Mary, look at it this way, in the old days, the whole computer was called the CPU. So, the vendor for the processing chips and the boards they were mounted on got the lions share of the revenue and profit from the OEM that was building the computer. It's changed some, but not to the point that the CPU chips are anywhere near 2%. More like 20 to 50%. Check this out, and making clear to begin with that the prices are what Compaq charges to customers, not what Intel gets. Still. it's relative. From this site, using the configure and buy buttons to see what Compaq gets for CPUs and an entire 8-way server:
directplus.compaq.com
A 4-way Proliant server, 4 processors, Intel® Pentium® III Xeon™ 700MHz with 2MB cache is $38,046. Add 4 processors and the price goes to $57,386. The only difference is they added 2 GB of memory and three 9.1 GB drives, which are cheap, when going to the 8-way. Checking the price list, the 2 GB costs $6.25K (outrageous), the drives about a $K. So, $57,386 - $38,046 - $6,250 -$1,000 = $12,090. Divide by 4 and you get $3,022.50. Or, if 4 CPUs are $12,090, 8 would be $24,180, which is over 40% of the cost of the whole server! Actually, adding one CPU at a time costs over $4,261, which would imply $34,088 for 8, so they play with the prices. And these are "only" 32 bit chips. 64 bit chips will be a lot more, especially the highest RAS models. CPUs rule when it comes to the cost of servers!
2%, what a crock of, oops, have to be nice.
Tony |
