Xeon W-22xy vs Xeon W-21xy: Why so much more expensive?

[TurboFEM]

I've got a new to me workstation PC (ThinkStation P520) and am pondering CPU and memory upgrades. The board supports both Skylake and Cascade Lake gen Xeon-W CPUs.

On the surface, there appears to be not much more than a frequency bump between those CPU generations, YET, on eBay and elsewhere, the refresh CPUs fetch 3-4x higher price. Not the expert on Xeons, so can someone please explain why this is so? Is there a feature/capability that warrants such a price difference? Are the newer CPUs in much higher demand and/or lower supply for a particular reason?

Thanks,
TF

 

[nexox]

From what I have observed shopping for the LGA3647 Xeons of those generations, the main factor is that Skylakes are getting retired and hitting the used market in large quantities, for the most part if you compare performance and features there's not a whole lot of difference, certainly not enough to (for example) pay $300 for a 4210R rather than $9 for a 4114.

 

[Markess]

From what I have observed shopping for the LGA3647 Xeons of those generations, the main factor is that Skylakes are getting retired and hitting the used market in large quantities, for the most part if you compare performance and features there's not a whole lot of difference, certainly not enough to (for example) pay $300 for a 4210R rather than $9 for a 4114.

This ^

As others on the STH forums have noted before, pricing for used components is often based on available supply, and not necessarily performance. Prices on Skylake parts continue to fall as greater quantities continue to hit the secondary market. But the Cascade Lake ones (which are two generations & 2 years newer in most cases) still aren't available in large quantities.

As @nexox notes above, there's not a lot of performance or feature set difference between similarly spec'd 21xx and 22xx processors, other than the Cascade Lake parts costing more and probably having a more recent production date.

Along with the generational difference though, the available supply aspect of pricing can have an impact on pricing within the same generation. If you aren't needing a really specific core count and speed, you may want to look at prices for a range of CPU models from the 21xx range. Among these older ones, you can sometimes find higher spec CPUs produced in higher quantities for less than lower end ones that are more rare.

 

[RolloZ170]

if you get your cascade lake Xeon W, what do you do with your old skylake one ?
sell for cheap ?

 

[UhClem]

(related to pricing/market-dynamics) One significant difference between the LGA2066 and LGA3647, is that 2066 is more for workstation and 3647 for server; resulting in a slow trickle of W-2xxx re-entering vs. large waves of 1st/2nd Gen Scalables re-entering the marketplace. Combine that with the present demand, typically, in small-ish sips by individuals/smaller companies.

And then, pervert the demand for (>= 10-core) 2066 CPUs further, since many upgraders are iMac Pro users (typically less frugal folk).

[ I have a HP Z4 G4 (similar platform to OP's Lenovo P520) which I bought used/barenbones. Arrived at above mindset, after pondering/researching/shopping a CPU for it. W-2145 was MY cost:benefit winner ($80 ; 8 months ago).]

@TurboFEM :
I found WikiChip site useful for performance info.
Also, be advised that many sellers equate/confuse/mistake the Apple/OEM vs Retail parts.
Examples (from WikiChip):
W-2145

W-2140b

 

[RolloZ170]

W-2145 is supported by Windows 11
but W-2140B / 2150B / 2170B are not in the List, anyone knows if windows 11 takes the Apple OEMs ?
W-2140B goes for $39usd at ebay us.

 

[UhClem]

W-2145 is supported by Windows 11
but W-2140B / 2150B / 2170B are not in the List, anyone knows if windows 11 takes the Apple OEMs ?

Might just be a "Sleeping with the enemy" thing. [I.e., it works (?), but MSFT won't say it in public.]

W-2140B goes for $39usd at ebay us.

Interesting ... and an excellent example of the dynamic nature of the market; even with just a few small/US sellers. Could be very different in a week or so. When I was looking, Apr-May'23, the 40b was almost all from CN, and barely no price diff from (the fewer US) 45's. (Note that the 2140b was Apple's entry unit.)

 

[Bert]

I read on this forum, Cascade Lake has hardware fix for Spectre and Meltdown and runs faster at the same clock speed. Usually, best CPU for a given platform is multiple times more expensive.

Though checking cpu benchmark site shows 5% difference:

Intel Xeon Gold 6154 @ 3.00GHz vs Intel Xeon Gold 6254 @ 3.10GHz [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

I was waiting for cascade lake cpus to go down on the price. Should I skip the wait?

 

[nexox]

Though checking cpu benchmark site shows 5% difference:

The hardware vulnerability fixes are presumably nice, but the software fixes affect performance in rather different ways based on workload, it's likely that benchmark just wasn't very sensitive to them. Fortunately you can turn off software mitigation and benchmark your actual workload to see what the performance hit is for you, I know I'm waiting for prices to come down a lot more.

 

[nabsltd]

I found WikiChip site useful for performance info.

Unfortunately, they have zero information on the Cascade Lake W-22xx chips, or the non-Xeon equivalent i9-109xxX chips.

 

[RolloZ170]

On the surface, there appears to be not much more than a frequency bump between those CPU generations

compare 2145 vs 2245

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/compare.html?productIds=126707,198609

 

[Bert]

btw, unless you need so many PCI-E lanes, moving to a desktop CPU is much better option for raw CPU performance.

Intel Xeon W-3175X @ 3.10GHz vs AMD Ryzen 9 5950X vs Intel Core i7-14700K [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

The market is not rational: $400 new under warranty i7 14700k has more processing power than a used $700 W-3175x on older technology. It is a supply and demand problem. Supply is limited and suppliers are holding onto their chips

 

[Bert]

Talking about irrational pricing, here is another one:

EVGA Classified Super Record SR-2 DUAL INTEL XEON multitasking/overclocking PC | eBay

12GB KINGSTON DDR 3 RAM IN ALUMINUM HEATSINK - AMD 2600 HD PRO GPU. EVGA Classified Super Record 2 (SR-2) motherboard with.

www.ebay.com

 

[RolloZ170]

Talking about irrational pricing, here is another one:

it was an auction. wow the seller is forcing buyers to bid, scandalous!

 

[Bert]

it was an auction. wow the seller is forcing buyers to bid, scandalous!

I meant bidders are crazy giving so much for that board, not sure what computing task can be achieved with this board at this moment. I specifically shared an auction price showing how crazy people are getting.

I read somewhere people are using this board for top score on old Xeons.

 

[NPS]

btw, unless you need so many PCI-E lanes, moving to a desktop CPU is much better option for raw CPU performance.

Of course, but exactly that is the appeal of LGA2066. It has 48 gen3 lanes, supports loads of relatively cheap (L)RDIMMs and Skylake W21xx CPUs are quite cheap while supporting relatively high single thread performance compared to server CPUs. Of course this on a declining trail but 3 years ago when I purchased my X11SRM-VF there where no real alternatives. And still at the moment for many higher end homeserver use cases it is quite interesting because of lanes and memory (with cheap middle of the road CPUs). But of course since Rome prices are down, the interest gets lower, while LGA2066 still fills the massive platform gap between EPYC and desktop-based.