Intel takes on AMD's Naples with terrible marketing

In the previous article we got a few glimpses of the Intel's response regarding the AMD EPYC server CPU lineup called "Naples", based on the ZEN core, a new, unique and scalable CPU design developed by AMD.

A new article by wccftech indicates that Intel is taking the situation very seriously and launching direct attacks against the competing server chip by AMD, highlighting the key weaknesses:

• Inconsistent performance from 4 "glued-together" Desktop die;
• Poor track record, inconsistent supplier; (perhaps Intel doesn't want users to remember the Titan supercomputer built on top of AMD Opteron)
• Lack of ecosystem; (Intel disregards AMD's strong connections with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Fujitsu, and IBM, which most of them participated at the EPYC announcement event)
• Higher latency due to die-to-die interconnect;
• Higher latency on memory and cache (Intel claims 31% lower memory latency, and 73% lower cache latency);
• Lower memory and PCIe bandwidth (96Gb/sec vs 64Gb/sec);
• Significantly lower performance of the Simetrical Multi Threading versus Hyper Threading;
• Some other numbers that favor Intel.

The community's response was indeed priceless, most of the netizens began backlashing Intel for their terrible marketing, and general consensus hovers around the poor value proposition of the Intel chips.

I personally don't know how an Intel representative can stand straight talking about these terrible loses in numbers:

Basically EPYC offers more for server workloads:

• more cores
• more PCIe lanes (a highly debated topic)
• more L3 cache
• more memory capacity (2 TB)
• less total memory bandwidth (presumably with no multitasking performance penalty)

AMD's slides show what these numbers mean in terms of performance with real world server workloads, of course showcasing scores favoring their CPU offering:

AMD's reply to the Intel attack is a quick and almost silent launch of the Threadripper lineup, at the top of the line stands Ryzen 9 1950x with 16C/32T at 3.4/4.0 Ghz with a price tag of $999, again wiping the floor in Cinebench R15 with Intel's equivalent offerings.

Further more, some leaks suggest that AMD is working on a Naples design with 48 cores for 2018, putting even more pressure on Intel. As tech media suggests, Intel is ready to fight dirty to the hold the lines in the server CPU market.

Sources :

• wccftech 1
• wccftech 2

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