@ : vonDrashek

Those numbers don't sound right at all, but more important is the fact that Nehalem-based Xeon server chips aren't even out yet.

2-Socket Nehalem Xeons aren't going to be released until Q1 2009 and more importantly 4+ socket Xeons won't be ready until Q4 2009 or even 2010. Meanwhile, AMD is launching Shanghai for ALL server segments right now!

Intel with a new chip and platform would scare any enterprise versus already having established operating machines/systems that are upgradeable.

This seemed to be left out...

“These processors perform well while using little energy. We will have no trouble switching to the new server generation.”

The numbers being tossed around today in Austin at Supercomputing '08 today contradict your idea. Intel is more powerful at integer apps but not FP. Tuesday, Jack Dongarra and company gave two first places to AMD and two to IBM under the DARPA HPC Challenge which are the bleeding edge benchmarks. Again for the 6th consecutive year Intel has been shut out. None of the benchmarks that show Intel ahead are within a light year of being as complex as the HPC benchmarks. This year AMD owned HPC with IBM. Intel only had 1 entry in the top 10. IBM had two , IBM/AMD had one and the remaining 6 were AMD. You need to learn the difference between substantive benchmarks like HPC (Global HPL, EPStream, FAST FOURIER TRANSFORMS, Global Random Access) and the trivial benchmarks that run from cpu cache used in the trade press. These performances were with the "terrible " Barcelona chip. Since Shanghai is a straight socket replacement, the AMD machines get a free 30% boost in benchmarks with a cpu swap. Roadrunner beats any Intel configuration by 3 to 1 on power consumption (flops/watt) of the total system

These chips are already finding their way into hardware virtualization appliances.

AMD Shanghai to Beat equal Intel Nahalem is quite Bad. To Beat Intel on exact parity with wattage used, its Intel 165 Vs. Amd 260 watts, to achieve same performance scores. So its Not As Sleek As One Would Hope.
STeWie Drashek