Replies to post #1168 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Not a Short]

What I wouldn't give to know what the OEMs know.

While I haven't seen an Opteron in person, I'm sure the OEMs have. I'd even go so far as to say they've probably made up their minds already as to wether they will use it or not.

The proof of such a decision would take time to show. Obviously you were correct in stating that AMD didn't have a finished product in the past but how do we know that is still true?

[sgolds]

Elmer,

Yes there have been demonstrations of samples and prototype systems that can't be benchmarked, but not production systems. You may not see the difference but the oems do.

Yes, the OEMs do know the difference: They have production Opteron processors in production boards, and I'm sure they have very reliable benchmark data.

By now, if there was a serious problem with Opteron, it could not be hidden. Rather, leaked benchmarks show that it scales very nicely and is more than competitive with Xeon. Soon enough those benchmarks will be official!

(Actually, Opteron looks competitive with Itanium 2 also, but that's a whole different market...)