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by simne2 hours ago |
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upvoteby moffkalast1 hours ago|
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That's the AI hype narrative, but aren't server CPUs only like 25% of the total market? That's tiny compared to consumer volume, though revenue is likely on par given the higher cost per unit.
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upvoteby simne1 hours ago|
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> aren't server CPUs only like 25% of the total market?

Yes and no. If just formally calculate, yes, servers are small market volumes. But, they are much less constrained financially, than private person, so from same fab one could earn much more money if sell to server market, than if sell to consumer market.

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upvoteby zozbot2341 hours ago|
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I don't think that's correct, server chips aren't really "more expensive" than consumer chips when you correctly account for performance. Older-gen server chips have comparable performance to new top-of-the-line consumer chips and sell for a similar price. Newer-gen server chips in turn are priced at a premium over the current value of the older-gen, to account for their higher performance. The lower financial constraints don't enter into it all that much.
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upvoteby scotty791 hours ago|
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You can't make desktop computer 4 times larger but there's very little preventing you form putting 4 racks where you had 1 before. If the floor space is the expensive part of data center then probably some incentives are misaligned.
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upvoteby simne1 hours ago|
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For about price of land and connectivity - in large city land price begin on few millions dollars per square kilometer, and usage of cable channels could cost from 50$ per meter (easy could be 200$/m).

Plus, space arrange could last years.

Heat dissipation in range of megawatts could be just prohibited by local regulations.

So, space in large cities is very serious problem, and for business it is usually easier to "compress" as much computing power as possible in one rack.

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upvoteby IAmBroom49 minutes ago|
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> in large city land price begin on few millions dollars per square kilometer,

There's little need to put large datacenters in downtown Chicago and Manhattan.

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upvoteby sbarre1 hours ago|
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Bigger chips = more distance to cover for your electrons = more power required = more generated heat = slower throughput for your data.

Surely you don't believe that the entire chip industry had not thought of "wait what if we just make the chips bigger".

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upvoteby moffkalast1 hours ago|
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AMD hiding Threadripper behind their back: Uh yeah what a terrible idea, we definitely didn't actually do that. Making a CPU that's twice the size, how ridiculous would that be right?!
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upvoteby simne1 hours ago|
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You cannot place dc anywhere, in large cities space is extremely constrained, and land is extremely expensive.

Also big problem - connectivity - you cannot place DC where it cannot be connected to power grid and to very powerful network.

So yes, DC floor space is severely limited.

And the third issue - last decades, rack servers dissipate extremely large amounts of heat, I hear numbers up to tens Kilowatts per rack, which is just hard to dissipate with air cooling (as example, all IBM Power servers have option of liquid cooling, but this is totally different price range).

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