Dell back to AMD?? maybe

[Swimmer]

Found this interesting.. Dell dropped AMD for Intel a while back.. now they might be offering it again.

Dell likely will reverse course and begin selling computers with Advanced Micro Devices' processors, Piper Jaffray analyst Les Santiago predicted Tuesday, sending the chipmaker's stock up 5 percent in midday trading.

"We strongly believe that Dell will start AMD-based system shipments as early as (the second half of 2006)," Santiago wrote in a report. He based his view on conversations with unnamed sources in the PC component supply industry, press reports indicating Asian designers are working on AMD-based systems for Dell, AMD inventory shortages suggesting Dell is purchasing the chips and other factors.

At the moment, Dell uses Intel chips only. Chairman Michael Dell told reporters last week at the Consumer Electronics Show that adding AMD processors to the product line "is a distinct possibility."

Santiago also wrote in the report: "Our conversations further indicate that Dell's sales force is demanding Opteron-based server offerings to be able to better compete in the market."

Intel and AMD have been fierce rivals for years, but AMD has made strong gains in the server market at Intel's expense. AMD's Opteron caught on as a competitor to Intel's Xeon because of its lower power consumption, early support of 64-bit memory extensions and dual processing cores, built-in memory controller and high-speed connection to the rest of a system.

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[dlewis23]

i don't think that will happen, only because intel will give dell a better deal on chips. That way they can offer pc's for less, and dell will take more of the market share.

This happed about the same time last year, and out of that we got a $300 server from dell, because intel lowed the price for dell so they would not use AMD.

[Dark_Matter]

I've always liked AMD so if dell starts selling AMD processors with dell computers again i welcome it for sure. I'm in the market for a new notebook sometime this year anyway. I think there is plenty of room at dell for both manufactures, but greedy people tend to ruin what's best for the customer. 

[Swimmer]

I am sure that AMD would offer a simular plan to dell if they were to go with their processors..  It looks like dell would only go with the desktop and server platforms.. Their mobile is a wee bit lacking..

Who know maybe they will offer both!?

[dlewis23]

one problem with dell using amd is, amd does not have a good laptop processor, there laptop processor just sucks. But if they do go with amd i think it will just be the high end athlon 64 3700+ and up

[Swimmer]

Yeah i would expect the XPS line to go with high 64s, x2 or fx processors..

[ghostmaster]

I think it would be a good, and profitable move if Dell would sell both brands.  They would be satisfying 2 "tastes" of computer users.  I for one love how dell builds easy to upgrade, and easy access cases.  Barely any screws, and usually very spacey.  That's if you buy a midtower model anyways.  They definately need to keep the intel on the notebook models though.  The Pentium M's are a step up from Turion's, even if they all don't support EMT64 IMO.  We've been using Dell for years at ECU, and their warranty and support is far superior to IBM, HP, and Gateway, at least in the Higher Education sector.