AMD EPYC gaining some ground on server market

A survey performed by Spiceworks reveals AMD's EPYC is gaining more ground on the server market, but it remains a though fight against Intel. Among the 500 companies surveyed, which did not include cloud service providers, 93 percent were using Intel-based servers.

There's more open-minded thought around AMD with customers than in recent history, with 77 percent of IT buyers saying AMD has a good value position, while only 42 percent said the same for Intel. Some usage data can be found below, keep in mind these total to over 100 percent as a lot of firms use both AMD and Intel CPUs:

The Spiceworks survey said AMD has been making better progress among enterprises than SMBs, with 27 percent of surveyed enterprises using AMD compared to 17 percent of mid-sized businesses and 11 percent of small businesses. On the other hand, 98 percent of enterprises use Intel compared to 93 percent of mid-sized businesses and 92 percent of small businesses.

CRN reports a lot of firms are hesitant to adopt AMD processors as they think back about the issues they encountered a decade ago when they migrated to AMD Opteron-based servers for cost saving reasons. Bob Venero, CEO of Holbrook, N.Y.-based Future Tech, said that with Intel things "just work", while with AMD it's a question mark whether the applications will run properly:

Venero said AMD needs to make a "substantial price play" to compete with Intel, but even then, he questioned whether that "risk is going to be worth the cost delta."

"It's a question mark of, 'will the applications run properly on an AMD platform versus an Intel platform," Venero said. "I'm not in a position where I believe the juice is worth the squeeze."