Avatar, a couple of the other times the rumors had good legs too, but the rumors never became real. Absolutely no reason why this time would be different. It doesn't make sense either: Just when Woodcrest is supposed to become available Dell would start shipping Opteron systems?
Yeah I know, maybe only 4+ sockets but that market isn't that big so it's not the reason. In Q3 there is simply no reason anymore anywhere nearly big enough for Dell (I mean current rather large discrepancy, and previously DC Opteron vs. SC Xeon have not been reasons either).
It's my observation that these rumors usually start surfacing when Intel is delaying something. Then they ramp up the back up plan. That has two advantages: If Intel really screws up a lot more than Dell initially thinks is possible they have the back up plan ready for production or even release. If Intel scrambles and more or less gets a remotely nice solution together they can and therefore do leverage their Opteron solution to pressure Intel and get better prices. Intel knows this but plays along not willing to risk even a low percentage chance of Dell running one single product line with AMD processors inside. Dell is triple satisfied with Intel because the partnership allows cost of processors, inventory, and production all to be as low as possible (economy of scale). It comes at a cost but Dell has shown it's willing to take even reasonably high costs of loosing a bit in high end server and gaming markets to not mess up their main current reasons for existance and growth. This only makes sense. There are plenty of precedents too. With what we know Dell releasing Opteron at the time of Woodcrest does not make sense. Yeah, that simple.
Regards,
Rink
(Don't get me wrong. I'd LOVE to be wrong. I don't see how I can be though.)
