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Server Benchmarking Lone Wolf Bites Intel Again
Ian Lamont writes "Neal Nelson, the engineer who conducts independent server benchmarking, has nipped Intel again by reporting that AMD's Opteron chips 'delivered better power efficiency' than Xeon processors. Intel has discounted the findings, claiming that Nelson's methodology 'ignores performance,' but the company may not be able to ignore Nelson for much longer: the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp., a nonprofit company that develops computing benchmarks, is expected to publish a new test suite for comparing server efficiency that Nelson believes will be similar to his own benchmarks that measure server power usage directly from the wall plug."
sure, I'm glad there's an AMD to compete with Intel...helps spur development and, most importantly, helps drive prices down.
But time and time again, the AMD chips and BIOSes for AMD chipsets have many, many more flaws than comparable Intel systems. That's just a fact. So, yes, maybe right here and now AMD saves a few percent more power under certain extenuating circumstances, but in the end, who cares? Intel is still where it's at, for my processing dollar. Nobody ever got fired for buying MS? You can say that doubly so for buying Intel.
1# AMD aren't dicks to other companies. And is more open minded.
2# Other companies are more willing to work with AMD over Intel. (ie Z - RAM)
3# Did I mention Intel are bunch of arrogant bastards? See the OLPC they laugh at the creator face when he asked Intel if they could make a cheap chip for a $100. But when he asked AMD they were like "We'll see what we can do."
Al Gore, Inc.