Chuckles - Re: ", I can tell you with a high amount of certainty that architects don't give a damn if the processor comes from Intel or AMD or MIPS or Mot or Sun or an inhouse fab..."
You are smoKing ROPE !
How many THOUSANDS OF HOURS of non-STOP operation has ANYBODY verified on an ATHLATE SYSTEM with MULTIPLE ATHLATES running Linux, WIndows NT, or Solaris and the various hundreds of APPLICATION PROGRAMS running on top of these OS's?
Answer - ZERO - there AIN'T NO MULTIPLE SMP ATHALTE SYSTEMS - except in "AMD's LABS".
Only an IDIOT - are you an IDIOT ? - would expect any MIS department to buy a new AMD ANYTHING with the ATHLATEs to run their corporate business without EXTENSIVE DEVELOPMENT, TESTING, VERIFICATION, and RE-VERIFICATION of system-level RELIABILTY.
And with AMD's track record - You can be 99.99% assured that it will be years before AMD has any system level reliability that will get them even CLOSE to Intel-based machines.
Then you have another factor - what MIS people want to switch from Intel-based systems, backed by IBM, Dell, Compaq, SGI, Sequent, etc. AND INTEL - ALL MULTIPLE BILLION DOLLAR ENTERPRISES WITH EXTENSIVE HISTORIES OF PROFITABLITY, and LONG TERM SUPPORT - and play RUSSIAN ROULETTE with an AMD system, with AMD components, knowing that AMD may be declaring financial bankruptcy with every passing fiscal quarter?
Would you take that chance with your BILLION DOLLAR ENTERPRISE?
Well, would YOU ?
By the way - which OEM's stood up last Wednesday to announce they were going to support AMD's athLATE CPU in home PC systems?
This lack of OEM COMMITMENT at the LOW END will not help AMD in the SERVER business - unless AMD gets into the hamburger server business.
Paul |
