Revolution: Dell sells AMD CPUs (PCGH-Retro, May 18)

… 2006: AMD processors in Dell computers? Unthinkable: The world’s largest PC supplier had been the only important manufacturer to refuse to install Athlon and Opteron CPUs – only Intel-equipped computers could be ordered. As comes to light years later, this was also due to illegal discounts that Intel gave Dell for it. That’s the end of this one May 18: Dell announces that it will also be offering servers with Opteron CPUs in the future when it presents weak quarterly figures; Desktop systems with Athlon X2 will follow in Herst. This is also necessary, because technically AMD’s K8 processors are far ahead of the Netburst-based Intel competitors these days; big competitors like HP have long been successfully offering AMD-based CPUs. The announcement has consequences: Dell’s shares rose by around 4 percent, AMD’s even by more than 12 percent; Intel’s share price, on the other hand, is falling. Above all, however, this step means one thing: AMD is now on an equal footing with Intel.