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From Anand, AMD, News.com and X-bit labs the numbers tell of an ever increasing marketshare for AMD. Note that this is for all servers, not just against Intel, meaning that Sun, IBM, and other servers are included. Then there's the 4 socket server category, where AMD has 48% of total marketshare in Q2 2006, and is the category I'd be more interested in as that is a true high-end server market. Then there's the Top 500 Nov 2006 List which lists 4 Opteron systems and a single Intel Itanium system in the top 10, along with 5 PowerPC systems. I should also note that only 31 Woodcrest systems are on the list vs 76 dual core Opterons.

Basically, AMD's server market share has been growing in leaps and bounds over the past 2 years, and has broken Intel's x86 monopoly in the space, especially once you exceed 2 processors. With Dell now finally offering AMD CPUs, I expect that number to grow.

Apple's Pippin certainly seems right for a technical flop list. A game machine based on the Macintosh; a platform well known for games. Much hype, under powered when delivered, quickly killed.

Also, although technically under the category net PC's, what about the AMD PIC (see here or here)? I briefly was involved in a project to develop media for the PIC. Remarkably, this low cost computer made its debut two years after the i-Opener failed. You would think they would learn.

The 3.6 GHz of Pentium 4 power is desktop standard, and the mobile GeForce 6800

Or buy the Aurora M7700, which is the same thing but with an Athlon 64 X2 CPU. Significantly less heat and way better performance. That would be much less likely to overheat than the P4 version. Plus bringing a recently purchased P4 machine to a LAN party is a good way to scream "CLUELESS!" to your fellow gamers.

Better yet, get the same Clevo D900K notebook without the expensive bling from a vendor with a less elaborate marketing department.

Yep. Now instead of hinting at it directly, they have analysts suggest it instead.

I honestly think it will take a long time for Dell to *actually* start using AMD processors. As you already know, its happend many times already:

http://www.amdboard.com/dell.html

You are very right...

Here are some sources

http://www.amdboard.com/65nm_120605.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/06/intel_65nm _ramp/

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2578

Wait for the AMD dualcore version. Less heat, WAY more performance. It's a standard Clevo D900K notebook, also sold by M-Tech, VoodooPC, Alienware, etc.

One of these would be fun to have. (And the notebook's nice too...) They appear to be out in Europe already and should hit America soon.

Throw in an AMD Turion MT40 (2.2GHz, 25W) CPU (see ewiz.com), 2GB RAM (Crucial PC3200, ~$240), that Hitachi 100GB 7200RPM HD (see zipzoomfly.com), along with the stock 17" widescreen and 256MB Radeon X700 GPU and you'll have a seriously nice gaming notebook.

If you want something really outrageous, the Clevo D900K notebooks take Athlon 64 X2 dualcore CPUs and GeForce 7800 Go GPUs. Heavy though.

There are some nice 15.4" Turion notebooks with X700 GPUs too from Acer and MSI.

Hopefully we'll see some really neat stuff next year when nVidia's new notebook chipset comes out.

My notebook has a lowly GeForce 440 Go though because apparently nobody at HP is into gaming. Nice machine otherwise though.

I saw that Tulip E-Go and thought "wow. I smell the distinctive scent of a lawsuit."

Compare:
Tulip E-Go
iBook G3

Hello Kitty purse, anyone?

On the other hand, the Tulip E-Go on that site is genuinely stunning. I don't know how many customers there are for a 64-bit laptop that looks like a tulip-covered handbag, though. And 283,000 Euros for the diamond-encrusted model is a bit steep -- maybe Lil' Kim would want one.

In any case, I bet you can't just call up and get a review model of that in Australia, either.

Clevo D900K. It's an update of the Clevo D470K w/Radeon 9700 that various vendors have been selling under their own brands (GamePC, Sager, etc). No Turion, since it's Socket 939 (the D470K can take Turions), but with AMD's excellent power management that's not too big a deal in a behemoth like this. Definitely go with an Athlon 64 X2 dualcore CPU.

Or it's because it's been replaced with the Acer Ferrari 4000, which is a much nicer design.

Though if you're looking for Overkill, you can't beat the Clevo D900K series.

Or it's because it's been replaced with the Acer Ferrari 4000, which is a much nicer design.

Though if you're looking for Overkill, you can't beat the Clevo D900K series.

Is there a 64-bit x86 laptop available now?

The HP Pavillion zv6000 and Compaq R4000 notebooks use Socket 939 desktop CPUs with their aluminum lid removed. They've been shipping with the old 130nm core, all the way up to 4000+. In theory there's no reason you couldn't swap in a X2, so long as the BIOS supports it, although if you read the service manual they made it much more difficult to swap CPUs than they did on the zv5000z/R3000z series. Best to wait for HP to sell them with that option.

Too bad HP didn't include a card slot to upgrade from the onboard Radeon 200M video. Even with the 128MB dedicated RAM option (which all the retail models I've seen come with) it's too weak for serious gaming, which is pretty retarted for a desktop-replacement behemoth with the best gaming CPU on the planet. They also managed to break dual channel memory support, so sticking with the 3500+/3800+/etc ratings is a little misleading (subtract 100 to get the correct single-channel rating). That said, they're very inexpensive so you get an awful lot for your money.

Turion dual cores wait until next year. Meanwhile, this single-core Turion notebook looks very tempting, for those of us who can't quite afford a Ferarri.

Am I the only one that would love to see like a 1.4ghz version of this that runs crazy cool (temp of course)? I would die for that in the new iWill SFF box here. Imagine that. Four 1.4ghz Athlon64 cores in such a small space :) Perfect for me desktop!

Thare you go

http://www.amdboard.com/athlon_64_notebook.html

...you're showing links to retail sales, when the vast majority of sales are OEM, not retail. And even in retail, I believe AMD has only outsold them in a few isolated weeks, not consistantly. In total sales, AMDs market share is something like 16-17%, whereas Intel has 82-83%. Read this overview and quit abusing statistics. AMD is miles away from winning any war.

Kjella

Yes, a CPU generates heat at almost nuclear levels.

A typical nuclear reactor has a power density of about 250 watts per square centimeter of cooled surface. Let's compare to an Athlon XP 3200, shall we? According to AMD, this chip has a die size of 101 mm^2 (almost exactly a square centimeter), and a max power consumption of 68.6 watts. So, it has a power density of about 70 watts per square centimeter.

That's only 3.5 times less than your typical nuclear reactor. To put it another way, if CPU power levels increase by 3.5 times, or if die sizes decrease by 3.5 times, then CPUs will be generating heat at the same level as your typical nuclear reactor.

It's really, truly sad that our CPUs are so inefficient that we require nuclear cooling technology. What is even sadder is that people think this is "elite." No, I don't think you are cool for overclocking your CPU and slapping some insane cooling equipment on it. It's like boasting about how much soot your car spews out of the exhaust pipe.

I love my Mac Mini. And the planet.

You probably won't be seeing Venice for laptops. Venice will most likely be a Socket 939-only part, and laptops currently use Socket 754.

Rather, you should look for laptops with the Turion 64 processor, codenamed Lancaster. One site has a list of Turion 64 notebooks.

BTW, I was strongly considering an Athlon 64 laptop for a long time, but eventually decided against it. There was only one model that really matched the specs I wanted (a variant of the Acer Aspire 1520 that was sold everywhere except in the US), and it was a massive DTR brick. I eventually stopped chasing that pipe dream, and bought a thin-and-light Pentium M notebook: a Toshiba Tecra M3 to be exact. It works beautifully. It's my fastest machine (beating out my aging Athlon XP desktop), it had over 2 hours of battery life before I enabled Speedstep, and I'm sure it will get more now that it scales the frequency down when it's on battery.

But we are talking about the Dresden Fab 30, which was for a long time considered the most advanced fab in the world.

"In May 2001, Fab 30 was awarded the coveted "Fab of the Year" title by Semiconductor International. The magazine recognized Fab 30 as the first facility in the world specifically designed to produce microprocessors with copper interconnects." http://www.amdboard.com/amdfab30.html

With over 150,000 square feet of clean-room, it could, and does, handle the load.

As a side note, here's AnandTech's tour of Fab 30: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.html? i=1773

it's smaller. that's what it makes it different.

anyways, there's already a sff of about the same size with support for DUAL opterons. http://www.amdboard.com/iwill_zmaxdp.html.

and unlike the mac mini this one has the psu built in too.

... but the new ones are much better than the first series. This stack of AMD news releases shows what they are doing. Don't count lower power / lower speed out yet.

I wish that someone would do another VIC-20. For $200.00, I bet that we could get an awesome computer

It's called the PIC by AMD (The one shown uses WinCE but you can use whatever as it's completely x86 compatible; Linspire has a demo with their software). Not sure about the 'awesome' qualifier but it is tiny, efficient, and works perfectly well.

Any woman would love something like this on her desk.

Steve Ballmer is not actually endorsing this, it's simply the response to his challenge towards PC manufacturers for a $100 computer. Much to his chagrin, they cut cost the easiest way they could, getting rid of microsoft licensing fees. As such, you'll see plenty of great OSS like firefox, open-office, etc.

It's AMDs personal internet communicator (http://www.amdboard.com/pic.html) minus licensing bullshit (and a spiffy black case!). I just hope the specs are up to snuff.

Frankly, I'm looking for the opposite: an Athlon 64 laptop with nVidia video, and they're incredibly bloody rare.

There are only three such laptops I know of: the Acer Aspire 1520 series, the Asus L5000D series, and the Compaq R3000Z (identical to the HP zv5000z).

Right now, the Acer is looking like my best bet. The Compaq/HP is out because I really can't stand how horribly ugly HP's case designs are--I'd rather not have a laptop that makes me ill to look at. The Asus is out because of the insane price--both the Acer and the Compaq/HP come out to around $1200 or so, but the Asus is around $3000. Only problem is that I have no idea how well the Acer works with Linux--there's literally no information on it and Linux out there. It's also primarily sold in the UK--I've only found one American company selling it.

Oh, well--maybe in a few months there'll be more AMD64+nVidia laptops out there...

Frankly, I'm looking for the opposite: an Athlon 64 laptop with nVidia video, and they're incredibly bloody rare.

There are only three such laptops I know of: the Acer Aspire 1520 series, the Asus L5000D series, and the Compaq R3000Z (identical to the HP zv5000z).

Right now, the Acer is looking like my best bet. The Compaq/HP is out because I really can't stand how horribly ugly HP's case designs are--I'd rather not have a laptop that makes me ill to look at. The Asus is out because of the insane price--both the Acer and the Compaq/HP come out to around $1200 or so, but the Asus is around $3000. Only problem is that I have no idea how well the Acer works with Linux--there's literally no information on it and Linux out there. It's also primarily sold in the UK--I've only found one American company selling it.

Oh, well--maybe in a few months there'll be more AMD64+nVidia laptops out there...

here, here, here and here.

• Heard of Intel Prescott Survival Kit?
• *Click Here*

and one ponders upon of why one hasn't seen their " Prescott cooling? - See the latest commercial? "

Collated at this site.

Look at the numbers, and read the benchmarks.

You'll find that with the same memory (DDR200) a single opteron has higher memory bandwidth than the PIV and that moreover this bandwidth scales linearly in MP settings with the number of processors, whereas the Xeon's remains constant.

AMD calls this hypertransport.

That system is a computer rendering. And the motherboard they show isn't even a SFF board, and it's not even made by IWill! (It's really a full ATX board, check out this pic.) From the bottom of the IWill page you link to:

Product specification and details may change without notice. Actual products may look different from the photo.

The F3200 uses the 128MB Radeon 9700, and I've found a few other notebooks using that same GPU... but I'd much prefer a GeForce 5700 for Linux compatibility. ATI hasn't released 64-bit Linux drivers yet, not even in beta. You can find a list of Athlon 64 notebooks here, but several of them aren't available in America (ASUS has a particularly nice one but the cowards won't stand up to Intel marketing and sell it here).

Outside of the antiquated graphics chip the zv5000z is a pretty nice notebook. I swapped out the slow 4200RPM HD for a 7200RPM one (easy and made a HUGE diff), wireless range is excellent, the 1680x1050 res widescreen is stunning (you can get 1920x1200 res now), the 12-cell battery gives about 4 hours of moderate use (web surfing and what not), I've been unable to get it to overheat (unlike my previous two notebooks), very well built notebook. Fedora Core 2 installs easily, though I had to do a little manual editing of xorg.conf for the 1680x1050 res. The problems are really dumb things that could be easily fixed if HP cared: there should be a 5400RPM and/or 7200RPM HD option, HP should either force Broadcom to release their wireless drivers or switch to Atheros, they rigged their BIOS to reject non-HP miniPCI cards (bastards! IBM does this too but no one else), K8 Errata #93 isn't patched in the BIOS, it's insanely picky about memory (likes Micron chips, otherwise you'd better buy PC3200 grade memory and hope for the best)... and the new BIOS that they're shipping that still isn't on the support webpage might fix a couple of those problems. The notebook is built by Compal and shipped directly from Shanghai via FedEx. Bluetooth is neat too, I haven't figured out how to configure it properly under Linux but it shows up as a standard USB Bluetooth device so I know I can eventually get it to work (got it to find my mouse, but Linux Bluetooth support hasn't been made user-friendly yet). Overall, with the exception of the evil Broadcom wireless and weak GPU it makes a pretty slick Linux notebook.

eMachines was my second choice. I wanted the upgrade options HP had and really wanted a nVidia graphics chip, and hoped the old GeForce 440 wouldn't be as bad as it turned out to be. (Think GeForce 440MX desktop graphics.) Sure, it beats integrated video, but... geeze.

It sounds like Gateway bought eMachines for their management. I'd expect Gateway to become like eMachines rather than the other way around. That bodes well for AMD. We should be seeing lots of new product launches from everyone as the back-to-school season ramps up and the new AMD 90nm chips start hitting the market.

I don't know what boards you're looking at for large memory configurations, but 24GB, 20GB both use a maximum 2GB sticks for those. (Having more DDR slots than PCI slots is kinda strange looking)

Now, you could argue that these aren't standard motherboards, but then again, what 64 bit CPU motherboard is? For next year or two, I don't expect to be hitting the 20GB memory limit... ;)

I bought one from Hyperdata which is basically the retail front for Sunrex. I'm very happy with it so far, it seems well put together and haven't noticed any hardware defects.

This is definitely not for someone who plans to carry their laptop around all day, but it's fine for occassionally lugging to work, conferences, vacation, etc. Besides, the performance and largeish screen are very nice.

I was daring and ordered mine sans OS. After a couple of tries and a little poking around on the web I was able to install Fedora Core 1 (x86-64 version) successfully. The 2 main tricks are

1. disable frame buffering during install, "linux nofb"
2. the installer won't recognize the Radeon 9600 mobility, you have to hand configure and use the VESA driver

• underperforming video driver (no surprise)
• wireless kernel module not found
• misc minor software issues that are probably due more to the imaturity of FC1 x86-64.

Tyan is just about to bring out a four-way S-4880 mobo. Just throw more hardware at it.

BTW, does anyone have any idea how much the mobo's gonna cost? I've been told by unnamed sources that it's going to a bargain (~$1800) but still...

As far as I know, only RedHat and SuSE have 64-bit distros and Debian is notorious for its slow-as-molasses development.

Here what my favorite AMD site has to say:

1 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 at Lost Circuits
2 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 at OCAU
3 - AMD ATHLON64 FX-51 CPU at Hexus
4 - The Athlon 64 FX-51 Processor at Hot Hardware
5 - Athlon 64 Vs. Pentium 4 at HardOCP
6 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 at Legit Reviews
7 - AMD Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX at AnandTech
8 - Athlon 64, FX and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at Ace's
9 - AMD Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX at Planet 3DNow!
10 - Athlon 64 and FX-51 vs P4 Extreme Edition at Sudhian
11 - Athlon 64 FX-51 vs. P4 Extreme Edition at X-bit labs
12 - AMD Athlon64 3200+ 32/64-bit Processor - PC stats
13 - AMD's Athlon 64 processor at Tech Report
14 - AMD Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX at Hardware.fr
15 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 Launch at SimHQ
16 - Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 P4 Extreme at THG
17 - Athlon 64/FX vs. P4 Extreme Edition at tecchanel
18 - Athlon 64 FX 51 & Athlon 64 3200+ at AMD Zone
19 - AMD K8 - Part 2: Athlon 64 versus All - x86-secret
20 - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ & Fx-51 at HardTecs4U
21 - AMD Athlon 64 : FX-51 performance - UK Gamers
22 - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ at Hardwareluxx
23 - AMD Athlon 64 Fx-51 & Athlon 64 3200+ at Clubic
24 - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and Athlon 64 FX-51 - AthlonXP
25 - Athlon 64 FX-51 @ 2,2GHz at Gamers Depot
26 - AMD Athlon FX-51 Processor at Sharky Extreme's
27 - Athlon 64, kladivo na Intel p?ichazi at Svet hardware
28 - Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX Processors at Digit-Life
29 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 preview at FiringSquad
30 - First Tests of Athlon 64 PCs at PC World
31 - Mini-Review: Athlon64 FX 51 at ForumPCS
32 - Athlon 64: AMD Plays Its Trump Card at ExtremeTech
33 - Athlon64 Fx-51at TweakPC
34 - The hammer - AMD again in front! at Chip
35 - AMD64: AMDs 64bit-Architektur at K-Hardware
36 - Athlon 64 Fx-51 and Athlon 64 3200+ at Computerbase
37 - AMD ATHLON 64 FX-51 at Motherboards.org
38 - Athlon 64 FX-51 at Amdmb
39 - Athlon 64 3200+ - Forgotten CPU at Amdmb
40 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 at Hardinfo
41 - Athlon 64 FX51 at Hardware Analysis
42 - Athlon 64 3.200+ at Hardware Upgrade
43 - Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX at Hardware Upgrade

AMDBoard

Not a G5, but here's an Athlon64 Laptop

I have also seen UltraSPARC laptops on pricewatch a few months ago

64 bit laptops exist, just not in as large amounts as we will see when the G5 Pbook comes out

yup, true, no agp
see for yourself here opteron boards

These guys (gg webdesigner) seem to think June 3rd.

here
and Athlon64 boards here

here
and Athlon64 boards here

1. don't buy an Itanic, if you're going with Opteron for its ultra-fast RAM ( compared with Itanic ) and drastic cost-effectiveness ( ditto ), an Itanic won't show you whether Opteron'd be a good match: the architectures are totally different.

2. RAID storage: don't buy Promise 'raid' cards ( and DON'T do 'raid' 0/1, do RAID-5 ).

Why? ..
1. it ISN'T possible to use S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics in your drives with the Promise ones, at least ( you'll crash the PCI-bus, hanging, fatally, the machine, using Promise chips .. don't know about Highpoint or Adaptec ), and...
2. they oppose Open Source drivers, and coders, for their own products.

Highpoint has only SuSE 7.3-8.0/Redhat-whatever ( IIRC ) drivers for their fast 1520 cards, but if you want compute performance, you want Gentoo... ( and SuSE's been at 8.1 for ages, now... )

Adaptec? I don't know if their cards have the same issues as the Promise/Highpoint, but their cards compete with Promise's, and so probably cut corners in similar ways ( I'd love to see hard data on that point, though )...

3ware are the only cheap ( compared with SCSI ) RAID controllers I know-of, that offer bootable, real, actual, S.M.A.R.T.able RAID on ATA drives.

( I'd stick scads of 120GB IBM 180GXPs on 'em, because they're cooler-running than the 180GB versions, and better than most other drives: fast, quiet, reliable-looking, etc .. quiet means, to me, that wear&tear isn't happening as much, though I wonder-at the No-Seagate rule expressed earlier... is it that fluid-bearings fail soon? or that Seagate has worthless support from our perspective? )

3. SuSE or Gentoo are really your only choice, that I can see.

Why? .. 1. Redhat's trying to microsoft linux, by ignoring standards and making its way law, and Mandrake's .. a flaky ( though fast ) variant originally based on Redhat... I'm fed-up with both, but YKMV ( metric, here )..
2. SuSE includes damn-near every program-capability one could imagine, and has excellent hardware support ( beyond any others' )..
3. Gentoo's compiled specifically for the hardware you are running, and with --buildpkg you get to build on one, then copy all the tbz2's built, to all of the other ( identical ) machines, and just install 'em, and voilá: ultra-performance.

Misc Links:

Chassis, suitable for lots-of-drives NAS type thing.. or this one for well-cooled system ( thick aluminum's a good conductor of heat, and that makes for a longer-living, less-downtime machine )

I'd use Athlons, but that's just me ( Intel's murdered/crippled WAY too many CPUs, and chipsets, for me to be loyal to them ), and would use these HSFs with Verax.de ( or Panasonic Panaflo ) fans on 'em, just because the noise machines make increase sick-time and reduce health/sanity/productivity so damn much.

Consider using P/Ss like these, remembering that 1. they're REALLY quiet only when running at about 50% load, and 2. the UPS-VA-rating you need for each one is DOUBLE the delivered-watts rating of the P/S.
Also, you want LINE-INTERACTIVE UPSs on all machines. ( NO data-corruption due to brown-outs or other glitches ).

I'd consider dual-CPU machines standard for the desktop, simply because even if a CPU was saturated, on that machine, the machine'd still respond, and I'd stuff as much quick RAM into it as I possibly could ( 3GB/desktop, for engineers ), and I'd ALWAYS use ECC RAM.

Consider this board as something to compare against, with Something Like This KVR266X72C25/1G or this times 3 of 'em, per motherboard.

Like the Marines: Capability-based, not capability-choked, right?

The best advice I've seen on this page is

1. get a GOOD admin ( character, more than anything, values, sanity, cultural-harmony-with-you: you CAN change someone's skillset, you CANNOT change their nature ), and

2. metrics, understanding precisely what 'success' means, what the context is, etc...

3. do it one unit at-a-time

Oh, yeah, here's an Opteron-board news link... ( I'm waiting for lots-of-SATAs-on-board )...

Finally, change the ferro-resonant ballasts in your flourescent lighting to RF ballasts, and switch to Phillips TL-930 4' fluorescent tubes ( Colour Rendition Index of 95, rather than the cheap-cool-white CRI 50!! ), and your health will improve, significantly ( you can then ask for a raise, for your increased effectiveness, see )... if you find the warm-white of the TL-930s ( 3000K ) not brilliant/awakening enough, then mix-in a couple of TL-950s ( 5000K, mid-day-sunshine/sky colour ), to punch-up your alertness.

More info here