After AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster even had to comment on the memory problems with Genoa, Intel is now teasing with marketing slides. The message: Xeon with Sapphire Rapids is currently the best choice. Intel uses the fact that almost a dozen steppings were necessary and the platform came much too late.
Confirmed: Genoa's memory controller zickt
Charlie Demerjian from Semiaccurate reported problems with AMD's new Zen 4 Epyc CPUs “Genoa” early on, and recently he even repeated it in several reports. As a result, even AMD could no longer avoid the issue, the number 2 in the group, CTO Mark Papermaster, confirmed the problem and explained that it would be addressed and that a fix would be available later. When and how exactly this will take place remains open. The 2nd quarter is in the air, Charlie Demerjian is assuming the 2nd half of the year.
Up to now, full memory expansion is only theoretically possible
According to AMD, the problem only affects a small number of customers, those who use 2 DIMMs per memory channel. According to the report, this mode is currently virtually unusable. However, most customers would only use 1 DIMM per channel anyway, AMD appeases. However, the maximum storage capacity that AMD likes to advertise cannot be achieved in this way.
With up to 96 cores based on Zen 4 and the most modern I/O interfaces, AMD's Genoa remains architecture nonetheless – and for most customers certainly without memory controller constraint indeed – a very good product compelling Intel to trade.
Intel smells morning air again
It's not surprising that Intel uses the problems confirmed by AMD at the highest level their own purposes. New marketing material explains to interested customers how well everything is now running with Intel Sapphire Rapids.
The status quo, which has so far come without any known errors, should make up for the almost two-year delay, because the chip also had many problems and countless steppings were necessary to correct errors. Against the current background, however, Intel sees exactly this as a strength and advantage for the customer and is thus blowing a familiar horn: The manufacturer already said in late summer and autumn last year that they wanted to solve the problems internally before the product was released on the market .
That Intel, as the undisputed market leader in many companies, was able to afford Sapphire to a certain extent Delaying Rapids for so long to eliminate mistakes is left out. However, the fact that it is firmly anchored in the server ecosystem, from which Intel Xeon is still an indispensable part of many companies in the OEM and ODM sector, but also among customers, plays into the group's hands completely.
In the end, the customers decide
At the end, the numbers for the coming months show what is realized far away from marketing – both at Intel and at AMD. AMD has recently been able to hold its own after a steady rise, Intel also had to lose a lot of feathers with Xeons, sales fell by 33 percent, profits were almost zero.