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Dell Might do AMD
mboverload writes "In a move that will surely make waves in the industry, Dell's CEO, Kevin Rollins, has said they may provide machines decked out with AMD CPU's if their customers really want them. "We are still looking at AMD; they have fairly good technology," said Rollins. "
In post 9-11 America, Dell fights monoculture to fight terror.
Dell using AMD would be a win not only for Dell customers but for all computer buyers at large.
This will boost AMds image, increase supply
and most of all,
make Intel compete better price-wise and by performance.
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what exactly do you perceive the problem to be with, say, nforce3 chipset? or via's kt800? maybe you just buy intel because you don't bother to keep up with the choices?
The problem is that they're low-end chipsets. Nvidia started to
I've a friend who likes to test mainboards, he uses several combinations of PCI cards filling all the PCI slots with expensive SCSI cards, etc
Most of the VIA/nvidia chipset can't even be used. They don't work, even in win nt, etc. Several of them don't even pass the post bios test. Intel chipsets and cia usually do well most of the time
In short, most of the better amd-based mainboards are crappy, and the good intel-based boards behave better. no matter how slow and hot intel CPUs are. People knows this, and there's a reason why intel has 90-95% of the x86 server market
Dells fear with AMD has nothing to do with pricing, and everything to do with execution.
You're on the right track but...
The Athlon launch party was PLAGUED by delay and pipeline stalls in getting parts from AMD. Dell sells SO many computers that they don't want to be forced to turn customers away to competitors if AMD started rationing processors.
Oooo... thought you were going to go down the right track, but you faltered. Dell's decision had less to do with the execution of AMD for delivery or production; it had more to do with extra support costs.
From Dell's POV, they wouldn't want a second processor with a second socket/slot configuration, with non-interoperable motherboards because it would be a nightmare to maintain. Just the burn-in testing of all the different configurations they have in an Intel only world is an oppressive task. Basically take that effort and multiply it by a factor when you add in another "architecture." This is why Dell has been so resistant to adding AMD to their line. Of course, they get great business incentives by threatening Intel with adding AMD (and Intel gets to threaten "no more price break" if Dell adds AMD), but unless they're in danger of losing customers or they can figure out a way to do it much more cheaply (read: have off-shore tech people test configurations for $1/hour) they wouldn't make the move to AMD. The latter has more potential, methinks.
Most likely, this is just a move to get better pricing out of Intel (for now).
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.