links for 2008-04-09
By Bob Plankers on Apr 9, 2008 in del.icio.us
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Every Gmail account is now an OpenID account, too. Hot damn, this is cool.
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“The late discovery of a design flaw in the quad-core Barcelona chip derailed its planned launch almost a year ago…” This is the sort of BS that keeps me away from AMD. I have *never* had a good experience with them on the desktop, server, you name it.
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Vulcan maps CO2 emissions. Interesting visualizations… if only anybody did anything about it.
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Well, I was pretty sure that the Don’t Be Evil thing was always total bullshit, but now this seals it. Google is just another huge company doing what huge companies do.
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I agree, soft skills aren’t really all that soft. They’re just different because there are people involved.
5 Comment(s)
By mieses on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
“I have *never* had a good experience with them on the desktop, server, you name it.”
you must not be very experienced, then.
By Bob Plankers on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
When it comes to AMD you’re right, I’m intentionally not very experienced. I just want the hardware to work seamlessly and as advertised, which has been a problem with the desktops and servers I’ve had with their CPUs. There’s always some sort of problem, whether it’s processor errata, driver support, device incompatibilities, whatever.
Some people swear by AMD. I just have sworn *at* it enough that I’m an Intel guy now. Though my Dell rep keeps threatening to send me an AMD-based box to test. I’ll probably take him up on it.
By aharden on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
When I first deployed ESX 2.5 I did it on quad-processor AMD Opteron systems because at that time they ran circles around Intel’s offerings. Once Intel released Woodcrest they regained parity with AMD, and with their earlier quad-core release than AMD, they’ve gotten ahead pretty far. I can’t say we’ve had as much luck with Opterons running Windows Server 2003 x64, though.
Without AMD’s presence in the market, I think we’d be paying an order of magnitude more for Intel’s server CPUs and getting an order of magnitude less performance.
I’m looking forward to seeing how AMD’s and Intel’s 16-core (4×4) server platforms compare, although I will be surprised if Barcelona will handily beat Tigerton given the desktop-CPU metrics I’ve read about.
By Bob Plankers on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
That’s a very good point. Competition does drive innovation and lower prices, and AMD’s arrival on the CPU scene basically caused serious price drops all around, and almost instant clock speed jumps.
By mieses on Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
In the world of vmware, windows server, dell, redhat, and “enterprise” decision making, you pretty much have to go with whatever “the channel” serves to you. If the tide turns towards AMD, you will have to follow.
Opteron, AMD64, and Linux has been very effective in high performance technical computing applications.