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Dell diggs the Opteron, finally

by Steve Kerrison on 19 May 2006, 10:10

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After years of geeks and analysts* speculating "will they" or "won't they", Dell finally "will".

Yesterday saw Dell announce its quarterly earnings, along with news of its intention to ship dual-core AMD Opteron processors, the first time in the history of the company that an AMD chip is to be sold in one of their systems.

The use of the Opteron means, as most of you will have deduced, that there won't be any desktop systems from Dell with AMD chips in them just yet. The Optys will be headed for servers, where, just like on the desktop, AMD can give Intel a run for their money.

And, Opteron-endowed servers won't be appearing just yet, Dell saying they'll be around "by the end of the year". Nevertheless, AMD's senior vice president was quick to respond to the news: "We welcome Dell, and Dell customers, to the world of AMD64. Dell is a customer-focused company and we’re pleased to see that they are listening to their customers and providing them the choice of innovative AMD products. We look forward to working closely with Dell in bringing the benefits of AMD leadership in performance-per-watt solutions to Dell customers."

It remains to be seen how aggressively Dell will market AMD-based solutions. Perhaps they'll try to slot them into their portfolio in such a way that they don't directly compete with any Intel-powered rigs. Such a task, however, would be difficult. Still, come the end of the year, sysadmins will have the option of buying AMD-based Dells, a significant step in AMD's mission to claw more market share from its arch-rival.

*Same difference, if we're honest.



HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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Best of all worlds on the server front as far as I'm concerned; Poweredges with Opterons! The last server I bought was a Proliant DL385, and that was purely because Dell weren't offering an Opteron in the same segment (2U 2-Way rackmount).
looks like dell have REALLY been taking it from behind in the server arena - lord knows nobody wants xeon right now in my line of work
I've been pounding the Opteron thing at both our account manager and the somewhat more senior chap who came out to visit us recently; I think they're getting the point that they're actually losing sales in the server space to Opteron-based machines. Good lord, I remember a thread on this from November…

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=60706

Me
I tend to believe it this time; I could be wrong, but I'd guess that there're a lot of firms who know that bang per buck they can do a lot better with an Opteron-based server than they can with a Xeon, and Dell don't do ‘em. Hence me buying HP, and lost sales in the corporate space’ll hurt Dell.

Me again
…I don't think that Dell can stomach losing sales through being the only major server vendor that doesn't ship an AMD-based machine….

Do I get a cookie? :D
About time too. One does wonder if its going to be worth their time if Woodcrest performs as well as its boasting…
Finally, how long did it take!

Woodcrest will be interesting, but come on AMD :D