This poll lends real credence to the string of rumors that have dogged Dell in the past two years. It appears they're getting bolder as they test the watters for the impetus to finally join the rest of the PC industry and use AMD chips. The recent slowdown in PC sales and the weakening of the tech sector may have forced Dell to rethink their position -- if AMD chips are cheaper, faster, and just as reliable, why not use them to cut the bottom line? The only thing they've have to worry about is Intel's response.
WingznutPEZ,
<< You still think that Dell is being paid by Intel to offer Intel exclusively. * sigh * >>
It's common knowledge that Intel offers to share marketing costs for large OEM's when the advertisements feature Intel PC's and the "Intel-inside" trade name. They obviously won't do that when the ads feature AMD systems side by side with Intel ones. This is not technically "paying" Dell to use Intel exclusively, but it is a strong incentive.
Besides, exclusivity contracts are widespread in many industries. Coke and Pepsi do it all the time with movie theatres, stadiums, and even schools: the organization gets a fixed-term contract and discounted price on its products as long as it promises to cary only Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola beverages. These contracts are not against the law.
<< Dell has published why they don't care to use AMD at this time, and they were all pretty valid points. NFS4 posted them about a month ago. >>
No, actually they were all false or misleading in one way or another, and a few were outright lies.
bigd480,
<< i think VIA is more to blame for Athlons/Durons not being used than AMD is... their stuff always has problems and new revisions/drivers come out too often to make it a feasible choice >>
That's hysterical. Recent VIA/AMD products easily match Intel in every measure of reliability. This is confirmed, not only by respected hardware testers like Anand and Tom, but by independent computer consultants and resellers, who find that properly configured AMD/VIA systems have just as many problems as Intel systems.
VIA's frequent driver updates are simply due to a lack of support on Microsoft's part, and to address that with a single patch is admirable. Even Intel chipsets need an INF Update package nd Ultra ATA Storage storage driver for optimum performance and stability, and they're updated all the time.
VIA gets bad press only because computer hardware forums are filled with troubleshooting threads, and at least 80% of do-it-yourself'ers are now building AMD/VIA systems. Simple statistics tell you that 80% of the problems will involve a VIA system. That has nothing to with their reliability or stability, it's just the law of averages.
The only thing you could really call a "bug" in VIA's chipsets was the recent 686B problem, which was promptly fixed with a driver update. Intel has certainly had its share of chipset erratum, one of which required an actual product recall, which VIA has never needed. Yet somehow they're still seen as a flawless manufacturer, while VIA is said to be "plagued with issues". It's time to take a step back and realize that companies like Intel and VIA, who together supply almost all the the motherboard chipsets in the PC world, aren't lazy or incompetent, but actually do a damn good job at addressing bugs in a time when compatibility is so hard to anticipate. And Dell would be fine with chipsets from either company.
<< It doesn't make sense from a business perspective... If I were Dell I wouldn't bother to carry AMD procs because it just complicates business, causes more possible compatability issues >>
That's not true. Besides the fact that compatibility is as good on AMD systems as Intel systems, you only need look at Gateway and Compaq to see that when a company uses AMD and Intel chips, offering its customers a *gasp* choice, they do better financially. Dell has in the past couple years lost market share to both companies. At least part of that has to be attributed to fast, cheap AMD chips penetrating the psyche of the market.
Guilty,
<< I thought the divide by 11 question was a good idea, so people can make it clear what areas each company excells in and by how much. >>
It's just a sneaky to make sure knowledgable people can't rate them 5-5 in reliability, and might tend to give Intel a 6. Instead, you can do what I did, and rate them 5.5 - 5.5
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