AMD’s Epyc Wins New Business With Yahoo Japan

Ever since it launched Ryzen a year ago, AMD’s investors have been pushing for the company to pick up more server customers. It’s not hard to see why — cloud computing, edge computing, data centers, HPC, AI, machine learning, and similar topics are generating most of the buzz and growth in the computer industry, while PC OEMs mostly pray that after years of declines the PC market has finally stopped shrinking. AMD has already won business with two of the major hyperscale providers, Microsoft and Baidu, and launched a new line of servers with Dell. Now it’s adding another customer — Yahoo Japan.

Yes, this means AMD is now big in Japan.

Yahoo Japan’s new servers are based on the Dell PowerEdge R6415 and use the AMD Epyc 7551P. That’s a single-socket CPU with 32 cores, 64 threads, a 2GHz base clock, 2.55GHz all-core boost, and 3GHz single-core boost frequency. It’s the highest-end single-socket server CPU that AMD sells.

“Yahoo Japan’s deployment of EPYC marks a notable achievement for our new family of processors,” said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Enterprise Solutions. “Japan plays a key role in the evolution of the data center market and all the adjacent industries that depend on those data centers.”

It’s not clear how much revenue AMD will earn this year in server, but Lisa Su has said the company is targeting mid-single digits for server market share by the end of 2018. As targets go, that seems eminently achievable. Winning space with companies like Yahoo is a vital part of AMD’s overall push to establish itself as a credible alternative to Intel. Reviews of Epyc in workstation contexts are thin on the ground, but a recent workstation comparison at ZDNet found that you can buy substantially more AMD CPU cores for the same amount of money — +20 cores on the Epyc 7551 dual-socket system, compared with the equivalently priced Xeon Gold 6152.

Will such victories dismantle Intel’s server market in one fell swoop? Obviously not. But that’s the good thing about being AMD in this market — every server it ships represents new revenue. When you’re rebuilding from scratch, every socket is upside.

Continue reading

Nvidia Goes All-In On G-Sync With New ‘BFGD’ Ultra-High-End Displays

Nvidia is bringing some of the highest-end displays imaginable to market in 2018, with 4K panels, 120Hz refresh rates, low latency displays, integrated Nvidia Shields, and support for 1,000 nits of brightness in HDR. Yowza.

Huawei’s Phone Deal With AT&T Reportedly Killed On Account of Politics

The upcoming (and unannounced) deal with AT&T to sell the new Mate 10 series was supposed to be the start of Huawei's push into North America, but the deal has reportedly fallen apart at the last minute after AT&T got cold feet, and some sources point to a political cause.

ET Deals Roundup: $200 Gift Card with Samsung 4K TV for $600, $50 Price Drop on Inspiron 15 7000, and more

Ready to upgrade to a 4K television? Maybe you're looking for a new laptop for school, or searching for the perfect camera for an upcoming vacation. Well, there are plenty of discounts floating around this week, so we've put together a list of the hottest deals. If you're looking to save big on new gear, you're bound to find something worthwhile below.

Rivet Launches Blazing Fast, Intel-Based Killer Wireless-AC 1550 Chip, New Xbox Router

Rivet Networks has launched a new Wi-Fi chip based on an Intel solution, as well as a new, Xbox One-optimized router debuting this spring.