AMD strictly moderated (AMD)

[CombJelly]

"At some point, no matter how much further you discount the CPU, the impact to the TCO for the systems, software, and services won't be materially affected."

That is true. But at the moment, when you go to the HP site and configure equivalently performing systems, the AMD system is cheaper. Sometimes significantly so. If you have two systems with the same features and about the same performance level from the same manufacturer, the cheaper of the two is going to usually win.