Anandtech published Sizing Up Servers: Intel's Skylake-SP Xeon versus AMD's EPYC 7000 - The Server CPU Battle of the Decade? A quote from the article:

This morning kicks off a very interesting time in the world of server-grade CPUs. Officially launching today is Intels latest generation of Xeon processors, based on the "Skylake-SP" architecture. Part of Intels new Xeon Scalable Processor family, the "Purley" 100-series processors incorporate all of Intels latest CPU and network fabric technology, not to mention a very large number of cores.

Meanwhile, a couple of weeks back AMD soft-launched their new EPYC 7000 series processors. Based on the companys Zen architecture and scaled up to server-grade I/O and core counts, EPYC represents an epic achievement for AMD, once again putting them into the running for competitive, high-performance server CPUs after nearly half a decade gone. EPYC processors have begun shipping, and just in time for todays Xeon launch, we also have EPYC hardware in the lab to test.

Todays launch is a situation that neither company has been in for quite a while. Intel hasnt had serious competition in years, and AMD hasnt been able to compete. As a result, both companies are taking the others actions very seriously.

In fact we could go on for much longer than our quip above in describing the rising tension at the headquarters of AMD and Intel. For the first time in 6 years (!), a credible alternative is available for the newly launched Xeon. Indeed,

 Sizing Up Servers: Intel's Skylake-SP Xeon versus AMD's EPYC 7000 - The Server CPU Battle of the Decade? @ Anandtech