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Dell to use AMD Chips in Desktop PCs
bain writes "MarketWatch reports that Dell has decided to use AMD chips in its Dimension desktops due next month. The move to use AMD chips signals a break from its long standing reliance on Intel chips. The information slipped out of Dell's quarterly earnings report." From the article: "Before the announcement, which had been speculated in the financial community and the press, Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Edelstone wrote in a research note: 'It should have a negative impact on Intel and it could be a large offset to the expected benefits from Intel's restructuring efforts.' AMD, which has become a more formidable competitor to Intel, has been expanding its manufacturing capacity, a sign that it expects to be shipping more chips. Its chief goal is to put itself in position to supply 33% of the global microprocessor market by 2008. "
Hopefully, this will spur even more innovation from both camps than we've been seeing recently. If you thought the new processor offerings were impressive before, wait until you see Intel fighting back against this move to try to regain some market share.
I'm excited.
though I'm still not going to buy any computers from Dell)
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
How often does a switch like this happen? Dell goes AMD, Macintosh goes Intel, what's next? Microsoft goes Linux?! /head asplodes
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Dell announces the support of AMD chips in it's desktop lineup, on the heels of Intel's release of a cost/performance competitive desktop chip offering in the form of "Core 2". This sounds like a decision they made 2 years ago, that just now floated through the corporate channels into effect. Along with the other bad news we have been hearing from Dell lately, is it going to mean rough times ahead?
Considering the new Intel chips coming out now (Core 2 Duo) seem to be destorying AMD performance wise, this would seem to be a price based decision on Dell's part. They are (for the most part) a discount hardware vendor so the recent, aggressive price cuts from AMD must have been too appealing for them to ignore.
Also, ever since they introduced AMD on some of their servers it's seemed only a matter of time before that relatioship transfered to their desktop offerings. I would imagine, though, that their notebook lines will continue to use Intel as Intel continues to have the (perceived?) lead in that market.
Now that AMD won't be the "poor but better underdog" we better start preparing ourselves to hate them!
And here I was all hot and bothered, thinking they were going to move to Cyrix chips.
Oh well.
Although the article mentioned that AMD is increasing its capacity to produce chips, I have to wonder how supplying Dell is going to impact the little guy. Are there enough chips to go around for everyone? Will NewEgg and others start having shortages? The Enthusiast has always been in AMD's corner. With Intel releasing its new processors that run circles around AMD offerings and the potential for there to be shortages in the after-market, I have to wonder if AMD is trading one customer base for another.
Dell figured the reduced power consumption would leave more available for more effective explosions.
Join Tor today!
You miss out on all the phat AMD lewtz while they completely dominated Intel for years and years, and you finally decide to piss Intel off and start using AMD..... Just in time for Intel to take back the performance crown!!
The only thing that would be better would be for you to "repent" and go back to exclusively Intel as soon as AMD's next gen launches.
But you're not that stupid. Are you?
I mean - Dell had a super deal with Intel. Then Apple cut a deal with Intel. And now Dell is embracing AMD.
Interesting.
Anyhow, here's what I expect happened:
Once Dell committed itself to AMD servers, then the deal with Intel was invalidated. This was a known: Dell gambles that the increased sales will offset the lost savings. Also, the move towards AMD will (Dell hopes) reinvigorate Dell's image. Currently, we think of Dell as being a boring, greedy company producing yesterday's solutions.
Ironically, this happens at a time when Core 2 Duo finally seems to win Intel the performance upper hand for the first time in a long while.
Stop the brainwash
I hope the progress for AMD will now be volume -> cash -> more R&D - > better products.
Over the years, I've gotten the vague feeling that AMD has better engineers who can do more with less. I hope the new volume will not only allow AMD to gear up the foundries, but all expand their R&D. I don't know the real figures, but I've always suspected the Intel has a lot more money to spend on research and development, and they still are only now starting to pull ahead on performance. I hope this deal will give AMD enough money to ramp up their R&D.
If AMD could be competative with a smaller program, consider what the should be able to do with more money.
The more I think about it, the more it has to do with beating HP and Gateway back down. HP (Compaq) and Gateway (eMachines) made quite a bit by embracing AMD in the last year after years of trying to be a Dell copycat by being Intel only. Of course, the question is whether it was actually the usage of AMD that made the difference or just the fact that there's still quite a lot of people who would still buy at retail stores (+ the low price).
Intel's new chips won't stop AMD's share gains in the server market (no integrated memory controller, no HyperTransport, no 4P/8P options) and if you're standardizing on Opterons for your high-end x86 servers why not run AMD all the way down the line? How many corporate customers has Dell lost to HP because they had no Opteron option?
Plus AMD hasn't done their 65nm trasition yet (shipments start end of this year). That should be enough to leapfrog Intel, depending on how many architectural tweaks they do while they're at it. AMD doesn't switch process nodes until they've figured out how to get mature yields (which they say they have), then they do a rapid changeover.
Intel's C2D chips have got to be expensive to produce, what with their 2MB and 4MB L2 caches. I wonder what their yield rates are? Dell was probably worried about getting enough supply, especially with Apple getting first dibs now. Intel's strategy of throwing capacity at problems has to be becoming unsustainable, looking at their deteriorating balance sheet. (Ignore their income statement, that's much easier to manipulate. Cash is tougher to fake.)
Worst case, Dell has seen what's coming at wants to get on AMD's good side now.
I wouldn't put it past other manufacturers to also try this, thinking that they can make more extra money selling both types of systems, rather than save a few bucks per CPU being exclusive, under contract.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
I wonder when AMD found out about this from Dell -- I would guess a few months ago. I never remember AMD being very big on advertising, which to me was a good thing because it (hopefully) meant that the kind of money Intel was spending on silly Blue Man Group commercials was instead going towards better chips at AMD (R&D, QA, etc). But just in the last month or two, I've seen AMD ads springing up in NYC and Philadelphia on billboards and bus stops, probably trying to increase brand recognition. I hope it works -- a balanced market share would logically seem to be the best driving force behind quality chip development from both camps.
Dell bought out Alienware a few months back and didn't 86 AMD from Alienware's line up. I don't think it's a big shocker that Dell will now sell AMD's in their main online store. For all we know it might just be the rollover from Alienware's warehouse.
What I'm more interested in is what'll happen because of the ATI and AMD merger.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
I like AMD, but Dell could put magic genies in their boxes and I would never buy one. Generally non-upgradeable, pre-installed spyware, and abysmal tech support.
My mother spent 6 months on the phone to India 'tech support' trying to get her box to stop hanging until the Dell tech finally came and swapped her NIC.
Put what you want in the box, Dell, I and anyone else in the know ain't buying.
As geeks, we're most concerned with the top-of-the-line desktop chips. But it's a mistake to think that's the most important factor in the market. Companies like Dell don't make the majority of their profits from highly-informed, single-PC-buying gamers and linux nerds. Their bread-and-butter is the business desktop and server market, followed in second place by the fairly uninformed home PC buying family.
For businesses, decisions about what to buy are made on a large scale, based more on budgetary and standardization factors than on which chip has the absolute top performance in its price class this week. My company picks a standard model and sticks to it for months at a time, sometimes more than a year. It might buy thousands of desktops and laptops during that time, as well as dozens or a few hundred servers.
Dell is just trying to grab market share. AMD owns 20% of the desktop market now. That Intel's Core Duo is the price/performance winner this month is a blip on the screen - the larger trend is all that matters to Dell. They need to get at that 20% of the market they're missing, because it represents money left on the table in their primary sector. No business can stay in business if it is in the habit of leaving its customers' money on the table.
What has been holding Dell back historically is twofold - sure, there's whatever exclusive deal they had with Intel, and that is significant. But there's also the (historical) inability of AMD to ship large quantities of a given part on release. Dell does not want to be in the position of turning down or delaying shipment of large orders by its most important (corporate) customers, for lack of parts. AMD has only recently (in the last two or three years maybe) been able to show reliable ability to ship the kinds of quantities that Dell requires. So, now that it can, it becomes a Dell vendor.
So, it doesn't matter all that much to Dell if Intel's Core Duo is in the lead currently. That's a short-term question, of what to package on its current models next quarter maybe. Right now it is concerned with meeting the demands of existing customers, and those existing customers are working from certified models and budget numberes that were determined on paper months ago. I doubt any major company is purchasing Core Duo machines for its employees this week - very few are that proactive and quick with purchasing decisions.
As for next quarter, and the quarter after that - well, Dell will use whatever part makes the most sense, for each model in each product line at each price point and discount level. For some, that probably will mean a core duo platform - but assuradly, now that they have signed the agreement, they will have some Athlon models - and they'll sell some. I'd expect AMD single-chip (dual and single core) desktops to make up something like 5% to 10% of next quarter's shipped desktop units, and maybe a good 15% of next quarter's shipped server units.
Dell's home market will be mostly mid to low-end dell desktops, using whatever chip is at the $50 to $80-each (in 1000-tray quanitites) price point that month. Leaving AMD out of that equation would be a mistake, again irrespective of Core Duo vs. Athlon 64 x2 price/performance points. The cheapest Athlon 64 X2 is still well above $100 each in quantity - and Core 2 Duo is around $200 minimum. They are only a small portion of even the home desktop market at this point, so which of the two is fastest isn't really that relevant to Dell.
-Lep
I am allowed to criticize you: you are not allowed to criticize me. Sorry, that's just how things are.
Is this the cause or effect of the Intel-Apple deal? Or totally unrelated?
Could it have been Dell trying to use AMD to haggle for lower prices from Intel and taking it a bit too far, and Apple seizing the opportunity to strike a deal with Intel?
And next thing you know, Apple gets a Dell-style deal from Intel, and Dell ends up with "humpty dumpty" on its face.
IBM and HP might now be having a moment of schadenfreude...
As for AMD's quad cores saving them, I don't see any significant core changes. No core changes = just the usual scaling = not going to beat Core 2 Duo or Woodcrest - which are now better per GHz and faster overall.
Maybe AMD stuff will win for 8 way servers (4 socket x 2 cores, or 8 socket), but the market for 8 way is pretty small at the moment.
As for 2 socket x 4 cores, AFAIK quad core means the 4 cores will share the socket's memory, so I don't see how that is going to be much better than Intel.
While in the end, both hyperthreading and multicore enable you to run more task concurrently without buying extra chips, they don't have anything in common. HT isn't Multi-cores precursor, it's completly different idea.
The basic idea of HT is to fill-in the hole that happen in the pipe. Very often, the CPU waits a few cycle, while instruction are comming through the pipeline stage. The basic idea of HT is instead of a given stage stay idle, wainting on the previous to complete, we can feed it with data from another thread. 1 logical unit, but 2 threads run in parallel, the first one as usual, the second only serve to avoid staying idle each time a prediction turned out wrong. Over-all speed : almost the same, but background task "feel" more responsive.
The basic idea behind multicore is to try to takae the advantage of 2 CPU, but sharing some part : 1 packaging, 1 interface, 1 socket on a single-socket motherboard some times even 1 of the lowest level cache (and some times it is just two chip packaged together and using 1 interface), except from that sharing, it behaves mostly like two CPU. Over-all speed : doubled.
So the idea are basically different : HT is "try to keep the CPU busy even in case of pipe-line stall (and thus avoid wasting time)", Dual-Core is "try to make SMP by making two-processors-on-a-chip (and thus increasing theoretical max speed)".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
RTFA - It's for shipment next month, not just another AMD/Dell rumor. How did this cluelessness get modded up to 5?
The rumors had been making a LOT more sense the last couple months, so it got to the point where I figured the Dell deal was already signed.
First, Dell had already broken it's Intel only stance by committing to offering AMD Quad CPU servers.
Second, the ATI purchase and NY fab announcements were so close together that for the banks to finance the purchases (with loans rather than shares!), someone signing the loan offer had to be very convinced that business was going to be growing.
Third, Dell isn't stupid. AMD's share, especially in servers, was getting to the point where Dell would start to loose a noticable number of corporate sales. If a mid-sized company wants to standardize on one vendor for servers and workstations, then sooner or later Dell starts to loose workstation and laptop sales. The Opterons were that good in the server area -- and while Woodcrest servers seem to be excellent, it's a new server architecture, and it takes a lot of time for a company to validate a new CPU.
Lastly, AMD has all the pieces of the puzzle now. They've got more than one fab (granted they're next door to each other, but at least they've started production via a contract fab, Chartered). They've got the full range of chips -- the Turion mobiles are reasonably power competitive. And with the ATI purchase, AMD is able to offer the complete reference design and support.
So, IMHO it was a matter of time.