AMD EPYC Server CPU Sales Surge Reportedly Forces Intel To Drop Xeon Prices
AMD recently posted its best quarterly earnings in seven years, with its Ryzen and Epyc product lines boosting the company's bottom line. The reception to its Zen-based products is obviously good news for AMD. For rival Intel, however, AMD's resurgence puts added pressure to execute its roadmaps. It also could be leading to price cuts.
Where this is particularly interesting is in the server market. After a year on the market, AMD noted that its EPYC sales "continue to accelerate, with new platform deployments and commitments from industry leaders." HPE, for example, launched two new EPYC platforms, including the ProLiant DL325 Gen10 server delivering two-socket performance in a one-socket setup, and Cisco launched its first ever AMD-based UCS server, with EPYC inside.
"We had an outstanding second quarter with strong revenue growth, margin expansion and our highest quarterly net income in seven years," AMD president and CEO Dr. Lisa Su said at the time. "Most importantly, we believe our long-term technology bets position us very well for the future. We are confident that with the continued execution of our product roadmaps, we are on an excellent trajectory to drive market share gains and profitable growth."
On the heels of AMD's EPYC sales surge, ServeTheHome claims it's heard from a "number of customers" that Intel is giving "significant discounts" for its Xeon processors "to hold AMD EPYC at bay." Those discounts are reportedly happening at quantity levels well below 1,000-unit trays, and not just to its largest customers.
It's not clear exactly what kind of price cuts are supposedly occurring, though it's said that discounts and incentives have crept into double-digit percentages. In addition, Intel is "more or less matching the price" of EPYC alternatives for some customers, presumably in a bid to keep or gain their business and maintain market share.
"A key trigger seems to be an organization’s willingness to adopt AMD EPYC. Our advice, if you are buying even as few as 50-100 servers, is to get an AMD EPYC system quote from your reseller. Doing so seems to be the trigger for Intel’s discount approvals," STH says.
It's certainly worth a shot.
