Opteron outselling Xeon & Athlon MP put together

Well, maybe just at one North American reseller, probably not true
everywhe

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11531

But this article has some interesting things to say about the dilemna they
are putting Sun Microsystems and Intel in when it comes to selling their own
high-end chips, the UltraSparc and Itanium respectively. Also says that
people are considering the Opteron because they don't have to have 64-bit
software already available, since the Opteron is no worse than any of the
existing 32-bit chips out there when running simply 32-bit software.

Yousuf Khan

Opteron is an interesting chip - mostly re timing.

Xeon was a nice niche for Intel:
o Dual P4 under a different brand-name with pricing power
o Lags P4 in availability
---- so pushes more into stumping up for pricey-but-now
---- or making more stump up for the higher-new-entrant price
o Slower evolution, more A-B-C-D-E than just A-C-E
---- so more profit milked

Unfortunately, motherboards were similarly price-premium
o 380-500/board
o Physically large enough to sleep on (E-ATX)
o Fussy PSU & memory

Opteron pressures intel in low-single-digit revenue growth,
and profits not of the past PC demand-exceeds-supply era.

Worse, the G5 comes along in dual-CPU form with good
performance and a good price - and good overall package.

Which is all great for Intel buyers, as there's still no sunbed
or sunlounger time for Intel - only faster offerings. Hopefully
that will mean faster bus & I/O bandwidth re Opteron HT.

Apple & AMD still prodding Intel - so Moore's Law realised :-)
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.stores.ebay.co.uk/panaflofan (Ebay)