Re: so why do you get an AMD chip and not an Intel one?
We'd had a mix of Intel and AMD until the IA64 and AMD64 plans were made clear. Intel stayed at 32-bits on X86 pushing the Itanium IA64 ISA for advanced systems, while AMD developed an X86 compatible 64-bit ISA. I blame Intel for delaying the transition to 64 bits for years (some drivers and software are still not available). This has caused substantial harm to everyone who uses computers, and Intel did it as a marketing ploy, harming customers like me in an attempt to force users to an expensive, slow progressing Intel proprietary world.
Beyond that, over the years, AMD performance has typically been better for server loads, but the main benefit has been that the platform has been very stable, both in terms of not crashing and in terms of hardware refreshes. Intel, of course, began following AMD's lead for ISA's, but they still haven't shipped a competitive platform. I have consistent systems, that use similar boards and chipsets for servers and workstations that go from 1 socket 2 cores to 8 sockets and 32 cores.
I think that if Shanghai hadn't worked out as well as it has, I would have moved back to Intel, but AMD's 45nm is looking very respectable - and it's a proven, stable, compatible product.
I think this is partly strategic on the part of Intel. Intel is still playing the game of trying to leave their X86 servers broken enough that their customers are forced to move to Itanium for higher end systems while their AMD64 platform boxes are still competitive enough to avoid losing the market to Opteron.
I don't want an intentionally broken platform with no compatible upgrade route, I want the best X86 servers I can buy. |
