Can Intel honestly make a real recovery in the server market? Speaking for myself, I feel that they pretty much have to. If not, AMD will likely stomp them again.

Although Intel’s architecture still clearly dominates the x86 server market, AMD’s Opteron has represented more than just an annoyance for Intel since its introduction in April 2003. In a nutshell, Opteron offers better computing and per-Watt performance at a roughly equivalent per-device price and it scales much better when moving from one to two or even four CPUs. AMD’s performance lead is equally large when compared to Intel’s new dual-core Xeon devices.

Intel’s new Xeon dual core processor, which runs at 2.8 GHz, is based on Intel’s 90-nm process and, you guessed it, offers NetBurst, including HyperThreading support. A dual-core processor with beefed up 2x 2 MB L2 cache, its performance certainly is solid enough for the target market. However, a dual-core duel, as AMD has been trying to provoke, would be a potential nightmare for the product management staff at Intel’s enterprise group. [Read the rest]

[tags]intel,amd,cpu,processor,opteron,xeon,servers[/tags]