Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[DARBES]

...Here’s the truth: the direct performance-per-watt numbers that Intel has published, to bolster its claims of lower power usage, pit a high-power Revision E Opteron against a low-power Core Microarchitecture Xeon. AMD ships 35 and 55 watt Opteron CPUs — and always has. AMD’s PowerNow! run-time power management has been standard in Opteron for a long time; it is not Intel’s invention.

Intel shot its entire wad on Core Microarchitecture. From here, the only place Intel can go is to a bigger cache, more cores and faster clocks. That sounds like a grand triple play, but it isn’t. Mark my words: Core Microarchitecture will not scale. When quad-core Opteron lands, it will be ready to power 32 core-capable servers that deliver close to linear performance gains over Opteron systems with fewer cores. Plan B Xeon is entry-level server technology and even in this category AMD has the better story.

AMD has years worth of ammunition already locked and loaded. It hasn’t even played the 65-nanometer manufacturing process card, one that Intel had to play just to get Core Microarchitecture out the door. I’m certain that AMD is truly ready for 65-nanometer and other mind-blowing things, and I’m just as certain that Intel’s claims of Core Microarchitecture’s technological lead over Opteron will prove baseless. AMD’s roadmap is guided by IT’s needs, and the capabilities of enterprise applications, rather than Intel’s provocations.

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/AB0E25A8D211D047CC2571DC000F7FC1?OpenDocument