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AMD The Almighty Buck Hardware Technology

AMD Hits Milestone in Server Market 215

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."
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AMD Hits Milestone in Server Market

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  • by germanStefan ( 766513 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:59AM (#13193594) Homepage
    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.
  • by 00_NOP ( 559413 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @08:15AM (#13193666) Homepage
    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...
  • motherboards (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jpc ( 33615 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @08:21AM (#13193698) Homepage

    The main reason for buying Xeons was the range of motherboards available. This is finally beginning to change and there is a lot more AMD stuff, from 1 way to 8 way. And with things like SCSI and SATA RAID cards turning up in PCI express things are looking even better as workstation and server chipsets become interchangeable.
  • Re:Laptops? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29, 2005 @08:24AM (#13193710)
    P4 is not the problem for AMD, the P-M is, and they need to be able to compete on mobile chips with Intel. Not only does AMDs offering need to be good, it needs to be much better than intel's and must be cheaper too or few laptop makers will switch.

    AMD is gaining ground on Desktop and Server CPUs because their products are much better AND cheaper.

    Intel doesn't need to be the best, they just need to be good enough to keep AMD out.
  • Re:Laptops? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29, 2005 @08:35AM (#13193761)
    I don't think the OP was arguing that the Pentium 4 was more efficient than Athlon products, but he is still stating a valid point, that with notebook sales now outpacing desktop sales, if AMD wants to compete for the normal users, they need to release a low-energy, high-performance laptop chip. Their current entrance into the market with the Turion 64-bit processor is cheap, but is outperformed in power consumption and computing power by the Pentium M.
  • Re:Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tourvil ( 103765 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @08:38AM (#13193774)
    Now if Apple got on board (or in bed) they would have an even better chance. I dont want to replace my Mini with a noisy, over heated, power consuming Intel chipped Mini. AMD has a lot to offer.

    My guess is that Apple will replace the G4s with the lower power Pentium Ms and the G5s with Pentium 4s.

    The bright side for AMD is that once the switch to x86 has been made, Apple could potentially consider AMD chips in the future with much less risk than the current switch to Intel. In fact it would probably be best for AMD to let Apple and Intel go through this transition period together before courting Apple.

  • by cybrthng ( 22291 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @09:44AM (#13194268) Homepage Journal
    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
  • idiot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RelliK ( 4466 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @09:53AM (#13194353)
    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.
  • Re:a thought... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by prisoner-of-enigma ( 535770 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:29AM (#13195191) Homepage
    AMD chips are like a big ole Mack truck. they suck up a lot of juice, but they can hold their own hauling a big load.

    It would seem you're operating with outdated information. For the record, current maximum current draw for all Opteron, Athlon64, and Athlon64 X2 chips is 95W. Note that that is the maximum for all chips at all speeds, current and planned, for the Socket 939/940 designs. Independent testing has shown that even the top-end dual-core Opterons consume roughly 89W.

    Contrast this to Intel's flagship Pentium 4 EE or the fastest Prescott-based Pentium 4. Independent testing shows a power consumption of at least 119W, in some cases as much as 130W under maximum load. AnandTech and Tom's Hardware have confirmed this.

    So, to revise your erroneous statements, AMD chips are like a turbocharged Acura NSX, zippy and frugal with the "gas," but as affordable and reliable as your average Honda. Intel chips are like fuel-guzzling V8's but without the horsepower and torque you'd expect from such gluttony behavior. And they cost more. That's why the P4 has been, for all intents and purposes, completely killed off in favor of Pentium-M derivations, all of which are essentially based on the old Pentium Pro design from the early 90's.
  • by snero3 ( 610114 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:57AM (#13195510) Homepage

    I don't know how much of this is just dell hype but when i spoke to my dell account rep last about the possibility of a AMD x86_64 chip he stated two reasons why it wouldn't happen

    1. AMD couldn't provide the necessary volume. Dell unlike apple take great pride in providing any order(from san to switches) within 4 weeks
    2. Intel now have their own x86_64 cpu in the form of EM64 so why bother changing.
  • by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:01PM (#13195571) Homepage Journal

    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.

  • by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:11PM (#13195627) Homepage
    Wouldn't they rather a company that actually gets things out in reasonable time frames?

    The obvious answer is "Sure, but who would that be?" AMD was a couple years late with K8 as well.

    Schedule slips are the name of the game. Granted, Intel's slip with Merced (both on the time scale and on the promised performance) was pretty severe. But since Dell makes most of their bank on the IA32 line with all the Intel marketing dollars, they could easily be persuaded to just let the Itanium fiasco slide.

    Though I'd bet you a pint that Dell is the reason why Intel officially launched their iAMD64 parts. "You want us to remain exclusive? Give us a way to counter Opteron, now." is roughly how I think it went. Good thing Intel had Yamhill in their back pocket for a couple years.
  • by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:34PM (#13198132) Homepage
    What were they thinking? There hasn't been a reason to buy Intel for higher-end machines for a long time now. Why the hell is AMD only at 10% of sales?!

    Boss: "why is the server so slow?"
    IT Flunky: "The servers are five years old"
    Boss: "So call up Dell, our corporate computer vendor, and order some new ones. This is driving me crazy."
    IT Flunky: "OK"

    Probably no more complicated an explaination than that, for the most part.

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