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Hardware Dell Announces its Plans for AMD Desktops and Servers
Brandon Hill (Blog) - August 17, 2006 1:00 PM

49 comment(s) - last by latrosicarius.. on Aug 29 at 6:37 PM

New Dell Dimension desktops using AMD processors coming in September

Dell first stunned the tech industry by announcing back in May that it would adopt AMD Opteron processors for its server systems. In the past few weeks there has been increasing speculation over Dell's use of AMD processors in notebooks. Although there was confirmation of the move from an unnamed Dell executive as well as from a general manager of AMD’s Taiwanese operations, the company still has not released an official statement regarding the use of AMD processors in the mobile sector. The company did, however, announce today its plans to incorporate AMD processors into its Dimension desktop range next month along with dual-socket and multi-processor servers using AMD Opteron processors.

Dell’s adoption of AMD processors for the desktop confirms an earlier report by a Citigroup analyst back in mid-June. At the time, analyst Jeff Young reported that Dell would announce entry-level desktops using AMD processors in September -- the prediction was right on the money. Although Dell failed to go into detail on how many product lines within the Dimension family would be introduced or what processors would be used, speculation has been that Sempron and Athlon 64 X2 processors will be used.

As for AMD Opteron processors in Dell severs, the announcement comes at a time when Intel is now showing off a competitive alternative in the form of Woodcrest. Early testing has shown that Woodcrest outperforms the latest AMD Opteron processors across the board while offering lower power consumption. The same could be said for Intel on the desktop as its Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors have pretty much swept the boards in performance. It wasn’t too long ago that AMD was enjoying this enviable position in both the desktop and server arena.

But Dell shouldn’t be too concerned at the moment at AMD isn’t sitting still. On the August 15, AMD announced its new Opteron Socket F processors which take advantage of DDR2 memory and a new socket design. The new dual-core processors are available in speeds ranging from 1.8GHz to 2.8GHz and can also be had in HE variants which consume just 55 watts of power. On the same day, AMD also announced that it had taped out its first native quad-core Opterons. The quad-core processors will be delivered to customers in mid-2007.

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Dell is sick

By mendocinosummit on 8/17/2006 9:27:10 PM , Rating: 2

Dell is probably sick of Intel always changing their requirements for chipsets needed to run their new procs. By going with AMD they wouldn't have to update anything for a long time, which would save them money in R&D.

RE: Dell is sick

By xtremejack on 8/17/2006 9:30:42 PM , Rating: 3

Dell does as much R&D as AMD does marketing.

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RE: Dell is sick

By latrosicarius on 8/29/2006 6:37:22 PM , Rating: 2

If they don't do any R&D, why don't they just get one with it and sell some dam AMD desktops... We've known about this "plan" for months

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RE: Dell is sick

By tuteja1986 on 8/17/2006 9:30:44 PM , Rating: 2

More like AMD can provide a full platform : ATI's Motherboard , ATI's GPU , AMD's CPU :)

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RE: Dell is sick

By xtremejack on 8/17/2006 9:43:08 PM , Rating: 1

Don't know what this helps Dell with? They are more or less becoming a whore for CPU vendors to toy around with. Each new AMD announcement comes on the heels of a terrible quarter. Do they even have a plan of how they plan to sell AMD?

quote:
More like AMD can provide a full platform : ATI's Motherboard , ATI's GPU , AMD's CPU :) <quote\>

That's upto Dell to decide, AMD-ATI only ensures the two (AMD/ATI) will collaborate more closely together in the future. Its not like ATI's chipset production or business took off magically immediately after their acquisition announcement. Dell probably still prefers Nvidia for most stuff, and this may not help ATI-AMD all that much.

Bottom-line still up in the air, still wonder how things will execute with these two. Will be interesting how AMD placates Nvidia on this.

AMD a platform company?... now which company said "We want to provide an ecosystem of choice."

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RE: Dell is sick

By xtremejack on 8/17/2006 9:44:01 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
More like AMD can provide a full platform : ATI's Motherboard , ATI's GPU , AMD's CPU :)

That's upto Dell to decide, AMD-ATI only ensures the two (AMD/ATI) will collaborate more closely together in the future. Its not like ATI's chipset production or business took off magically immediately after their acquisition announcement. Dell probably still prefers Nvidia for most stuff, and this may not help ATI-AMD all that much.

Bottom-line still up in the air, still wonder how things will execute with these two. Will be interesting how AMD placates Nvidia on this.

AMD a platform company?... now which company said "We want to provide an ecosystem of choice."

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RE: Dell is sick

By Garreye on 8/18/2006 11:09:38 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
That's upto Dell to decide, AMD-ATI only ensures the two (AMD/ATI) will collaborate more closely together in the future. Its not like ATI's chipset production or business took off magically immediately after their acquisition announcement. Dell probably still prefers Nvidia for most stuff, and this may not help ATI-AMD all that much.

I'd have to agree with this for now, as the AMD/ATI deal isnt complete yet. But in the near future AMD will probably give Dell (and other PC makers) discounted price incentives to buy complete CPU/GPU/MB platforms, which is an advantage only Intel could offer in the past.

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RE: Dell is sick

By defter on 8/18/2006 3:50:56 AM , Rating: 2

Still, Dell will use nForce chipset for its desktop parts.

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RE: Dell is sick

By Calin on 8/21/2006 9:06:30 AM , Rating: 2

Unlike Intel, which must run far and wide to provide... what?
Intel builds processors, chipsets, ethernet controllers, graphic (integrated only) chipsets, and so on. AMD does not have the production diversity Intel has right now

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RE: Dell is sick

By glennpratt on 8/24/2006 6:28:57 PM , Rating: 2

The AMD/ATI combo is making all of those things and more. AMD has made ethernet controllers forever for example, in fact they offered the "first complete ethernet chipset". You'd be surprised how many chips in random consumer electronics were made by either AMD or ATI.

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RE: Dell is sick

By latrosicarius on 8/29/2006 6:36:14 PM , Rating: 2

More like, Dell finally realizes that AMD isn't some upstart anymore and there's a genuine market for them

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Socket F what?

By Regs on 8/17/2006 9:32:28 PM , Rating: 2

I'm sure the gears over in the labs at AMD are working full swing now, though I find it hard to believe anything in the near future will compete with anything Intel has to offer.

But at least now AMD gets the recognition it deserves. I just find it a bit of a coincidence that Intel finally gets off NetBurst after years right at the time AMD started making major leaps, like striking a contract with Dell.

RE: Socket F what?

By mendocinosummit on 8/17/2006 10:12:03 PM , Rating: 3

People said that before the Athlon came out to. Intel probably won't be so blind again, but AMD is smaller and is much more versatile.

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RE: Socket F what?

By dagamer34 on 8/17/2006 10:14:42 PM , Rating: 2

Intel's whore is Apple now. It could care less about Dell. Besides, Dell is getting a bunch of bad press these days anyway. Maybe Intel's CEO had the inside scoop and made Apple an offer last year... =P

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RE: Socket F what?

By JonB on 8/17/2006 10:42:32 PM , Rating: 2

or, is Intel responsible for the SEC looking at Dell's books as payback for using AMD processors?

I love conspiracy talk.

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RE: Socket F what?

By Tom Tom on 8/17/2006 11:21:34 PM , Rating: 2

Good question . The SEC maybe looking into how Dell accounted for the big incentive's Intel has been giving them over the years.

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RE: Socket F what?

By retrospooty on 8/18/2006 12:34:56 AM , Rating: 3

Dell has like 30% market share, Apple is less than 3%. Apple is NOT anywhere near Dell in sales, and never will be. Apple is all PR and hype with no sales, and no substance.

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RE: Socket F what?

By Hare on 8/18/06, Rating: -1

RE: Socket F what?

By Griswold on 8/18/2006 3:16:14 AM , Rating: 4

quote:
Apple has a larger market share than BMW and Mercedez combined...

You do realize that apple does not make automobiles, right? And that neither BMW nor Mercedes make computers or mp3 players, right?

Say no to drugs...

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RE: Socket F what?

By Griswold on 8/18/2006 3:13:48 AM , Rating: 3

Oh slow down there. If apple is a grain of sand, Dell is the ocean you'll have to search to find it.

And apple is getting just as much bad press.. their laptops, while not exactly bursting in flames (but close to it, i bet ;)) have many other flaws that are worth talking about.

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RE: Socket F what?

By Jkm3141 on 8/26/2006 9:59:56 PM , Rating: 2

cause apple sells just as many computers as Dell. Good job.

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Dell hates speed

By headbox on 8/17/2006 11:42:14 PM , Rating: 4

Dell is just making sure they will always have the worst performing desktops on the market. If AMD releases something faster than Core 2 Duo, Dell with switch back to Intel :)

RE: Dell hates speed

By animedude on 8/18/06, Rating: 0

RE: Dell hates speed

By defter on 8/18/2006 3:55:31 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Are you saying Netburst is kicking A64's ass?

No he is saying exact opposite:
A64 was faster than Netburst, Dell chooses Netburst
C2D is faster than A64, Dell chooses A64

quote:
As far as the consumer market goes, they don't need the speed of C2D.

LOL, but they need the speed of A64X2? Why not pick a $40 Celeron and $40 AsRock motherboard in that case :)

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RE: Dell hates speed

By dgingeri on 8/18/2006 11:08:55 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
LOL, but they need the speed of A64X2? Why not pick a $40 Celeron and $40 AsRock motherboard in that case :)

Dell already does that. That's nearly their whole retail, end user level sales. They don't sell fast, expensive computers. They sell cheap, slow ones that most people use just to suff the web and check e-mail. And their tech support sucks and aurgues about what the problem is.

If you want to find a good, fast computer for editing photos and video or a good business machine, buy HP. If you want good service, buy HP.

I had 2 bad hard drives on 2 laptops. One was a Dell that was 2 years into a 3 year Complete Care warranty with "Gold Tech Support". The other was an HP 1 year into a 3 year send in warranty with standard tech support. The HP hard drive I got the next day that I could replace and send the bad one back to them. With Dell, I argued with them for 4 days about it being a bad hard drive that the system wouldn't recognize and another drive would. Then they had to send out a tech to replace the drive. They wouldn't just send me the drive. It took a total of 2 weeks to get that replaced and the user back to working on his own machine.

The PC industry isn't in trouble, Dell is.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Str...

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RE: Dell hates speed

By kingpotnoodle on 8/19/2006 3:11:15 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
If you want to find a good, fast computer for editing photos and video or a good business machine, buy HP. If you want good service, buy HP.

Dell and HP machines use the same parts pretty much, pretty much the same performance. Likewise for all mass produced clone PCs. Most users don't play games or do graphics/video work - they don't use 25% of their Celeron's power so what difference does a little make anyway?

And HP customer service sucks, badly - I work in IT, I deal with HP regularly, nearly every component they send under warranty is late, they don't call back, they are rude and incompetant on the phone. They basically admitted to me on the phone once their stock room staff were lazy about updating the system with what had been dispatched and had no idea where my new hard drive was, meanwhile my server on a NBD service contract sat without a hotspare for over a week while they scratched their arse.

Honestly, HP are no better than anyone else - nobody cares about little Jo Average - they barely even care about the business customers paying for NBD service contracts.

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RE: Dell hates speed

By headbox on 8/19/2006 3:32:08 AM , Rating: 1

Hi Animedude, take an entry level course in reading comprehension.

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RE: Dell hates speed

By poohbear on 8/18/2006 3:37:20 AM , Rating: 1

"If AMD releases something faster than Core 2 Duo, Dell with switch back to Intel :)"

y would they switch "back" when they already have intel products? do u even know wats going on?

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RE: Dell hates speed

By headbox on 8/19/2006 3:31:30 AM , Rating: 3

Too many Hajjis running around here that can't detect American sarcasm.

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RE: Dell hates speed

By hstewarth on 8/18/2006 3:45:31 PM , Rating: 1

I am not sure where you folks are getting your stuff, but DELL is NOT switching to AMD. Just because they may have some AMD systems doesn't mean that they are switching to AMD as there system.

They have new Woodcrest systems, Core 2 systems and even coming out with Tulsa system. Likely to have both server and Desktop quad cores.

Dell is probably doing this for possible 2 reasons..

1. to stay out the stupid Legal AMD vs Intel stuff
2. to add addition ( not replacement ) business for customer that AMD cpus..

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Knock me down for saying this.. but- you missed the point...

By Dfere on 8/18/2006 11:16:32 AM , Rating: 3

The Point is AMD is cheaper. Period.
Conspiracy theory, Dell sucks...., someone is someone elses whore....yada.. Yada Yada Yada....

This is business. AMD is recognized as a quality chip mfg now with an improved roadmap to crank out even more chips. They were not in this position ten years ago, or even five. The average guy on the street probably knows by now there is more than one processor company out there that puts out a reliable product. ATI was just icing on this cake.

Plus Dell gains bargaining power by not being tied to one supplier. While AMD server systems in the future may not be as powerful as Intel (and I say maybe, ok?), they will be cheaper, they appear to be at least even on "green" considerations to date, and reliable.

I understand this is a tech forum, but most businesses that survive do not base their purchases on the bleeding edge of technology that comes with a painful premium, nor do they buy on unanalyzed fanboyism.

BTW I hate Dell. Their machines suck. Their business models and choices have, to date, been incredible. (This excludes the early days when they and a few other companies were selling OC chips as standard).

RE: Knock me down for saying this.. but- you missed the point...

By Garreye on 8/18/2006 11:23:23 AM , Rating: 2

Ya I agree with this for sure. I think everyone, well AT/DT readers anyway, often forget that the performance crown isn't everything.

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RE: Knock me down for saying this.. but- you missed the point...

By hstewarth on 8/18/06, Rating: -1

RE: Knock me down for saying this.. but- you missed the point...

By Phynaz on 8/18/2006 1:22:56 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Actually AMD systems are more expensive than Intel.

Not with Dell. I refer you to yesterdays' earnings report in which they said they are going with AMD because they can get chips cheaper than they can from Intel.

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RE: Knock me down for saying this.. but- you missed the point...

By hstewarth on 8/18/2006 3:48:19 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe true for lower end stuff.

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RE: Knock me down for saying this.. but- you missed the point...

By Crassus on 8/21/2006 12:24:21 PM , Rating: 3

Yep, that's pretty much my point as well. What matters to companies like Dell is not the current performance crown. It's building a good-enough computer at lowest prices to sell at slight profit. Down the road AMD will be selling a platform. They need to get ready for this, and that won't happen if they start thinking and talking about it the day it's available.

And re: performance crown: I'm pretty sure that even here only a select few acually run performance-crown machines. Most will just be basking in the glow of the top-of-the-line CPU while running a much cheaper grade of the same line.

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Apple?

By a1016neo on 8/18/2006 1:55:05 AM , Rating: 2

Apple is gaining Marketshare as Dell is still the same as always.

Also remember MarketShare means nothing

I'm not an dell-hater or apple-liker but dell needs to caught up in quality

If only OS X ran on dell's :) :)

RE: Apple?

By Griswold on 8/18/2006 3:19:08 AM , Rating: 2

Well, its easy to go from "virtually nothing" to "a little more". At the same time its hard to go from "leader of the market" to "absolute dominance".

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RE: Apple?

By Jkm3141 on 8/26/2006 10:04:07 PM , Rating: 2

Owned!

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RE: Apple?

By kingpotnoodle on 8/19/2006 3:14:02 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Apple is gaining Marketshare as Dell is still the same as always.

Dell just posted record market share, go read the rest of the news then come back.

Profits have slipped over at Dell though, squeezed margins from price cutting...

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Fix the typos!

By l Thomas l on 8/18/2006 2:37:39 PM , Rating: 2

Fix the typos please! :)

Anyway I'm glad Dell has switched.

RE: Fix the typos!

By hstewarth on 8/18/2006 2:56:05 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
Anyway I'm glad Dell has switched.

What are you smoking? Dell hasn't switch? It just added some AMD's to make the legal folks happy.

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okay help me out here...

By yacoub on 8/18/2006 7:51:30 AM , Rating: 2

There's at least some tragedy in the fact that Dell consistently picks up processors after they're no longer the leading performers. The last couple years Dell has missed the boat on the Athlon 64s, yet now they're going AMD when AMD is no longer the performance leader. I guess the difference now is that they will offer BOTH Intel and AMD, right? So at least core2duo chips will be available alongside X2s, right? Well, currently you can't get core2duo except in a few of their high end machines, but eventually that should change too, right?

RE: okay help me out here...

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 8/18/2006 8:33:54 AM , Rating: 2

Well that all changes in September because HP, Gateway, and Sony are on schedule to stream out C2D desktops into the retail arena. And any of us DIYers can already purchase C2D chips, granted at a slight gouge but HP, DELL, Sony, Gateway dont have the gouge we do but meh, C2D is already available in decent quantities, just not enough to dump the gouging, I suspect that wont come until the retail channel is flooded in september.... oddly same time as Dell is pushing out AMD, Dell such a strange company sometimes.

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Mean ol' Intel

By OddTSi on 8/17/2006 11:21:49 PM , Rating: 2

Why are people making it seem like Dell is the grieved party, like they were bullied around by mean-ol' Intel for years and are just now working up the courage to stand up them? Dell toyed with Intel for years, each time they needed a sweeter pricing structure from Intel they would circulate rumors of possible talks with AMD. I'm sure Dell gave just as much as it received, maybe even more. They were in no way bullied by Intel and they made billions off of their Intel-only exclusivity and their threats to nix that deal.

RE: Mean ol' Intel

By hstewarth on 8/18/06, Rating: 0

You all make it sound like Dell wont sell Intel anymore

By darkangelism on 8/17/2006 11:25:55 PM , Rating: 2

Dell isnt dumping Intel, they are just adding an AMD line, so that the people that wont buy Intel's will still buy Dells and Dell will have systems by whoever wins the current CPU war.

HE Socket F Opterions...

By coldpower27 on 8/19/2006 9:34:42 PM , Rating: 2

The HE Opterons of Socket F have increased their TDP to 68W from what I recall.

But Intel and Dell also show off new Tulsa

By hstewarth on 8/18/2006 11:28:58 AM , Rating: 1

Even with this AMD stuff, Dell is also showing they are fully commited to Intel by demostrating the new Tulsa Xeon MP chips which will be soon available.

http://news.com.com/Intel+shows+off+new+Tulsa+Xeon...