue here. You cant get it and it is charged more so that you don't and if you still want it, you have to pay crap load.

 

[Wirko]

I know the business practice but that doesn't mean I agree with it right? I work a big corp and we have the same practice and I dont agree with it. I guess you have misunderstood my point here.
These companies like Intel? Intel does not want to deal with customers. I sincerely think you are mistaken here. As a matter of fact, they want to sell their products. As many as possible so what you are saying does not make much sense since these are profit making companies. The reason behind it must be different. wouldn't you say?
It is not a matter of not want to deal with the simple customer and b2b does not guarantee, you can get the product right? That is my issue here. You cant get it and it is charged more so that you don't and if you still want it, you have to pay crap load.

Whatever reaches the retail stores must have a retail warranty and support, for one. It's not surprising Intel and others don't want to deal with that.

But very, very few individuals will ever want a big Xeon, so you can't say that Intel distorts the market in any meaningful way by doing this. If there's anyone Intel really tries (and succeeds) to push out of the market with these high prices, it's small resellers and system integrators.

I found some data that seems funny actually. The Xeon Platinum 8592+ (64-core Emerald Rapids accelerated to hell with accelerators, probably has an accelerator pedal too) costs 13,500 EUR (including VAT) in retail in Germany, which equals $12,400 excluding VAT. Intel's recommended price is $11,600. However, Puget Systems demands $25,600 extra for it (over basic cheap Xeon) when it's part of their server. That's a surprisingly big pile of money ... nevermind it's still cheap next to 4 TB of RAM ($46,000).