Intel quietly slashes prices of Xeon 6 CPUs by up to $5,340

In an unexpected move, Intel quietly cut the prices of its latest Xeon 6 ‘Granite Rapids’ processors approximately four months after their formal introduction in late September. The price slash is quite dramatic as the flagship model now costs $12,460, or $5,340 less than at launch. As a result, Intel’s Xeon 6 CPUs are now cheaper than AMD’s latest EPYC ‘Genoa’ processors both in absolute numbers and in terms of per-core pricing.

Intel’s Xeon 6-series ‘Granite Rapids’ processors were the company’s most expensive CPUs ever. However, they are now considerably cheaper than they were four months ago. Intel has not officially announced the price cuts, but these adjustments are reflected in the company’s online database at ark.intel.com, meaning the price changes are official. 

Depending on the model, the price reduction varies from $1,585 for the 96-core Xeon 6975P all the way to $5,340 for the 128-core range-topping Xeon 6980P. As for percentages, three out of five Xeon 6 ‘Granite Rapids’ processors are now 30% cheaper, while two saw reductions of 13% (6972P) and 20% (6952P).

Due to the price cut, Intel’s Xeon 6 processors are now significantly more affordable. The range-topping 128-core Xeon 6980P is now less expensive than AMD’s top-of-the-line 96-core EPYC 9654, as are other members of the Granite Rapids family compared to their direct rivals from AMD’s 5th Generation EPYC lineup. 

However, there is a major development beyond that. Perhaps even more significant is that Intel’s Xeon 6900P-series processors are now cheaper than AMD’s EPYC 9600-series CPUs in per-core pricing. This may not sound like a big deal in general, but it makes Intel’s Xeon ‘Granite Rapids’ processors more competitive for cloud service providers that strive for multiple metrics, including performance per socket, cores per socket, performance per watt, and of course, total cost of ownership (TCO). As for TCO, this aspect may not be the strongest point of Granite Rapids when compared to AMD’s Genoa. For example, AMD’s 96-core EPYC 9654 has a processor base power of 360W, whereas Intel’s 96-core 6972P consumes a rather whopping 500W, thus resulting in a higher TDP. 

It should be noted that we are dealing with Intel’s Recommended Customer Price (RCP), which represents 1,000-unit purchase quantities. Big server OEMs like Dell, HPE, and Lenovo, as well as major CSPs like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Meta, and Microsoft Azure, purchase Intel’s processors in much larger quantities and at different prices that are often negotiated. Furthermore, large CSPs also tend to buy the so-called off-roadmap parts with specifications tailored to their performance and TCO requirements at pre-arranged quantities. Therefore, RCP pricing has little, if any, effect on actual purchase prices for the big players. 

Then again, the very fact that Intel needed to lower the prices of its leading-edge Xeon 6900P-series ‘Granite Rapids’ processors by as much as $5,340 per unit indicates that it is not exactly satisfied with the number of units sold and would like to increase sales. Another reason for the price reduction could be Intel’s intention to stop, or at least slow down, AMD’s strengthening position in the data center CPU market. AMD commanded a 24.2% share of the data center CPU market in Q3 2024, its highest share since the mid-2000s, according to Mercury Research.