Slashdot Mirror
Dell May Try AMD Chips For Some Servers
LarsWestergren writes "According to InfoWorld, Dell may be close to adopting AMD processors. Don't get your hopes up too early though. It is mainly for servers (and possibly "gaming"?) since AMD doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to supply Dell with enough processors for the desktop. Furthermore, Dell have said similar things before, possibly to put pressure on Intel and get better deals from them. Still, this is definitely a PR win for AMD." Intel, though, has a lot more ad dollars to contribute.
Microsoft is supporting the AMD 64 extensions. Dell probably wants to be on the MS rather than Intel side of things since there is no (real) alternative to Windows.
Anyway, this is server-side only. CEO Rollins says, "If we basically sucked up all of AMD's [manufacturing] capacity it would not be enough. They don't have enough capacity for us to use them on the desktop. For us, fundamentally, AMD is much more interesting in the server, workstation or gaming arenas."
The AMD 64 chips also seem to run cooler. This would be majorly helpful, one thinks, then the high clockspeed Intels in a server farm situation. And the 64 bit allows more RAM to be addressed. Yep. Server.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
You mean like my Sager NP4750?
Well, not quite, but its an Athlon 64 with Radeon Mobility 9700, and oh boy do I love it dearly. I chose it over a Dell so I could get the Athlon.
I don't know if it's any indicator, but Intel and AMD are within $3 USD of each other.
I bought AMD long long ago and they split. I'm really glad I went that route!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have a love-hate relationship with Dell.
They sell both really solid machines (400SC?) and utter shitpiece machines (600SC). Sometimes you get a good deal and sometimes the stupid thing just crashes when you put 2 or more PCI cards in it.
Their only saving grace is that once you figure out the right machine for your needs, they usually keep selling them for a while so you can buy another one when you need it.
Dell obviously has a clue when it comes to efficient just-in-time manufacturing, but they're way out of touch with how end users and businesses use PCs. Their web site is a joke. It's surprising how hard it is for them, with all the resources at their disposal, to get it right.
When will a PC mfr get it right?
Yes signed with with Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing
Help fight continental drift.
I remember seeing a speech by Andy Grove about Intel's business model. Basically that intel puts huge investment and thus huge risk into each new processor version and that failure was not an option as it would destroy the companies ability to continue innovating.
Well, here we are today with this story about Dell, and then there's the story about Microsoft not supporting Itanium, and then theres the news that Intel stopped development on the 4ghz processors (essentially admitting failure of their technology model). The real nail in the coffin is that AMDs processors are not only cheaper, but they are faster and run cooler.
In the bigger picture, this is the next step in the commodization of computers. This process is making them cheap as toilet paper, but it is also a harbinger of end of rapid innovation and perhaps even the end of moores law. This should be expected as its the natural progression of any product.
Once Intel in marginalized, Microsoft must be soon to follow?
If it is critical? You mean if you buy 4 hour service. I work at Dell, we can't send stuff same day just because it is important, you have to have the right kind of contract. That said, I think our support is pretty damn good (at least on the business side). I can't say that every single tech there is top notch, but they give me a good deal of control over how to resolve an issue and send out parts without needing to get approvals etc. I honestly don't see how we make money given the low ass margins on the systems.
We have switched completely to Opteron for our gruntier servers now, and it seems good. Certainly the em64t processors don't rate in comparison.
Unfortunately for Dell this has meant that they only got orders for the low-end gear from us for the last 12 months, so their failure has forced us to experience some of their opposition...
to ramp up production like that out of fear of Dell pullin' a Walmart. i.e.
1. go to a smallish company.
2. buy enough product to double or triple production.
3. Watch the company go into massive debt as they struggle to keep up.
4. Threaten to stop buying before all that debt's taken care of and leverage that into a great deal.
5. As the saying goes, Profit!
Walmart destroyed quite a few companies before people wised up, and there's probably still a few small fry that'll get burned.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Despite what most have posted, Intel is going to win out of this.
Dell queries AMD and AMD replies, while Dell secretly hopes that Intel is going to jump on this and lower their prices for CPU's, so that Dell can sell the PC's at the same price, but get more profit out of them.
So Dell should be the winner, right?
Well, no...
Since Intel sees what Dell is up to, it plays the game and acts like it's totally ignorant. It gives new features and lower prices for the CPU's, but therefore it's going to need Intel chipsets and motherboards...
You can see what this is going to cause?
Chipset and Intel motherboard prices will rise and I'm not sure Intel is going to lower their CPU prices that much either.
It's simply enough for them to advertise "Now, Intel CPU's got better, faster and cheaper".
But when the whole media campaign is over, Intel has revenue from it's motherboard and chipsets, while raising the CPU price again.
Who is losing now???
I give massages and reiki treatments (for real!). More info here: http://www.universele-levensenergie.be
I admit that I'm not up at the most recent couple generations of video chipsets (except in the sense that I've read some reviews), but isn't the most likely explanation for this that ATI does a better job with thermal output and power consumption?
Several weeks ago in an article interviewing a Dell exectutive, the guy stated that Dell wasn't receiving all that many requests for Opteron servers or AMD64 machines. He said the pressure wasn't all that great to offer AMD in their product line. Well, since Dell's customers already KNOW that Dell doesn't sell AMD processor based computers, do you think that maybe those customers aren't even asking for opteron servers, and are just automatically going to HP or other vendor who does? It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy here. Customers' know Dell doesn't want to sell AMD machines, so they don't ask for them from Dell. Maybe Dell's management is finally asking themselves 'Why is noone buying our high end machines?' and starting to realize that they're missing the boat by not using AMD processors in their high end machines. Maybe they're realizing that vendors selling AMD based machines are serious competitors in this market.
I'd call that a software problem.. I have a dell server running win2k, a Dell 2u Poweredge running Linux as well as XP workstations. The XP workstations are a constant problem. The Server running win2k has been moderatly stable.. But the one running linux stays up for months at a time. My only reason for not considering Dell on my next purchase is that the app were running on it is very IO intensive so we need the faster memory throughput the AMD64 offers.
Dell really needs to bring AMD into the lower end too. Their low end computers all feature Celerons, and as everyone knows, the Celeron is a terrible chip that is currently no cheaper than an Athlon XP chip that totally destroys the Celeron in every test.
That could be pretty interesting for Intel, as they must sell most of their Celeron chips to Dell, because I see very few of them outside of a Dell anymore.