Dell Still Intel Only

wyckedone writes "Dell Computers has no plans to offer the new dual-core AMD Opteron even though it has been proven that "Opteron's integrated memory controller and multiple Hypertransport interconnects help it outperform Intel's Xeon processor on many benchmarks, especially those that measure the performance of memory-intensive applications.". HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems have all announced that they are going to release servers based on the new AMD chip. Why not offer customers an alternative that has better performance instead of risking the lose of those customers to another vendor that does? Intel has no plans to release a dual-core Xeon until 2006."

Re:from the duh dept.

[harrkev]

You, sir, are correct. One of the most insightful explanations that I have read can be found here, [overclockers.com] in an article entitled "Dell and AMD." Worth a read, even for an article that is two months old.

There are many other reasons to switch from dell

[acherrington]

We used dell hardware (windows enviornment) for 2 years, and switched right back to HP.

The hard drives constantly crashed, raid never worked, and restoring from tape during production time was constant. Parts were never available, and the constant response from their help desk was "flash the bios" or "flash the firmware" when it pertained to nothing that was going on.

At one point they were just sending us new servers for free to fix the broken ones. Note: Those new ones then broke constantly as well.

I think there are plenty of other reasons to switch from dell than a lack of an AMD chip in a server.

(note: I do like dell workstations and home PCs and laptops... just not their servers)

Re:Seems silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Dell is about selling the most boxes, not about performance?

Dell = intel = Microsoft (they show you big numbers, nothing else)

Intel launches Dual Core TODAY

[amichalo]

check it out here [eweek.com]

Re:To answer your question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another possibility is that Dell is just waiting. We have our Dell reps in here almost every month, and they are pretty open about Dell not being an innovator. They typically let somebody else be the pioneer ("pioneers get most of the arrows"), and they come in later, mass-produce, and undercut everybody on price.

Not trying to flame anybody, as this has been told to me numerous times by Dell reps. Seems to be true in a lot of cases.

Re:Not to flame

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallacy: Dell only sells cheap bottom-of-the-barrel boxen to people who don't know anything about computers.

Fact: Dell is a huge supplier of servers for small-office and enterprise use.

Re:There are many other reasons to switch from del

[iann128]

We have been using Dell for the last 8 years and my experience has been just to opposite. I have had a Dell field service tech fly in at midnight with parts in hand to help fix a bad Array Enclosure. I have also had their tech support guys stay on the phone and help rebuild a Domain controller when a drive went bad. On the HP / Compaq side if the house (about 50/50 these days) I have had more problems with bad drives, power supplies, etc. Their support is OK but I have to call them more often. This is in a server room with about 75 servers. We use their Dell) Desktops as well and almost never have hardware issues. Ian

Only nominally

[Anonymous Coward]

Your story is true, but on the ground for the technical people, this is what actually happened.

Compaq came out with the 386, and it was priced at (hold onto your hat) $5,000. I think it was a 386-25 if I'm not mistaken.

IBM announced late, but by the time everybody was shipping IBM was only a month or two late. It was not that big a deal.

But here's the kicker...the IBM PC was significantly slower than the Compaq.

In the mid-late eighties, I was a consultant for a large railroad, and we needed something fast to run PC-Focus. This company was an IBM-only shop, and we got the Compaq some by hook, mostly by crook. They were both nice PC's, but the Compaq had better graphics (Remember that real IBM VGA (c)(tm) was 320x200 in 256 colors and 640x480 in 16 colors), and the compaq was so much faster that after just a few minutes, the Compaq was significantly faster on our long term benchmarks. It took us about 10 minutes to determine that Compaq was the better PC. Plus the IBM 386 was about $8,000 and the compaq was $5,000.

That was the beginning of the end of IBM PC's at this customer. Not because it was "better" or because it was "cheaper", but "better and cheaper".

Funny to think a 386 would be $5K, eh? And that's the bargain model!

Why is this news?

[Luscious868]

How many "Dell may sell AMD", followed up a few days (or weeks) later by "Dell will remain Intel only" stories do we need? Dell announces every so often that it may offer systems with AMD processors to scare Intel into offering a better deal. I doubt they have ever seriously considered going with AMD, and I don't think that they will anytime soon. These stories are pointless.

Re:Don't underestimate a company as big as Dell

[Tim C]

Most corporate customers don't mind the performance difference, since they will never get fired for buying Intel... on the contrary, in the corporate / server world, Intel has a great reputation.

I'd like to bet that a fair chunk of machines bought for corporate use are going to be used as desktops. For the vast majority of them, there *is* no noticeable performance difference; neither chip is going to get that report written any quicker than the other.

Sure, I do server-side web-app development, and I'll take all the power and RAM you can give me, but I realise that I'm by no means a typical corporate user.

Re:SFW

[Jim_Maryland]

While generally true, you really need to consider this from a training/maintenance/support option too. What is the cost of adding a new offering?

Training production and support staff

Additional inventory storage: motherboards, CPUs, fans

Multiple BIOS

Adjustments to tech support website to make sure the average home PC user can easily find the right updates All these issues, and likely many more, must be addressed when expanding your product offering. You also need to look at where Dell makes their money. Do companies buy AMD based systems? I haven't switched jobs in a while but my current and previous employers were exclusively Intel for the MS Win32 systems.

Re:History: Failure to learn, doomed to repeat

[Dammital]

If memory serves me right, I believe that Compaq came out within seconds telling anyone who would listen that they had i386 processors now

Intel announced the 80386DX in October of '85. Almost a year later, Compaq announced the Deskpro 386, the first 16MHz 80386 based computer. IBM followed up six months after that with the 20MHz microchannel PS/2 model 80.

Re:Another reason to use AMD

[corngrower]

As far as notebook chips are concerned, I remember reading that the Pentium-M requires less power than the corresponding AMD chip (I beleive that would be a Sempron model now).

Re:SFW

[chris_mahan]

Anecdotal.

I have AMD processors, and have never had any problems with them.
My wife is a professional interpreter/translator and she uses the AMD machine to work on. I have no problem having her use an AMD-based machine.

And yes, it's a K6-500, from 1998. Works beautifully.

Re:Makes perfect business sense

[Carrot007]

> "AMD" is really only known to geeks

You calling my father a geek?

Are you?