AMD seems to offer more back for the buck but it seems that they never
offer desktops with AMD cpus.
One thing to remember is that Dell does not pay anywhere near the same
price for their processors as you or I would. At a rough guess, I
would say that the low-end Intel Celeron and P4 chips are being sold
to Dell in the $40-$60 range, while they sell at retail for somewhere
around $100-$200. So, where if you or I were to buy these chips, AMD
might work out to easily be $30 or $50 cheaper, for Dell the
difference is more like $5.
Consider that you can configure out near-identical systems between a
Dell Dimension 3000 with a 3.0GHz P4 with 800MT/s bus speed or an HP
Pavilion a810e with a (much slower) AMD Sempron 3000+ processor and
they work out to the same price. For the fairly basic config I tested
I got the Dell at $548 before a $40 mail-in rebate and the HP at $580
before a $50 mail-in rebate, though small tweaks in configuration
could push it one way or the other.
Now part of the reason for this is that Dell's cost-structure is lower
than HP's, but a major reason for that is that Dell has far fewer
differences between their various systems at least in part due to
using only Intel processors.
I seriously doubt people buy off the
shelf PC's based on CPU brand since DELL etc.. are now commodity
products and they choose on features and price not INTEL or AMD.
Selling PC's as 64bit in the Advert will move more product yet DELL
etc.. do not seem to follow.
64-bit probably isn't a huge selling feature just yet, especially
given that there is no 64-bit Windows available (in a non-beta form at
least) for AMD's chips yet.
Does intel threaten cutting the pipeline
if they even think about selling one model line with a non Intel CPU.
How is the DOJ not even investigating this?
DOJ *HAS* investigated this, and they found that Intel is doing
absolutely nothing wrong. The EU's version of the DOJ is currently
investigating as well and they are a bit more skeptical, but nothing
has come of it as yet.
Really you have to look at Dell's business model to understand some of
this. Dell survives entirely on minimum inventory and just-in-time
shipments of parts. While on the front they claim to offer the most
customizable systems out there, in reality they are all about
minimizing customizations. They can't custom-assemble every system
for every user that comes along, so they just take a guess at what
will be purchased and assemble systems that way.
A key part of this process means minimizing the motherboards used.
Motherboards are the key to an OEM design. Where a different
processor or different amount of memory can be just dropped in without
a thought, a different motherboard means a TOTALLY new system where
you have to re-validate everything and set up completely different
product lines. This is not just true for Dell, but all big OEMs, any
given model of computer is defined by the motherboard it uses. No
matter how you configure up a Dell Dimension 3000 you always get the
same motherboard.
Now, here's the problem for AMD. To use an AMD processor you need a
different motherboard than for an Intel chip, ie Dell would have to
dedicate at least one entire system to AMD chips. Now Dell only sells
a grand total of 8 different desktop systems, and within those 8 there
are at least a few products which are very similar allowing for some
overlap and maybe even sharing motherboards (ie the Dimension 4700 and
the Optiplex GX280 might share a board or some such thing), greatly
reducing the amount of validation required. For comparison, HPap
currently sells 20 different models of PC. While there is probably a
fair bit of overlap between their Presario, Pavilion and Media Center
PC lines, they still have a lot more configuration options and, as
such, more costs involved with selling these systems than Dell.
So, combine that fact, along with the addition of more suppliers (at
the very least AMD for the processors and possibly another company for
the motherboards), additional support costs involved, the need to keep
more spare parts on-hand and you end up with some financial reasons
why Dell sticks to Intel-only.
Of course, this only works for Dell so long as Intel remains at or
near the top in terms of performance. With AMD gaining a bit of an
edge in performance, particularly on the server front, Dell is kind of
backed into a corner.
