Crossfire with Phenom II, Core i7, and Core 2 quad

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: taltamir
I mean that the article just says "its competitive", not specifying what it equates to, which means i have to go through all the charts, which i dont have time for right now.

From the charts you could say overclocked p940 is competitive with overclocked 9550

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
The numbers may not be 100% accurate, but the fact remains that Intel has a much larger Xeon install base than AMD does with Opteron. Plus, as has already been mentioned, it isn't that common for data centers of any significant size do do individual cpu upgrades on their machines. You have to understand that for most corporations hardware costs are relatively small compared to labor and support costs. So, it doesn't make sense to have your highly paid staff upgrading cheap, out of warranty hardware when you can just replace it with new stuff.

Of course, I know that the Opteron installed base is not as large as the Xeon installed base (percentage wise I'm willing to bet it's larger than the desktop market share) but Intel doesn't have Nehalem server CPUs yet and the new Shanghai opterons are competitive with Xeons (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3456&p=7 )...and if a company already has Opteron servers, it's cheaper to upgrade just the CPU rather than to upgrade the whole platform isn't it (especially in these financial times when a lot of companies may not be willing to spend like they used to) and would also save time and money on validation? Anyway, I'm not in IT and so am ignorant of the financial side of IT and anything related so forgive me if I'm completely off in my view.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: nitromullet
The numbers may not be 100% accurate, but the fact remains that Intel has a much larger Xeon install base than AMD does with Opteron. Plus, as has already been mentioned, it isn't that common for data centers of any significant size do do individual cpu upgrades on their machines. You have to understand that for most corporations hardware costs are relatively small compared to labor and support costs. So, it doesn't make sense to have your highly paid staff upgrading cheap, out of warranty hardware when you can just replace it with new stuff.

Of course, I know that the Opteron installed base is not as large as the Xeon installed base (percentage wise I'm willing to bet it's larger than the desktop market share) but Intel doesn't have Nehalem server CPUs yet and the new Shanghai opterons are competitive with Xeons (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3456&p=7 )...and if a company already has Opteron servers, it's cheaper to upgrade just the CPU rather than to upgrade the whole platform isn't it (especially in these financial times when a lot of companies may not be willing to spend like they used to) and would also save time and money on validation? Anyway, I'm not in IT and so am ignorant of the financial side of IT and anything related so forgive me if I'm completely off in my view.

That's the thing, no it isn't... Labor is more expensive than hardware. Sure, they could hire a few low paid monkeys to physically do the work, but that would require them to allow these same low paid monkeys direct physical access to their most valuable asset: their data. Blade servers are also becoming more and more popular, which pretty much have made servers hot swappable, quick, cheap, and easy to replace.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
That's the thing, no it isn't... Labor is more expensive than hardware. Sure, they could hire a few low paid monkeys to physically do the work, but that would require them to allow these same low paid monkeys direct physical access to their most valuable asset: their data. Blade servers are also becoming more and more popular, which pretty much have made servers hot swappable, quick, cheap, and easy to replace.

Alright thanks for the enlightenment. As I said I don't know the whole story.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: lyssword

Originally posted by: taltamir
I mean that the article just says "its competitive", not specifying what it equates to, which means i have to go through all the charts, which i dont have time for right now.

From the charts you could say overclocked p940 is competitive with overclocked 9550

ok, so p2 940 = Q9550... good to know.