AMD launched its fastest CPU ever, the EPYC “Bergamo” 9754, in June 2023 and back then it carried a suggested retail price of $11,900. Just weeks later, we managed to track this 128-core processor in the US for well under $9,500 from two respected providers, Wiredzone and Tech-America.
The latter has the tray version of the EPYC 9754 (100-000001234) on preorder for $9,348, a 21.44% discount or $2,552, which is a lot for a very new product that’s in demand with even higher discounts when purchasing 100 parts or more.
Such big drop in prices do happen more frequently than not. I noted earlier in February 2023 that AMD slashed the price of its Genoa-based EPYC 9654 processor, the predecessor of the 9754 just a few months after it launched. The discount back then was even higher at 30% and back then I called that drop “both surprising and worrying for AMD”.
That’s even more puzzling given that fourth generation AMD EPYC processors have sold like hot cakes according to AMD’s Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results published just a few days ago; revenue associated with the 9004 family doubled while that of the third generation one dropped.
Data Center segment revenue was $1.3 billion, down 11% year-over-year primarily due to soft enterprise demand and elevated cloud inventory levels for some customers.
I am also keeping tabs on two other AMD EPYC products; the 128-core/128-thread 9754S and the Genoa-X part, 9684X with a gargantuan 1.152GB L3 cache. The former sells for around $8,400 (down from $10,200) from ShopBLT while the latter can be found for about $2,000 more (down from $14,756, at Wiredzone), significant discounts in either cases.
For a foreseeable future, the Intel Xeon Platinum 8490H processor, launched in January 2023, will remain AMD’s biggest rival at the high end of the market, where core and thread numbers count the most.
The 8490H however lags behind the 9754 with only 60 cores and 120 threads while costing almost twice as much as AMD’s fourth generation 128-core flagship. One Xeon core costs around $300 while one AMD core retails for less than $75, 76% cheaper, a staggering difference however you look at it.
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