just how much IS intel paying Dell and HP not to use Opteron....

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12957

my goodness.

Care to quote something while you flame bait? That's a long article to read through.

i figured the benchmarks spoke for themselves.

Maybe Dell and HP are reluctant to start pimping stuff from an unproven player?

The people buying 4-way machines aren't necessarily looking for whiz-bang ricer systems.

Intel has produced and supported multiprocessor systems from earlier than 486 days. AMD has produced and supported multiprocessor systems for about three years -- give or take. That is at least what I'm remembering...

Companies like Dell and HP sell servers to the "five nine's" customers -- 99.999% uptime. In one year, that gives you about 5 minutes and 15 seconds of downtime. Who do you trust to build a five nine's dual processor system? Someone who's done it for more than a decade, or someone who's new and has an unproven track record?

When you're a multibillion dollar company, the choice is significantly different than when you're a single income home user.

Slight technicality: you can run AMD 486's in SMP, as prior to the Pentium, all SMP details were done on the motherboard (the chips themselves were not SMP capable, so to speak). You could probably even shoehorn a Overdrive CPU into a 486 duallie if you were really determined.

Also, K5's and K6-x's (and all Pentium and later class Cyrix CPUs) do support SMP, but through a different scheme called OpenPIC. The reason why these chips did not use the Intel APIC signalling scheme is due to patent issues over the scheme, or something like that. Since the K7 uses a different bus (the Alpha EV6 bus) there are no patent issues there. Both AMD and Cyrix developed, and prototyped, SMP capable chipsets, but they were never put into production due to lack of demand. There is also OpenPIC support in the Linux kernel.

This thread is flame bait, but I'll post anyway...

The answer to your question... They aren't paying them anything...



I'm a big AMD fan. That said, however, it isn't hard for me to see why companies like Dell do business with Intel. For one, Intel cuts them sweet price deals. For another, Intel actually informs their customers what they are doing, both now, and for the next 4 to 8 quarters. (I won't even mention HP, because HP and Compaq are now one big company and Compaq has a long history with AMD.)

AMD is cheap and their performance is good. I love them, but their PR stinks. They won't/can't tell anyone what they will be doing this time next year, what sockets will be around, what chips are actually going to be on the market, etc, etc, etc. To be blunt, I don't think AMD knows what they're going to be doing 12 months from now. Intel knows what they are currently doing, and what they will be doing 12 months from now and 24 months from now. Because they are good business people, they share this information, so their customers know what to expect and how to plan for the future.

Intel knows how to treat corporate customers. AMD doesn't.

[This is coming from someone who buys a LOT of AMD chips, recommends AMD chips, and loves AMD chips. The truth may hurt, but it is the truth.]

For one, Intel cuts them sweet price deals

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thats exactly what i'm talking about. intel cuts dell a sweetheart deal to NOT use amd chips. i'm not saying for dell to scrap everything intel and switch to amd. i would just like them to have some kind of competing product. we have laws against this sort of thing but apparently big corporations dont have to play by the rules anymore. and the only people who benefit from this type of activity is intel.(more competition means better prices for us).

another thing that irks me is dell is claiming the xeons are faster then the opterons and they have benchmarks to prove it but wont show anyone.

That isn't accurate at all.

Intel gives Dell sweet prices on Intel CPU's. They don't pay Dell to not buy AMD CPU's.

There is no law in the world that says that Dell can't buy and sell only Intel CPU's in their computers! They have every right in the world to do just that, just like I have the right to build primarily AMD machines (probably 90% of the machines I build are AMD machines and I don't buy Dell machines, because they cost too much.)

Intel doesn't cut Dell a sweetheart deal to NOT use AMD chips, they cut them a deal according to what the market demands. They don't offer sweet deals to spite AMD, they do it so they get the contract and because it's a large guarantee of income.

A conspiracy theory isn't necessary when something can be explained by simple business principles and reasoning.

Intel would be fools not to offer a large company buying huge quantities of processors a volume discount. Every production/manufacturing company offers volume discounts.

you can spin it anyway you'd like. but you can garrenty that if dell decided to dabble with AMD that "sweet deal" wouldn't be as sweet any longer.

there is a difference between a volume discount and stifling competition.

I don't think IMOG, nor myself are spinning anything. We are simply offering the truth, in the face of a conspiracy theory that lacks a shred of evidence. Like I said earlier, the truth may hurt, but it is the truth.

You are right, however, that if Dell dabbled with AMD, then their sweet prices with Intel would falter. All the more reason for Dell to stick with Intel. It makes good economic sense for them to do so.

Honestly, now. Put yourself in Dell's shoes... You're a big computer manufacturer. You want suppliers that you can count on. You want quality CPU's, motherboards, and chipsets. You look at Intel and see a company with a fantastic track record and excellent reputation. You look at AMD and see a company that can't get its act together to save its life. Who would you choose? You can go with both and get fairly good prices from both, or you can go with just one (Intel) and get GREAT prices from them. Along with GREAT prices, you also get GREAT quality, stability, and a reliable company that keeps its promises and doesn't keep its customers in the dark. As a side benefit, you get to tout that you build all your computers with CPU's from the CPU manufacturer with the best reputation in the business.

No spin here, just stating logic and reasoning thats backed up by business principles.

There is a difference between a volume discount and stifling competition. Stifling competition has to be proven with evidence - usually in the form of inside business memos, priceing strategy guidelines, and with lawyers and a judge present in the court of law.

Do you think AMD is paying Compaq to use it's processors? They are doing the same thing Intel is.

I just don't see how this is unfair business practices. All I see are conspiracy theories without any grounds for proof.

Uh, compaq to my knowledge makes both intel and amd based systems. I had several of their systems in the past when I was on a budget. One was a AMD K6-2 500MHz machine and the other a 1.5GHz P4 system. I don't really have a point with this besides the fact that compaq doesn't 100% deal in AMD based systems.

In regards to Dell, what of it? So what, they only sell intel based systems. If you don't like it just go build yourself a system the way you want. Are you sure HP isn't selling a Opteron based system though, I could have sworn I saw one. Either way, if you don't like it go somewhere else and stop bemoaning it here.

There was a hp-paviljon (or something like that) with an athlon processor in the add here this weekend. Actually it's pretty funny to notice that during the last year or so just about every computer add I've seen includes an option with an amd processor. (dell isn't big in finland)

These are ofcourse normal computers, not servers. I'm with cmcquistion with most of what he says. Even though opterons are giving good results, it will take a while untill system admins start taking them in. I would actually consider the deals with sun and ibm to be a great starting point, it's a good way to get recognition as a viable option.

The company I work for has several hundreds of servers, mostly sun and ibm so I might not be the most objective guy to think about it...

Since I've worked for CompUSA for the last 8 months selling pc's, i've seen AMD dissappear completely from the Sony lineup. HP only has 1 laptop with an Athlon, and now Compaq is in the same boat. This is based on current product in what is one of the largest volume stores in our region. The only box left boasting the Athlon is an eMachine.

And I push it hard.

I just wish Toshiba would use Athlons.

I understand the gripe. The senior's here are telling it like it is, but I don't like it any more than you, xtrmeocr. Healthy competition is what helped get prices down to where they are now. Six months ago there were handfuls of AMD boxes on the shelves, and they sold out all the time.

OC-NightHawk said:

Uh, compaq to my knowledge makes both intel and amd based systems. I had several of their systems in the past when I was on a budget. One was a AMD K6-2 500MHz machine and the other a 1.5GHz P4 system. I don't really have a point with this besides the fact that compaq doesn't 100% deal in AMD based systems.

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When I mentioned Compaq earlier, I didn't mean to convey that they only make AMD systems. I meant that they make AMD and Intel systems.

Sorry for the confusion.

Sweetheart deals happen all the time in business, and not just the computer business. In the oil drilling business (where I make my living) the large companies put supplies and services out for bid all the time to both make sure that the product or service is available to themselves and to get the best price for the product or service. This allows the big corporations to better plan their business and also to help them plan their budgets.

For example, if I do $20 million per quarter worth of business average for a product or service and I don't put this kind of outlay up for bid, then I am doing the company and the stockholders a disservice. Not going with the best price/performance drives my costs up for doing business, which makes my company less competitve in the market. Reliability is also a big factor to consider also in this process, which is why the low bid is not necessarily the winner all the time. Intel has a large and well proven record that AMD can't come close to, IMO.

I also buy and recommend AMD rigs to my friends and relatives that ask, so I also don't have a pro-Intel bias.

no one has ever been fired for buying an Intel server.......


but if your shiny new AMD server goes down, your butt is toast.



that's what the IT guys are thinking at the big companies, and so they buy Intel (generally in big name servers like IBM or Dell or HP). The companies sell what people want, and what is cheaper to support. That means Xeon.

alot of it is market, alot is relationship, really, its the combination, plus the reputation that puts the intel in a dell

No, I wasnt trying to rhyme, but it came out that way