“Dell has agreed to use Advanced Micro Devices’ Opteron chip in multiprocessor servers by the end of the year, ending a long-standing policy of sticking exclusively with Intel,” Tom Krazit and Ina Fried report for CNET. “The PC maker made the move public in its first-quarter earnings press release on Thursday. Speculation has mounted for years as to whether Dell would adopt the company’s chips, despite Dell’s exclusive relationship with rival Intel to this point. AMD has enjoyed a performance lead in server benchmarks over Intel’s Xeon processors.”
“‘We welcome Dell, and Dell customers, to the world of AMD64,’ Marty Seyer, an AMD senior vice president for commercial business, said in a statement distributed after Dell’s earnings release. Dell executives delayed the start of an earnings call with the press and were unavailable to comment further. Although the deal is confined to servers at this point, it still represents another win for AMD, which has had a long string of gains over its rival,” Krazit and Fried report.
Full article here.
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Wonder how long it will take for AMD chips to show up in Macs?
Every CPU provider Apple picks gets out of the PC business.
Is Intel on the ropes?
I give it 3 more years.
If Intel dies then Apple can switch to AMD, big deal.
Steve Jobs, aka, “Mr. Brilliant” probably realizes he bet on the wrong horse. oops
Dell is crap regardless of the processor
Apple is free to switch between Intel and AMD at any time, for any particular computer. Apple is in a great position.
apple has shared its multicore knowledge with intel and this gets its processors 1st – tis is an advantage to the rest, let alone te rest of the chipset
AMD is screwed once Core 2 Duo for desktops starts shipping in July. The 2.6Ghz Core 2 Duo beats a 2.8Ghz Athlon64 X2 (not even available yet), and the Core 2 Duo will be available up to 3Ghz.
This is great news since Intel will no longer feel obligated to give Dell all the breaks it does now. More competitive for all PC makers to get deals with Intel. Dell is making a BIG mistake here. AMD is going nowhere. Watch for the upcoming desktop chips in August and beyond… Servers and X-Serve next…
Intel is just under 5 times the size of AMD. It’s got a long way to go before it goes out of business.
Intel is coming out withsome very impressive procs this year. In response AMD will redouble their efforts to hang on to market share they have taken from Intel. In response Intel will pour more of their billions into development of even better procs. It doesn’t matter who comes out on top, we the consumer are the winners. Long live capitalism!
Intel is in no trouble. Just wait for their new processors later this year and you’ll see that AMD is actually in trouble. This move from Intel to AMD is only for servers and it has no importance on its own, let’s move on.
I think the main reason Apple didn’t go with AMD is: that AMD has the same problem that the Power-Pc had: Supply.
There is no way that AMD could supply Dell with all of its processors. Even if they dumped all their other customers. Intel seems to be the only company that can supply large amounts of processors (ie: their newest and fastest). I waited over two months for my G4 tower even though I ordered it the first day they were sold. Alot of you waited a long time for a new Mac when we shouldn’t have had too. I think that is the main reason Apple went with Intel and the main reason Dell will stay mostly Intel.
Hey MDN,
You didn’t even give me the ‘Nod’ for the Link !
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Not too long ago there was a rumor on Mac OS Rumors that Intel was demonstrating its compiler technology for its multi-core chips. The claim — in the rumor at least — was that Intel could fully utilize 16 cores, and perhaps 32 cores, running code. The rumor also stated that Mac OS X Leopard would take full advantage of this.
Intel has its pluses and minuses. They have really screwed up on architectural issues over the years and finally, AMD has been able to chew off a nice chunk of their business. But Intel has great semi-conductor manufacturing technology and their compilers for their X86 products have been and are outstanding. If these rumors are true, Intel multi-core technology will be a barn burner.
O/T: Are you ready for Vista?
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3607406
“For a computer to be labeled Vista Capable, the computer must run an 800Mhz processor, come with 512MB of memory and have a DirectX 9-capable video processor. To be Vista Premium ready, the system needs to run at 1GHz, have 1GB of memory and have a more powerful video card to meet the Windows Aero specifications.
Being able to run Aero is the key differentiator between Capable and Premium, along with the extra memory for improved performance. Also, Vista Capable PCs will require 20GB of hard disk space, while Vista Premium PCs will need 40GB of space available.
The Upgrade Advisor scans your hardware to determine if it’s capable of running any or all of the different flavors of Vista. One version, Vista Starter, will only be sold in emerging markets overseas, not the U.S.
For home users, there will be three versions: Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium and Vista Home Ultimate, according to Greg Amrofell, product manager for Windows client software at Microsoft. There will also be two business user versions: Vista Business and Vista Enterprise.
Microsoft clearly wants people to think of upgrading.
Thanks Ampar, that was interesting.
Finally superior processors 😀
LOL AMD isn’t going anywhere, ye thats why a lot of companies start to use it even dell, thats why all google computers will be moving to AMD as well, ye, AMD will die from being used to much!! think man on what you saying, more like intel will loose the share. Don’t forget AMD releasing new processors this summer.
Jobs saw the future line up of processors from Intel and from AMD.
He didn’t choose Intel because AMD had the better roadmap…
Dell is failing. It will do all sorts of odd things to extract itself from its predicament.
Since when has a Dell design decision been an arbiter of forward-thinking good taste.
This decision will be as much about money as it is about performance, as it always is with Dell. Can’t screw money out of Intel, we’ll screw it out of AMD.
Woodcrest is – according to reports – bug-free (hence why it is now shipping earlier than expected), performs better than planned, and takes only 65W TDP as opposed to the earlier forecasts of 80W (which were themselves an increase on the original 75W forecast).
And then, when Intel shifts to 45nm, we will see Whitefield in early 2008 with four cores on a single die, and up to 16MB of shared L2 cache.
richb says: “I think the main reason Apple didn’t go with AMD is: that AMD has the same problem that the Power-Pc had: Supply.”
Wrong. Industry analysts know that AMD is actually more capable than Intel of supplying its customers with it’s most up-to-date CPUs. The reasons: The entirety of Intel’s much vaunted manufacturing capability is slow to transition to new processes, and some fabs are never a factor due to being locked up making other types of chips. In other words, they don’t crank out as many of the good CPUs as their size would seem to indicate they could. It’s also a simple numbers game, in that AMD has a smaller customer base, which means every new & efficient fab they’ve opened in the last few years has more excess capacity in real terms, when compared to Intel and it’s already existing 80-90% market share commitments.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Apple DID NOT go to Intel for performance or capacity; they went to Intel b/c – at the time – Jobs thought Intel would be an invaluable partner to have in making Apple a major player in video. Intel had a DRM standard the studios were comfortable with, as well as a desire to be the next Samsung (i.e. a multimedia powerhouse). Intel played their rep as the ‘market leader’ to the hilt in convincing anyone who would listen (read “Jobs”) that those factors were THE most important in getting in and dominating the new video paradigm quickly. In other words, Intel used the only real advantage over AMD or IBM that they have – marketing. And Jobs bought the malarky. Otellini telling him that their CPUs would (finally) be competitive was just icing on a cake that was already made.
The problem is that we now see that Intel isn’t nearly as well positioned as they thought. The world is moving to online video much faster than Apple, Intel, or anyone else thought it would, with many more players. DRM hasn’t had a chance to become a fact of life for the vast majority of computer users yet, but the train is leaving the station regardless. Meanwhile, Apple dicks around with a CPU/software transition that is wasting time and resources that could’ve otherwise been spent leading the train, instead of just pacing it as they are now.
Does anyone honestly believe we wouldn’t have seen a video centric device from Apple long before now, if they hadn’t switched CPU horses in mid stream? Sony, Nintendo, and M$ seem perfectly able to make multimedia-type devices with IBM PPC CPUs. Freescale’s dual core G4 runs cooler than Yonah, and is cheaper to boot. And with PA Semiconductor coming in by the end of this year with a 64bit mobile PPC, Apple could have been the benificary of the healthiest, most diversified CPU market in the world. In other words, all this Macintel hullaballoo was unnecessary, distracting, and ultimately may wind up costing Jobs that which he wanted the most – market dominance in video like he has in audio.
And even Apple computers will look poorer in the long term. DELL has just taken the second step toward loosening it’s ties to Intel, based on performance. The first step was in aquiring Alienware. Now we see them cutting bait and going to AMD in the other major performance/efficiency arena – servers. Do you think they’re doing this ona whim? DELL is more privy to Intel’s technology roadmap/improvements than anyone, Apple included. DELL must certainly know, beyond any doubt, that AMD is going to keep it’s lead over Intel for the forseeable future, otherwise they never would’ve made a move like this. The financial subsidies Intel provides to exculsive customers are huge, and yet DELL still sees itself losing in the long run if they stay with them. That should be telling all Mac fans something, and it isn’t that ‘the future looks bright’ (TM).
The sooner Apple drops Intel the better off it will be. Period. Meanwhile, when all is aid and done, and the magnitude of this misstep by Jobs becomes more apparent, we’ll all be wondering about what could have been.
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