Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) announced a new line of processors aimed at the enterprise desktop. The all-new AMD Ryzen Pro CPUs will take on Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) in a battle to win over corporate IT departments. The Intel vPro series is king on the business desktop, but the new AMD CPU lineup will try to break into that market by offering high performance along with enhanced security, extended warranties and a guarantee of extended product availability.
Enterprise PC Market is Different From Consumer
When we talk about computers and PCs, it’s usually in the context of the overall PC market. This includes consumers and small businesses, but it also includes enterprise PC sales. And enterprise is a different beast than the others.
Enterprise is corporate IT departments buying large volumes of PC workstations. When making choices, they are looking at costs, but also security enhancements and reliability of components. They also tend to standardize on a configuration — making it easier and faster to swap out one PC for another if there’s a problem.
That means they’re less interested in components that are upgraded to the latest and greatest features yearly, and more concerned with the fact that the components on their preferred configuration won’t be discontinued for something new after a few months.
And while the overall PC market has been trending downward for years, commercial PC sales have begun to notch upward (and are expected to grow) as IT departments begin to replace aging equipment.
In this enterprise market, Intel vPro CPUs rule. AMD’s announcement of the new Ryzen Pro processors aims to shake up the status quo.
What Makes the Ryzen Pro a “Pro”?
Earlier this year, AMD began rolling out its new Ryzen line of processors. These CPUs are based on the company’s new ZEN architecture and offer some key advantages over Intel’s latest silicon. The New AMD CPU line-up boasted serious performance gains over the previous generation — a much bigger leap than Intel mustered this year — and an advantage with high demand applications that leverage multi-core, multi-thread design.
The Ryzen Pro line of CPUs mirrors the existing line-up of Ryzen CPUS, but with the enhancements IT professionals are looking for. Here’s how AMD describes its new processors:
“The first-ever CPU to offer up to 8 cores and 16 threads for commercial-grade PCs features exceptional multitasking capabilities, machine intelligence, and processor-level security. The AMD Ryzen Pro provides the no-compromise reliability and manageability that IT Pros need for future-ready enterprise-class computing.”
There’s a lot of marketing speak in there, but what it boils down to is this. The Ryzen Pro retains the multi-core, multi-thread architecture of the Ryzen CPUs, a key performance advantage over Intel. It offers memory encryption, secure boot and TPM 2.0 on the silicon — features that IT departments demand.
In addition, AMD is promoting a secure production environment (preventing tampering with CPUs before delivery), The Ryzen Pro offers a three-year warranty (instead of the one year the consumer version gets) and AMD is committing to producing the new professional CPUs for at least 24 months.
AMD Ryzen Pro vs Intel vPro
AMD has not yet released pricing, so there’s no comparison against the Intel vPro line there. In terms of performance, AMD is positioning the Ryzen Pro numbering against the corresponding Intel vPro version: Ryzen 7 Pro against Core i7 vPro, Ryzen 5 Pro against Core i5 vPro, etc…, but with two exceptions.
AMD is offering an entry level Ryzen 3 Pro 1200 — complete with the full suite of security enhancements — but Intel lacks a Core i3 vPro option in that range. And, AMD claims its top-of-the-line Ryzen 7 Pro 1700X has no Core i7 vPro performance equivalent. The company is positioning this chip as the ultimate in enterprise workstation performance.
However, as ArsTechnica points out, Intel’s vPro chips retain a key advantage over the AMD Ryzen Pro, at least at the low end. Intel uses integrated graphics, while AMD does not. While mid-range and high-performance PC workstations typically add a graphics card as part of their configuration, low-end computers do not. The added expense of a graphics card would wipe out any price advantage AMD Ryzen Pro might try to offer at the entry level…
AMD says the Ryzen Pro should ship in the second half of 2017. Mobile versions for enterprise laptops are expected to be announced later this summer.
As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
