Dell to go AMD

garthv

Dell says that if its customers really, really demand AMD chips, the company will provide them.

The promise comes from none other than CEO Kevin Rollins, and is probably just another indication that Dell is twisting and turning like a twisty turny thing with the mighty Intel or is hanging out for a better deal with AMD.

Rollins comments were made at a press conference that took place at the conclusion of Dell's annual analysts' meeting for Wall Street and the news media.

Reuters claimed that the comments revived speculation that Dell could end its long-standing refusal to use AMD chips, although we have heard that all before.

The man himself said that Dell was "still looking at AMD; they have fairly good technology". Nice of him to say so.

But Rollins added that any decision to make AMD its second supplier of microprocessor chips would mean sweeping changes for related components inside its Dell PCs.

He claimed that the changes would drive up initial production costs, so Dell would turn to AMD chips only if customers demanded them. While Dell would "never say never", customers would have to demand it and the bottom line figures would have to be good, he said.

Rollins claimed that AMD might have trouble meeting additional demand for high-volume PC products, but not necessarily for chips used in high-end PC servers.

Source: The Inquirer

Stranger things have happened....

kasintahan

They've been "considering" it for years, mostly to
(a) force Intel to lower prices
(b) gain free publicity (even Dell need to advertise)
(c) force Intel to release it's advance tech earlier (1GHz P3's etc)

Capt'n Midnight

Wouldn't get your hopes up on cheaper home user PC's

Do Intel still make the Dimension motherboards for Dell ?

Just wondering which range of Dells would get the AMD, judging by the tone of the quote it doesn't sound like the Dimensions would because they are so price sensitive, and for most of the servers it's not the processing power that's important. Maybe they'll test the water with some kind of workstation or games PC.

Guy:Incognito

Most of the family types who are buying from Dell lead with "does it have one of dem intels". The meerest suggestion of the letters AMD to the uninitiated(sp?) and you get the blankest of blank looks.

grimloch

alot of people might be reluctant to have an AMD in their dell because to someone who doesnt know better a p4 3.2 ghz sounds alot better than an AMD 64 3000 at 2.0 ghz

Zascar

Dell have been testing AMD processors for thier servers for a good while and have been happy with their performance. Customer demand is there but still not high enough. I'm sure thye will make the move eventually but not any time soon.

garthv

I think AMD processors in Dell PC's will be aimed at the more serious PC buyer, as in gamers or people who actually know what they are buying,not people who just needs their computer for "surfing the web".

LFCFan

but people who really know what they are buying are not the type of people who would buy Dell in the first place. I wouldn't touch Dell with a very long barge poll as I know they use inferior parts. I much prefer to build my own. Much cheaper and you know what you're getting!

grimloch

id agree with LFC fan, for the most part people who know their stuff know better than to buy a dell and will be fully aware how much cheaper it is to build their own

their might be a small group who know a bit but dont want to build their own but maybe might want a dell, it'll be interesting to see how this turns out

ozt9vdujny3srf

At this stage its often much cheaper to buy a full dell system then it is to get a full self built system. (for budget computers at least)

You also get better support when parts fail. (no lenthy RMA process).

snappieT

Wouldn't touch dell for a PC, but for a laptop you pretty much can't avoid buying as opposed to building.

Sidane

"customers would have to demand it"
Like the vast majority of Dell buyers would actually know the difference between Intel or AMD, or care.

LFCFan

snapscan1212p wrote:

Wouldn't touch dell for a PC, but for a laptop you pretty much can't avoid buying as opposed to building.

Agree. Their laptops are pretty good and of course you can't build your own. Would go near them for PC's although 3 friends bought Dell PC's despite my advice. You just can't talk to some people

garthv

LFCFan wrote:

but people who really know what they are buying are not the type of people who would buy Dell in the first place. I wouldn't touch Dell with a very long barge poll as I know they use inferior parts. I much prefer to build my own. Much cheaper and you know what you're getting!

I know exactly what i was buying when i bought my Dell. I ordered every part of the thing myself. The only reason i went for Dell is because they were not THAT much dearer than building it myself and they gave me the finance option as I did not have the cash straight up to buy it.I bought my Dell 1 year ago and I've had no problems at all with it(well the speakers started acting up but they were replaced within 2 days)
Whether you like it or not there is a LOT of people out there who have bought Dell's (computer wiz's or no) and I can see Dell making a lot of money from this venture

LFCFan

GaRtH_V wrote:

I know exactly what i was buying when i bought my Dell. I ordered every part of the thing myself.

Yes, you can pick all the components yourself (from what's available anyway) but you can't choose the motherboard and this is where you are let down with Dell machines. There's no point having all the greatest components when they are all connected to a bottleneck of a motherboard. And if you need finance for a machine, you'd be a lot better off borrowing at 10% from the bank instead of 18%+ with Dell. Everyman to his own though

jessy

I heard about this a while ago but thought that AMD had not got the FAB space to produce enough chips on demand. (Second thought maybe that was if they took over from Intel as Dell’s main supplier)
Anyway would be nice to see more competition.

jessy

LFCFan wrote:

There's no point having all the greatest components when they are all connected to a bottleneck of a motherboard.

why do you think dell motherboard's are a bottleneck?

aphex™

Dell say this every now and then to get discounts from intel who get scared ****less. They give them discounts for staying with intel.

Dell is like ryanair, reduces costs everywhere. They will continue to comment on the AMD possibilities every 2 years or so to get the discounts. It's almost part of their business plan at this stage.

po0k

2-,4- and 8-way single and dual-core Opteron boxes could see a market segment.
They outperform Xeons and are available at far lower relative prices per chip, so Dell can quote some SPECperf numbers, sell the PowerEdge at 75% the cost of a similarly configured Xeon box and still end up with a wider profit margin.

Snowbat

This, at least for the moment, is about servers. Intel have nothing ready to match dual-core Opterons and Dell are understandably worried that HP, IBM, and Sun will walk all over them in the enterprise market for the next 12 months. El Reg thinks they'll grin and bear it though.

http://www.theregister.com/2005/04/08/dell_critics_circle/page2.html

AMD will shortly announce a dual-core version of its 64-bit Opteron processor that will immediately slide into servers from Sun, HP and IBM. This will turn one-ways into two-ways and two-ways into four-ways and help customers save money on some software. Dell will have to wait until 2006 to offer its customers a comparable Intel chip. It won't go the AMD route because of the disruption a second-supplier would cause to its server production system. We'll see if being lean and mean equals customer satisfaction in this case.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22404

AMD dual processors to be available on launch day
APRIL 21ST remains the day AMD has selected to pull the launch of its dual core Opteron processors out of the hat, intended by the chip company to show it is still very much in the running.

sceptre

As I've suspected for some time, and as Snowbat has posted, Rollins & Dell may be thinking of offering AMD on high end servers but probably aren't going to bother with the chips on desktops for some significant time if ever. It's not irrelevant to remember that Dell take orders like Burger King - you want it, you got it but only if the base order is on the relatively limited menu. Adding AMD to their desktop line means effectively adding a new product (from the point of view of assembly) for every machine they offer it on.

Hence, they may think about it but there would have to be a real advantage for them to do it. And given their general customer base (mostly corporates who want a machine that runs and does X and home users who don't want to self build and want a machine that runs and does Y and Z, both groups looking for value for money) I can't see that happening for a long time, except perhaps on the XPS line, where customers are presumably more picky and where the company might gain market share for something beyond value.

The second thing to remember is that Dell aren't technological innovators - they don't develop, they don't invent. They're supply-chain innovators and they've been very good at that. Hence the reason almost all of their market is at the value-expectation end (regardless of whether that value-expecting customer is looking for a machine for 500 or 2 grand or a server for more) - they tend to offer good value for money at least in relative terms. It's not enough for the addition of an AMD option (from the customers POV, from the company's POV it's an AMD process) to give an extra option to customers who'd buy an Intel-based product from them anyway, they'll only seriously think about offering the option if it would gain market share from other companies that would be significant enough to cover any related costs they would incur as a result of adding on more suppliers and other involved costs.

Hence I can't see it happening on more than the servers (if even that) for a long long time. Obviously I could be totally wrong but I don't think I am.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2004/12/09/dell_europe_expansion/

Dell is looking to build a second manufacturing plant in Europe, but Ireland is unlikely to be considered as a possible location.

maybe they will use it for AMD's only
Seriously not good news for the country as they could move production accross gradually.

Dempsey

Stekelly wrote:

Most of the family types who are buying from Dell lead with "does it have one of dem intels". The meerest suggestion of the letters AMD to the uninitiated(sp?) and you get the blankest of blank looks.

LOL . Yea, I get that alot too

Mac daddy

So they are finally giving in to the demands of people -

I thought they were always Intel, Intel , Intel

darraghrogan

COuld the fact that Win XP 64 isn't really ready to ship that Dell are delaying?

I could be wrong...

Darragh

WillieDH

Will never happen !!!

DELL's business model is based on simplicity, adding more chips / motherboards to the mix doubles the amount of inventory risk and reduces the relationship they have with Intel.

DELL get a disproportionate amount of marketing support from Intel based on 100% commitment.

Peteee

It Might happen on the server line but it will not (for the foreseeable future) happen on the desktop/laptop line.

Not a chance in hell.

As some people have said above it would complicate things too much.

It takes 3 minutes for the average dell pc to be built. to use a different motherboard would take too much time, and drop productivity.

Also as the poster said above, and i heard a few nights ago, intel pay for a lot of dells marketing (thats why you always see the pentium logo etc on dell ads)

Dell are just trying to get a better deal, and intel will play ball. I should think the large majority of dells pc orders are from corporations/home users looking for the bog standard model i.e. the cheapest.

If the chip we're AMD it would be cheaper, and everyone would go for those, thus loosing intel a crapload of money and market share

Gerry

I agree with Petee, its just to get a better deal with intel. They want to scare intel, and to give intel an extra shove to get their dual core chips released on time. Dell haven't suffered so far from not being the fastest servers on the block, I know for a fact that where I work, people in buying positions do not care what cpu is in the server. They assume that dell have put something decent in there, but never bother to check, because ultimately, its not the sort of issue that would ever lead them to drop dell. Far more important to them are issues of support and price, ease of ordering and dell seems to win there.

po0k

Rack 'n Play servers

Due to their relationship with Intel Dell can do very nice deals for enterprise customers too. And they make lovely racks and servers that look nice blinking in a darkened comms room.

4Xcut

if you know anything you wont buy dell, so you'll be happy. If you know nothing then you don't know you are being ripped off, so you'll be happy. Its win win.(Just don't tell the ignorent)

Lydesia

grimloch wrote:

alot of people might be reluctant to have an AMD in their dell because to someone who doesnt know better a p4 3.2 ghz sounds alot better than an AMD 64 3000 at 2.0 ghz

Thats a fair point, i would guess the majority of DELL buyers simply want a plug and play PC out of the box that they can 'surf the net' and 'use a word processor'. Ive seen a lot of people blabber on like they know what their talking about. 'My 3GZ P4 would rip your AMD 64 3500+ to shreads.'

Ermmmmmmmmmmmm no. lol

po0k

In the home-user market, "Duuuude, you're getting screwed" applies in full.

The Intel Ding-Dong-Ding in the Dell ads annoys the livid píss out of me.

rsynnott

They may be worried about their ability to compete in the Opteron server market while not actually doing any work. HP and Sun are both bringing out their own fancy Opteron motherboards, developed inhouse at considerable expense. Dell never was one for R&D...