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AMD Epyc

AMD announced it has landed Baidu as a client and partner. Information technology'southward a significant win for AMD; Baidu doesn't really accept a US presence, just information technology controls 76 percentage of the PC search market in China and 82 per centum of the mobile and tablet markets.

Specifically, Baidu is opting to prefer unmarried-socket Epyc servers. AMD currently offers a range of single-socket CPUs, from the Epyc 7601 (32 cores, 2.2GHz base, 3.2GHz turbo) to the Epyc 7251 (8 cores, two.1GHz base, ii.9GHz turbo). Reviews of Epyc accept generally been favorable — the CPU doesn't always beat Intel but it competes far better than annihilation AMD has had in-market since Interlagos launched in September, 2011.

Baidu is using AMD CPUs for AI, big data, and cloud computing services, with additional data heart expansions beginning in Q1 2018.

EPYC-AMD

AMD'southward Infinity Fabric links the entire Epyc CPU.

How is AMD's Server Ramp Going?

When AMD announced its new server brand (Epyc) and architecture, it was extremely clear about not expecting a quick server ramp. Despite reiterating this bespeak at multiple quarterly calls and events, some investors all the same punished the stock for not ramping servers more quickly, raising the question of whether analysts ever carp to enquiry the companies they cover.

Evaluated against AMD's own stated goal of a slow ramp, AMD appears to be doing quite well. It's announced deals with Microsoft and Baidu, two of the top viii cloud service/hyperscale providers. NextPlatform identifies these as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft in the The states and Alibaba, Baidu, China Mobile, and Tencent in China. Baidu is standardizing on AMD's unmarried-socket systems, which tend to be cheaper than their Xeon equivalents while containing 128 PCIe lanes — far more than than Intel provides in an equivalent configuration. AMD withal doesn't expect its server business organization to be a major profit driver in 2018, only these early wins could foreshadow larger long-term achievements.

Opteron

Opteron'southward market share over time.

People sometimes forget AMD's original server ramp didn't begin in Q2 2006, with AMD seizing 20 percent of the server market by Q1 2007. AMD began ramping its server processors with the launch of Athlon MP in early 2001. Opteron launched in June 2003, and AMD started really picking up steam with the launch of dual-core Opterons in the jump of 2005.  AMD'southward slow and careful ramp into hyperscale information centers reflects the intrinsic conservative nature of server vendors, and the steady step of a visitor that doesn't accept terribly deep pockets but is making progress yet.

If Baidu and Microsoft find AMD has built an as good-or-better product (for various definitions of better), they'll probable invest more in Epyc servers, which indirectly encourages other companies to exercise the same thing. If yous're hoping to meet signs of progress for AMD'due south server chips, don't watch quarterly numbers at this point. Focus on long-term deals, agreements, and trends instead.