The wonders of engineering samples - upcoming Xeon processor de-lidded.

[williamcll]

 

popular overclocker De8auer has managed to get himself an upcoming Xeon processor, since there's no motherboard for it, no performance numbers were taken.

Quotes

Quote

It should be noted that although the processor might have worked, there was no legal way to obtain a working motherboard for Sapphire Rapids CPUs, as those are still under an embargo. For years, Intel CPU engineering samples were easily available on the black market, sometimes even months ahead of launch. However, gaining access to a working motherboard would be a lot more complicated, because with access to a working CPU a lot more information could haven released. The sample labeled as “Xeon vPRO XCC QWP3” is an unreleased server CPU that might offer up to 56 cores. This particular sample has not been tested and therefore its configuration is unknown. Der8auer goes through the process of delidding and then baking the CPU in order to remove individual chiplets from the processor.

It should be noted that Sapphire Rapids will also make its way to the consumers. Intel is working on the Sapphire Rapids-X series which will be the company’s long-awaited update to its HEDT series. It is expected that those will be released alongside Raptor Lake consumer CPUs by the end of this year.

 

My thoughts

I hope these come as cheap as EPYC or even threadrippers else it's going to be a struggle to make a profit out of these.

 

Sources

https://videocardz.com/newz/intels-unreleased-xeon-sapphire-rapids-cpu-has-been-delidded-by-der8auer

[Roswell]

21 minutes ago, williamcll said:

My thoughts

I hope these come as cheap as EPYC or even threadrippers else it's going to be a struggle to make a profit out of these.

Huh? These will outsell AMD 10 to 1. Intel absolutely dominates the server market, AMD accounts for less than 10% of chips delivered: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amds-cpu-market-share-and-revenue-jump-as-apples-m1-arm-chips-rise

 

They'll sell like wildfire and Intel as per usual will rake in 10x the revenue that AMD does. AMD has an enormous issue with capacity, they simply can't figure out how to actually manufacture their chips. To a lesser extent, AMD also has a lot of issues with business feature sets. 

 

 

[Juular]

'Baking' my ass. The guy is barbarian.

[thekingofmonks]

1 hour ago, Juular said:

'Baking' my ass. The guy is barbarian.

cpu overclocking world record breaker

[CarlBar]

8 hours ago, Roswell said:

AMD has an enormous issue with capacity, they simply can't figure out how to actually manufacture their chips.

 

 

Not AMD thats the issue there, TSMC simply does not have the capacity to manufacture that much silicon. When ti comes to manufacturing capacity on nodes suitable for high performance CPU/GPU needs Intel holds the overwhelming majority of fab capacity and has for a long time.

[Beerzerker]

8 hours ago, Roswell said:

Huh? These will outsell AMD 10 to 1. Intel absolutely dominates the server market, AMD accounts for less than 10% of chips delivered: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amds-cpu-market-share-and-revenue-jump-as-apples-m1-arm-chips-rise

 

They'll sell like wildfire and Intel as per usual will rake in 10x the revenue that AMD does. AMD has an enormous issue with capacity, they simply can't figure out how to actually manufacture their chips. To a lesser extent, AMD also has a lot of issues with business feature sets. 

 

 

This is incorrect to an extent.
It's not a matter of manufacture itself done by AMD, it's the amount of silicon wafers they can get to make them with. Alot of competition nowadays for silicon and all manufacturers of these wafers can't keep up with the demand for it, hence the "Silicon Shortage" we know about.

AMD at one time owned Glo-Flo but sold that off due to financial problems and at the time it worked out for them to just be rid of it.
Instead of having to worry about both ends of it, making the wafers and the chips they concentrated on just making the chips.

Even Intel, inspite of owning facilities to create the wafers doesn't make all the wafers they use and that's why they are a BIG customer of TSMC like other chip makers are.

Assuming these are going to outsell Epyc and TR by the numbers alone might be correct but at the same time, there is also how well they will work vs AMD's offerings.  If they don't do as well the demand (Preference) for them won't be as great.
With the shortage of silicon these will probrably sell just fine but folks may or may not be as partial towards them, preferring to get AMD instead if they have a choice between the two at all. 

And of course in the corporate world, price is everything.

Let's see what the future brings, then pass judgement.

[dizmo]

Intel will have no problem making profit on these, there's nothing but money in the server space. Also not sure how you're comment makes any sense. If they keep the price high, there's more profit per chip when compared to cheaper AMD offerings, and as such they don't have to sell as many units. 

 

16 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

This is incorrect to an extent.
It's not a matter of manufacture itself done by AMD, it's the amount of silicon wafers they can get to make them with. Alot of competition nowadays for silicon and all manufacturers of these wafers can't keep up with the demand for it, hence the "Silicon Shortage" we know about.

AMD at one time owned Glo-Flo but sold that off due to financial problems and at the time it worked out for them to just be rid of it.
Instead of having to worry about both ends of it, making the wafers and the chips they concentrated on just making the chips.

Even Intel, inspite of owning facilities to create the wafers doesn't make all the wafers they use and that's why they are a BIG customer of TSMC like other chip makers are.

Assuming these are going to outsell Epyc and TR by the numbers alone might be correct but at the same time, there is also how well they will work vs AMD's offerings.  If they don't do as well the demand (Preference) for them won't be as great.
With the shortage of silicon these will probrably sell just fine but folks may or may not be as partial towards them, preferring to get AMD instead if they have a choice between the two at all. 

And of course in the corporate world, price is everything.

Let's see what the future brings, then pass judgement.

Your wording isn't exactly accurate either, though. Technically AMD doesn't make chips at all. They design them, and farm out the manufacturing process. 

 

The enterprise space is very hesitant to change. A lot of companies won't simply move to AMD, they'll sample small amounts and test them for years. 

 

While from the top pricing is a consideration, most departments will max out any budget they have so that the budget doesn't shrink the next year. 

[Beerzerker]

13 hours ago, dizmo said:

1: Intel will have no problem making profit on these, there's nothing but money in the server space. Also not sure how you're comment makes any sense. If they keep the price high, there's more profit per chip when compared to cheaper AMD offerings, and as such they don't have to sell as many units. 

 

2: Your wording isn't exactly accurate either, though. Technically AMD doesn't make chips at all. They design them, and farm out the manufacturing process. 

 

3: The enterprise space is very hesitant to change. A lot of companies won't simply move to AMD, they'll sample small amounts and test them for years. 

 

4: While from the top pricing is a consideration, most departments will max out any budget they have so that the budget doesn't shrink the next year. 

1: That's what I meant by the statement:

14 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

With the shortage of silicon these will probrably sell just fine

And they will, Intel has the production volume and the clients - I'm just saying IF these don't perform as advertised AMD will benefit of course.
I can't see Intel having to hold onto much of anything with the way things are today, they have the clients in the business world to make that fact but at the same time if they fail to meet expectation the preference would be in AMD's favor, making AMD themselves not have to worry about Intel rubbing them out and forcing them to hold onto chips either.
And do bear in mind the corporate world playing a role in this has a say about it.  Whoever sells these chips for the cheapest price will probrably win the sale per company/entity and I can see Intel dropping price to attract more sales because they can. It's in the event if these chips are not performing well that these chips, even though they might be cheaper may not sell as quickly but I believe we can agree regardless, both companies in the end will have no problems selling what they make.

2: I can accept that, I'm not doubting alot of production is farmed out like it is with other businesses. I mean both makers have facilities around the world doing things to that end so it just makes sense that would be so - Diffused in Malaysia and whatever in Germany, USA, Taiwan.... Yeah, you're right about that I admit.

3: Well, for those that have already been testing AMD's for the past few years I can see some movement towards them, esp if the pricing per chip is right. Can't deny since Epyc and TR has been around you have at least a few that's been doing just that and may well make the real change with their next round of upgrades.
It's also going to depend on how efficient they are on a cost per watt by the day for them, the AC units keeping them cool and so on. Server rooms get warm/hot and that can lead to problems - When the servers are down, it's all down and I've been on the front end of trying to get the servers back up before because of it.
In my case the AC unit in the server room had quit each time but the thing is, if they run hot all the time that's gonna be rough on server equipment and you'll get problems in return, just how it is.
Believe me, these companies have people (Engineers) that go in-depth to figuring all of it out related to cost to operate and all else and what they come up with determines a great deal of the decision making done.

4: This is true in most cases but in events of cost-cutting I've seen budgets reduced even if it was all used the previous year.
There are alot of factors (Mainly individual people) involved and sometimes a lack of common sense too, if you've been around such like I have you know what I mean by that. They'll scale the budget back in certain areas under the pretense of "Cost Savings", even if it means going to extremes to do it.

To my point and why I say the above with #4:
Where I was before retiring this was kinda routine, esp with the boss we had. He kept cutting back things to the point the place could hardly function and his cadre of engineers were still going around exploring other ways to cut costs all the while.

I believe in the end it bit his ass because production kept falling off due to the increasingly difficult conditions he himself was creating for the place.
I still knew people there (Of course) and did occasionally run into a few that told me what was going on after I had left and they all said things were steadily getting worse, not better.

From reducing staff/workers (Short-Staffed) while increasing production targets/goals, actually going back towards more manual labor processes instead of continuing to use the machinery already in place and working, he did it all and the results showed it.

Cost cutting is a real thing concerning budgets and those live and die by the graph on a spreadsheet which affects things like what and how many chips would be purchased.

[Heliian]

Did he microwave it? 

[CarlBar]

13 minutes ago, Heliian said:

Did he microwave it? 

 

Put it on an electric hob to de-solder the chiplets.