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Sun To Use AMD Mobile Processor In Blade Servers
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like AMD is finally making some headway into supplying 1st tier business computer makers which the announcement that Sun will use their chips in upcoming blade servers. Apparently CNET can't help but speculate what this means for AMD's 64 bit Hammer."
This was on Ars Technica today. Check it out:m l
http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1046147898.ht
A somewhat different interpretation of the meaning?
This is VERY interesting news since at this moment Sun is holding their Chip Conference where the future of Sparc is being discussed.
Now we can wait another 5 years for the new blade servers.
After years of touting its own UltraSparc processors as sufficient for all manner of computing, Sun last year bowed to market realities and accepted general-purpose Intel-compatible computers into its server line.
I *think* I know how the market will respond to this as far as AMD is conccernd, I'll be keeping an eye on what this does/means for sun.
Cringely seems to think that Sun won't last long though, so will there be long-term benefit to AMD?
...they are also making an UltraSPARC server blade.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Sun wants 64 bit capability to be a differentiator for Solaris. So they will not rush to use AMD's 64 bit offerings.
OTOH who is going to try to make a go of AMD/64? For sure not any of the system vendors who have commited to IA64. That means no Dell, no IBM, no HP. So there is an opportunity for Sun.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
Sun still talks out of both sides of it's mouth. In one breath they make claims that the UltraSPARC cpu is the most competitive CPU known to mankind, and in the next breath they're releasing non SPARC based systems, LX50 (Intel XEON) and AMD based blades.
Sun CPU engineers are way behind their competition. They're so far behind that their competition is litteraly lapping them in terms of price and performance.
Try and find any decent Sun server benchmarks that prove that their gear is competitive.
You can actually find benchmarks that one can make the direct comparison of an 8 way UltraSPARC 3 to a 4 way Intel Xeon MP! And the Intel based solution is faster and costs 50% or less.
Sun by virtue of their ego is becoming a boutique server/workstation vendor. Think SGI, this is likely Sun's future or worse if they don't start laying more staff off.
Businesses are realizing this, and this is why Sun is taking such a beating.
Nope, Its the smell of your Karma burning.
Is it just me, or is 64-bit computing, the hammer, and AMD getting a lot of press for the past few days? I wonder if this is the start of a big media blitz.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Honestly, I don't even know why that is funny here. I really don't think BSD is dead, and I have nothing against it . . . Slashdot is just really starting to effect me in strange ways.
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For instance, the other day I was making a little presentation to my boss and suddenly used the:
1.
2. . .
3. Profit!!
Step list . .
slashdot is going to get me unemployed and single.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I've had a number of discussions with folks about this over the last few years.
1) Sun can still afford it.
2) They gain instant credibility in the x86 market.
3) AMD gains credibility in the enterprise (luring really big enterprise customers with real service)
4) Sun gets 2 of the leading 64-bit processor platforms, plus some control over the Windows hardware platform.
5) Sun gets to own their chip manufacturer (rather than rely on stinky TI and Fujitsu for the Sparc line).
6) Sun can control the cost of its Linux platform.
Do, it Sun. . . you know you want to. . . buy them.
Because I doubt M$ would honor the 64 bit windows deal if Sun purchased AMD or maybe Sun could use that to pursue more legal manuvering.
Whaa? I recently bought a SunFire 480 (definitely the "low end") for work, came out to about $23K, just for shits and giggles I just went over to dell.com and priced out a similarly configured (more or less the same, the processors probably have a bit more horse power to them) PowerEdge 6650, which came out to $22,780.
Oh sure, I could've gotten a 2650 with considerably faster CPUs and 50% more RAM dirt cheap (and in fact, we just purchased a couple of those as well), but for some reason if I need it to be expandable beyond 2 processors and six gigs of RAM it's just nowhere as thrifty all of a sudden. Not to mention that with the 26XX's the thinking is pretty much: "If it breaks - we chuck it and get a new one." and you can't really afford that for all applications.
as Linux tends to make huge leaps and bounds in a short time while Sun usually just tweaks a few interest points at a time
You do realize that you've just made the case for Sun (hands down) for anyone who is actually in a position to make purchasing decisions for a company? Explain to me the difference between "improves daily" and "has a long way to go".
Mind you, I love Linux and use it extensively (at work and at home), but that is no reason to just make things up about Sun's software or hardware.
sic transit gloria mundi
Sun has used AMD CPU's before, although not in the primetime in their servers. They did use them in the SunPCi cards for workstations. I still have one.
The reason that Sun used AMD (the K6-2, I believe) instead of a Pentium, like they did with the SunPCi 2, is that at the time it made more sense price-wise. I see no difference here.
Contrary to popular belief, life is not a bitch. It is far far worse.
Also, 64 bit chips are not ready for the mainstream market yet. They need more testing, analyzation, and intrepration with an unbiased group of persons as the sample, to make reliable predictions.
Yeah, no one makes 64 bit chips that are ready to use.
Don't blame me, I get all my opinions from my Ouija board.