Intel 14nm shortages, HPE recommending AMD Epyc as alternative to Intel's Xeons

[muskie]

Intel's 14nm processes are suffering from supply shortages, affecting both Consumer and Enterprise markets across their 14nm SKUs.

 

On the consumer side, this is affecting pricing of Intel's 8000 series CPUs, and may even affect the upcoming Intel 9000 series release

 

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The first signs of a shortage of Intel's 14nm processors is emerging in the form of increasing prices, spotty availability for some processors, unavailable chipsets and complaints from Intel's partners. These concerns come after Intel has acknowledged production issues and is poised to launch its new 9000-series processors, though it's becoming more likely that we'll see a repeat of last year's quasi-paper launch.

 

Interestingly, HPE has published a partner update (which appears to have been published publicly) mentioning their ongoing supply issues with Intel's 14nm Xeons that have been impacting availability across some SKUs.

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“Supply continues to be dynamic and constrained on specific SKUs, but HPE teams are working with Intel to drive additional supply with significant recovery being forecasted in September and October.”

 

Part of this update includes recommendations on alternative models that feature the AMD epyc line of processors as an alternative to the Intel Xeon lineup

 

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“Recommending alternative platforms such as the ProLiant DL325 Gen10 and ProLiant DL385 Gen10 servers based on AMD EPYC processors.”

 

I'm quite surprised that Intel would have issues such as this on a released product? We aren't talking about the market requesting new 10nm, which Intel have already outlined is delayed.

 

With that being said, there's discussions that this is related to changes in the 10nm production timeline, which is impacting 14nm production 

 

It seems like Intel is dropping the ball on this, with AMD more than happy to pick up the slack. 

 

With this + AMD are already testing their 7nm Epic chips (to be released in Q1'19), together with the recent drama surrounding performance drops across Intel microcode updates (ie: Spectre et al.), could this be a turning point in the enterprise space?

 

Sources:

https://www.semiaccurate.com/2018/09/07/intel-cant-supply-14nm-xeons-hpe-directly-recommends-amd-epyc/

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/14nm-processor-intel-shortage-9000-series,37746.html

[AnonymousGuy]

14nm is a super mature process at this point, so shortage probably means Intel is printing money.

[.Apex.]

it's getting competitive, which is good for everyone, but it's not a turning point by any means, it's not like Intel is sitting on their ass and doing nothing like AMD did since 2011 until Ryzen...

 

they are only blowing punches at each other at this point, and that's how it's supposed to be, no one should be king

[DocSwag]

12 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

14nm is a super mature process at this point, so shortage probably means Intel is printing money.

I believe it had to do with transitioning stuff to 10nm IIRC. Could be wrong.

[muskie]

49 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

shortage probably means Intel is printing money

I'm sure profits at Intel would be healthy — but if they concede to a competitor, this can begin the process of eroding their dominance in the space, particularly in the Enterprise / DC space.

 

40 minutes ago, syn2112 said:

It's getting competitive, which is good for everyone, but it's not a turning point by any means, it's not like Intel is sitting on their ass and doing nothing like AMD did since 2011 until Ryzen...

 

Intel's benefited from being the "standard" in most x86 based DCs — if it comes to be that AMD is a viable option in Price, Performance and Availability, that standard will begin to erode and the lines in terms of OS / Software compatibility (WRT enterprise hardware / cloud based systems).

 

AMDs Epyc's current drawbacks would be it being a relatively recent entry in the space and power draw. AMD's matured alot and this will continue to be the case, with power draw to be improved in their 7nm process.

 

Per core performance is one area that can be argued — but more cores are generally preferred in the enterprise / business space due to larger applications of multi-core capable use cases

 

35 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

I believe it had to do with transitioning stuff to 10nm IIRC. Could be wrong.

Yep — it would appear that like the delays in 10nm have impacted production volume of 14nm, with Intel currently handling both 14nm and 22nm currently,  but still needing to work on 10nm — i don't have a source for this, but im sure this could be located out there.

[MoonSpot]

1 hour ago, AnonymousGuy said:

14nm is a super mature process at this point, so shortage probably means Intel is printing money.

Or possibly that they've fallen soo far out of favour with intel that intel won't supply to meet HPE needs.

(Fans the wild flames of gossip)

[Humbug]

4 hours ago, syn2112 said:

it's getting competitive, which is good for everyone, but it's not a turning point by any means, it's not like Intel is sitting on their ass and doing nothing like AMD did since 2011 until Ryzen...

AMD was not sitting on their asses all those years. They were working hard to R&D Zen cores.

 

It didn't happen suddenly, it just wasn't visible to us the public.

 

[Shally]

Hey HPE, i work for those dudes

[porina]

Speculation: no manufacturer wants to have a warehouse of product it may or may not sell. They have to predict what they need, and when. It may be as simple as HPE got in a big order for certain parts that wasn't forecast, and as such there is a shortage. These products aren't something you can just turn the tap on and have a bunch of extra ones ready to ship in the near term.

 

HPE recommending AMD as an alternative is in part, if they can't sell what they want, sell them something else rather than risk the customer looking at other suppliers.

 

Out of interest, how big are HPE these days in the enterprise space? 

[Trixanity]

It's probably a combination of transitioning some to 10nm and having too many products on 14nm. 

 

Pretty much everything they make is made on 14nm and I mean everything. All CPUs, all chipsets and a lot of their networking stuff is also on 14nm (at least their modems are). Their FPGAs are probably on 14nm too. It's bound to cause problems when they have limited capacity.

[leadeater]

39 minutes ago, porina said:

Out of interest, how big are HPE these days in the enterprise space? 

Second largest at 18.6% behind Dell at 19.1%

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43860318

[Arika]

so basically a company is recommending the only alternative as an alternative because one of them is currently short on supply. And for some reason this warrants an article?

[yian88]

So intel thinks AMD zen's are too price competitive hence they create a fake 14nm shortage to hike the prices a bit

[mynameisjuan]

5 hours ago, Arika S said:

so basically a company is recommending the only alternative as an alternative because one of them is currently short on supply. And for some reason this warrants an article?

Its intel...you should know by now that everyone want to bash intel for every move.

[MyName13]

" Intel's recent 300-series chipset refresh found its new chipsets coming to market with the 14nm process, which is necessary to meet California's new power standards "

What is this law about?How much power could a chipset draw?

[PlayStation 2]

5 hours ago, MyName13 said:

" Intel's recent 300-series chipset refresh found its new chipsets coming to market with the 14nm process, which is necessary to meet California's new power standards "

What is this law about?How much power could a chipset draw?

Knowing California, it's probably some dumb ass thing that they have to follow because reasons.

[mr moose]

I don't trust anyone who refuses to link their source while making absolute statements concerning the issue and then posts this as the only quote:
 

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“Supply continues to be dynamic and constrained on specific SKUs, but HPE teams are working with Intel to drive additional supply with significant recovery being forecasted in September and October.”

 

 

I'm sorry but that does not say in "no uncertain terms" that Intel cannot supply Xeon's, in fact it says the exact opposite and that HPE will be fully restocked in 6 weeks. 

 

So please until we have some sort of actual confirmation that Intel have supply issues can we stop with the BS about faked shortages and pricing.

[porina]

10 hours ago, mr moose said:

So please until we have some sort of actual confirmation that Intel have supply issues can we stop with the BS about faked shortages and pricing.

https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180910PD210.html

 

Don't know how credible Digitimes are, but that is some shortage if true.