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AMD Hits Milestone in Server Market
DontClickHere writes "According to data from Mercury Research, AMD has finally cracked the 10% mark in x86 instruction set server CPUs. AMD's Chairman had hoped that their server sales would hit 10% at the end of 2004, but they had only reached 5.7%. Some of this gain can be attributed to AMD's introduction of dual core chips in April this year. With Intel only due to ship dual core chips for low end servers later this year, AMD has been handed a golden opportunity to take a larger share in the server market."
The main reason is that they sell the only 64-bit consumer chip. Yes, I understand that it is mainly marketing but the Athlon 64s are hot sellers. They need to crack Dell now.
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I haven't boughten an INtel chip for myself for quite a while. Originally I wanted to support the underdog, but now (without my youthful activism) I just think they create more innovative and better products. I just ordered the pieces to build a server for my company and got AMD64 chip, not an Intel.
Wow - AMD gets 10% market penetration for servers.
With good news like this, I wouldn't be surprised if something like Firefox reaching 75 million downloads were to happen! I hope I see a Slashdot story on that soon.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I applaud them for their server sales, but I hope that they will soon develop a power efficient chip for laptops. At the moment they have nothing that can compete with Intel's M chips. Do they have plans to compete with Intel for this market or are they happy to stay in the server market?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
even now intel Itanium is a massive change fromtheir standard, and wwas released AFTER the AMD 64 bit.
The Intel Itanium was released before the Athlon 64. You're thinking of EM64T-enabled Pentium 4s and Xeons.
But yeah, AMD got a lot of very good engineers from DEC.
When calculating the percentage of processors, is AMD counting a dual core as one or two processors?
A few years ago I thought the Wintel monopoly was cracking up ... now despite this (good) news that seems further away than for some time.
The constant hostility to Linux from Windows users is just one example - people are frightened of making the change and they cannot understand why something I can give them perfectly legally on a CD/DVD can be as good as or better than something they pay loads for.
So too with Intel - Apple's decision may even be good for Microsoft as it will help freeze out alternative combinations of OS with processors...
Everyone knows that AMD's share would seriously change if Dell could be persuaded away from their holdout status.
The two main reasons generally cited for Dell's allegiance to Intel is the millions in advertising and marketting (hard for AMD to compete when they're sitting on a little over a billion and Intel is sitting on something like 11 billion) and early notification of new developments.
The second one I just don't get. I mean, Intel annouced the Itanium in 1994 which consumers didn't see until 2001, two years later than projected and seven after the announcement. Really, how much notice does Dell need? Wouldn't they rather a company that actually gets things out in reasonable time frames?
What?
The K8 processors are way more power efficient then the K7s were. Keep in mind the K7 design came out as a competitor for the P3 processor not the P4.
The K8 is basically one-generation ahead of the P4. I'm sure Intel will catch up though as their Pentium-M is a good design in terms of efficiency.
A dual-core 64-bit Pentium-M would definitely give the AMD a run for some money I'd think...
But anything in the P4 camp and you're basically not making a rational comparison.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Look at the power consumption numbers again and it looks more like Intel is a zippy Fiat that sucks fuel like a Mack truck.
It's not the 90's anymore.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Has the situation reversed?
Yes, at least on the 90m parts. I just built a dual core Athlon 64 system BECAUSE the power consumption is lower than anything Intel can offer in the same class. The Athlon 64 X2 was more expensive than the Pentium CPUs too, but i figure I will make the price difference back on power savings.
7 year and 150k miles later it still runs and the only things i have had to do is put new tires on, change the oil, breaks and about to put some new shocks & struts on.
Tiberon has been the best car i've ever had. Out of Jeep Wranglers, Jeep grand cherokees, mazda 626's, suburus and others.
THe problem is you look at brand as stature and you use that to ignore the good qualities about everything else out there. You have probably never owned a Hyundai so you assume they're cheaply made. (granted they have had some bummers but so has intel..)
You have probably never owned an AMD for the same reason, you believe the hype. You also probably still pay full price for Nike shoes, still wear Girbaud jeans and are afraid to shop at target.
Can't find value in something that doesn't sound cool?
pretty retarded if you ask me
AMD has long since surpassed Intel in quality and innovation. AMD chips now are:
1. faster
2. 64-bit
3. use less power & generate less heat
Intel is now catching up and immitating. Intel kept blathering about how 64-bit is useless on the desktop, then did an aboutface and grudgingly implemented AMD64 instruction set. Intel is also switching back to an updated pentium 3 core (which has now been rebranded as pentium M) proving once again that AMD was right all along: increasing the "megahurtz" while lowering IPC count was a boneheaded idea. And with the new CPU model numbers they are trying to downplay the importance of clock speed -- after years of brainwashing the consumers that this "megahurtz" thing is all that matters.
In short, you are either an Intel shill or you've been living under a rock for the past 5 years.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Is it just me, or do you get the impression that, on the bell curve of computer knowledge, AMD is slurping up customers from both the low end (where only price matters) and from the high end (where price/performance ratio matters).
Meanwhile, the huge middle part of the market segment continues to buy Intel from Dell, where comfortable historical precedent matters.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Don't forget that the AMD chips have the memory controller built in, while the Intel chips require a separate chip sucking power (normally part of the North Bridge) to do this task.
Sadly I know of nobody who has measured who much the separate memory controller costs in power. Could range from insignificant to nearly as much as the CPU.
A search on ibm.com does not give me a link to the document and neither does google. I did however find an IBM provided AMD vs XEON linpack-comparison benchmark ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/eserver/benchmarks/wp_L inpack_072905.pdf, but first benchmark (that I can't locate) was better.
It clearly shows the advantages of the AMDs NUMA architecture and also other factors.
NUMA is also available on some enterprise level IBM XEON servers like the x440, x445 and x460 (or the equivelent systems from Fujitsu Siemens or NEC). One thing that is important on these servers is that you should balance each CEC with the same amount of memory or it will greatly affect performance. AMD's NUMA technology is not affected as much as XEON on this (as the mentioned paper shows).