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Comment by VMG | Hacker News Reader

why isn't it priced higher then?

AMD is still gaining back mindshare. Yes, they’re not optimizing for profit right now, because they’re also gaining something valuable - entrenched market position. Intel’s dominance is incredibly sticky, and their name brand alone is worth 10s of billions. By blowing away Intel at every price point by a wide margin (and with Threadripper halo SKUs with no Intel competition), AMD is flexing and showing they are winners, and Intel are losers. People want to feel like winners when they buy products.

The last Intel security bugs made them lose a lot of the reputation they had, at least amongst system adminstrators though.

Now is a crucial time for AMD to strike back.

This and their Minix backdoor are the reasons why I wanted an AMD for my laptop, but I was sad I couldn't find a high-end Thinkpad with AMD processor. I hope that will change next year.

Why call it minix backdoor? It puts some blame on minix, yet minix is blameless here.

Minix is an excellent FOSS microkernel multiserver OS with a focus on reliability and fault tolerance.

The way Intel is using it just isn't nice.

I'm not blaming it on Minix, but it does make use of Minix. I'm mentioning it to identify what I'm talking about. I believe the official name is Intel Management Engine. Or maybe that's just part of it.

Intel ME is the name I usually see, and also the name that the tools to remove/disable when possible do reference.

T495 Zen+ A485 Zen X395 Zen+

The 5 at the end denotes an AMD product.

I'd hold out for after CES though. That's when Zen2 is coming to laptops. With thinkpad lag I'd say August of next year.

If you're talking about the Management Engine, doesn't AMD have basically the same thing just called PSP?

Possibly. The Intel version is better publicised. I have no idea what PSP can do, but Intel's IME makes it possible to remotely completely override anything about a PC, which can be convenient for sysadmins for large organisations, but hasn't been disabled for consumer products.

I have no idea whether the same is true for PSP.

The remote management features in Intel ME require a vPro capable chipset.

To be useful to you, usually yes.

To be a convenient security hole, AFAIK no.

Any quotes on ME being safe on non-vPro?

It's still a security risk – code is running in the ME that can be exploited locally.

Without vPro or with remote management and the network stack turned off there's a much smaller (probably close to zero) remote attack surface. With a vPro-capable chipset that has remote management enabled, the ME has its own IP address, plenty of potentially unsafe services, an insecure-by-default provisioning mechanism and much more.

The extensive research on the ME I actually conside a pro for Intel, since I know more about what it does and how to disable it. The PSP is still more of a black box.

AMD supports KVM redirection, too, via a standard called DASH. You can see examples at https://community.amd.com/community/devgurus/dmtf-dash/blog. From the standard body's description: "DASH provides support for the redirection of KVM (Keyboard, Video and Mouse) and text consoles, as well as USB and media, and supports the management of software updates, BIOS (Basic Input Output System), batteries, NIC (Network Interface Card), MAC and IP addresses, as well as DNS and DHCP configuration. DASH specifications also address operating system status, opaque data management, and more." https://www.dmtf.org/standards/dash

Intel's AMT is also an implementation of DASH.

AMD has the same "Secure Enclave".

AMD PSP; "AMD Platform Security Processor".

Not with the Directors of those system administrators though. Nobody got fired for buying Intel is a thing. I had to fight to get our recent server purchases to be AMD.

What were the arguments you were getting against buying AMD?

heh after your words i'm thinking that AMD is doing to Intel what Nvidia did in GPU segment

Depends on whether it was sold out due to manufacturing capacity or just a local logistical issue.

If manufacturing capacity, then it should've been priced higher.

If local logistics, then this data point has no bearing on whether it's priced correctly or not.

What if it's actually priced below cost and supply is deliberately restricted? Making the top bins of a part "marketing only" products has been done in the past, and fits the evidence here...

The binning on 3950x chips is nothing extraordinary, thats why the chiplet model is so powerful, because you don't need to have 16 perfect cores on one die to sell the CPU.

Then why are there so few of them? You can't buy these things anywhere, despite being priced at a volume level. Something doesn't add up.

Well, the 3950X just launched, so there's a demand spike that's going to follow from that. But that aside these are sharing parts with the Epyc series. If AMD is getting volume orders for Epyc that is definitely going to take priority.

The allocation order is going to go enterprise first, system builders second, retail boxes a distant 3rd.

The Epyc devices are lower binnings though! That's exactly my point. They don't seem to have the 3.5+ GHz parts available in a reasonable quantity. When Intel was doing this with "1 GHz" Pentium 3's way back when, they got crucified for a paper launch.

Are you sure they're lower binnings, or just equally good chips being run more slowly for reduced power consumption? The power budget per core on Epyc is quite a bit lower.

The 3700X and 3800X, both of which have higher base frequencies than the 3950X and also use 8-core chiplets, have been in stock near continuously since launch.

That's not how binning works. If you don't have enough of your top bin to supply the demand at your price point, you're not selling it at a loss, merely leaving money on the table.

Supply isn't deliberately restricted, it's just you can't ramp up production of your top bins without also making more of everything else.

If it were a different die entirely this might make more sense. But it's not.

I'd guess the top line products will be more available later, as they tune their process to increase yields.

The 3950X is the most expensive consumer platform CPU on the market, and AMD's HEDT lineup has a starting price higher than Intel's flagship HEDT part. So how much higher priced should it be?

generally to gain back market share

Your ability to gain market share ends when supply ends.

If the demand is exceeding AMDs manufacturing capacity, then they should have priced higher or need to increase manufacturing capacity in order to actualize the potential market share to be gained.

Except if you want to be known for being as the cheaper option and not just thinking about short-term profits; even if it takes a little delay to actually get the supply needed to satisfy the demand.

What? Increase price to lower demand so they have a lower market share than they do now so they can have a higher market share later?

If they're supply-limited, they can increase price all the way until demand falls to meet supply. Selling widgets priced below the equilibrium point achieves nothing for capturing market share, it just loses potential revenue.

I.e. if they can only manufacture 1000 widgets, but 10,000 people want to buy one at the given price point, the gained market share is still only 1000 individuals. The number of people who want one but can't get one due to lack of supply is not market share.

Temporary under-pricing might be a valid strategy if AMD is planning to ramp up manufacturing capacity, but comments further down in this thread suggest they lack the fabs to do that.

You're completely forgetting about the future loss of sales when someone only looks at AMD CPUs once. The buyer will switch to Intel immediately and then when prices are finally down again won't be shopping around for prices. The impression that AMD is overpriced remains.

They could have priced higher and still dominated intel price/perf ratio wise. The supply/demand equilibrium point is somewhere higher than the current price and lower than intel break-even price.

The only way they'd set the impression of overpricing is if they actually overpriced. They did the opposite.

Whether it was a mistake in pricing or some calculated second-order strategy, we'll never know. What we do know is they're leaving cash on the table whether intentionally or not.

Temporarily (keyword) underpricing to hurt competitors is not unheard of but I don't see how it will hurt intel unless it significantly shifts mindshare for the next ~2 years and allows AMD to get a real foothold in the server market.

They have basically one opportunity to set the expected price point and as it turns out, they prefer to get all the positivity and hype on their side, than perfectly optimize to marginal demand.

I am not sure it is a bad choice.

Selling out of inventory isn't a bad move if you seeking to raise capital or debt to increase production capability. E.g. were profitable and selling out at this price point and arguably would continue to do so as we ramp up production. Especially if looking down the road long term. In the short term it generates buzz, thus this very post here on hacker news, which isn't necessarily negative unless it is a prolonged inventory shortage.

> If the demand is exceeding AMDs manufacturing capacity, then they should have priced higher or need to increase manufacturing capacity in order to actualize the potential market share to be gained.

That's the standard micro economics answer. You're not wrong.

However, I don't think you're right either. The pricing of consumer products is a black art because people don't necessarily behave like economics textbooks say they should.

Some possibilities:

1. This is a short term supply hiccup. The good will of keeping the price the same of the medium term is worth more than the money AMD would make by raising and then lowering the price of their chips.

2. They are constrained in their ability to raise their prices by Intel, which is broadly thought of as a superior product (leaving out the technical analysis of the current generation).

3. They want to create the perception of scarcity.

They've been binning these chips for months maybe even a year at this point. The binned CCDs used in the 3950X are also used in Epyc. I'm sure server has a higher priority over DIY.

From what I've read/heard - AMD are selling every chip they can make.

So whatever the highest test the chip passes, it's sold as that.

This is apparently why nobody is having much luck getting any kind of overclocking beyond the on-box specs - AMDs just very good at ensuring chips go where they're required.

Then you have consumers feeling ripped off when the next batch arrives, as has said above they could be trying to build brand loyalty.

> If the demand is exceeding AMDs manufacturing capacity, then they should have priced higher

If they did that the news would have been AMD is expensive which is not much of a news-story. Whereas now the news is that AMD is sold out because it is so good.

It could be that this is the long-term efficient price after demand from early adopters goes down. Or maybe they underestimated demand altogether and it's too late to raise prices now.

I think this is a fair question to ask, I don’t know why you are being downvoted. It bothers me that hackernews penalizes curiosity.

The new threadrippers are on par or more expensive than Intel's solutions if judged by performance/cost per core. Especially if ridiculously priced motherboards are considered.

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