Microsoft favorisce AMD per Windows Server X64

[Staff]

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Alcune indiscrezioni danno AMD come il produttore di processori a 64bit preferito da Microsoft per il suo Windows Server X64
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WHILE INTEL has only recently started implementing its 64-32 instructions in its Pentium 4 processors - even though they've always been there and just needed to be switched on - its Xeon processors have implemented EM64T for quite some months now.
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All the more surprising then, to look at Microsoft's minimum system requirements for Windows Server 2003 Standard X64 edition and to find the Vole appears to demand a much higher spec from Intel chips than it does from AMD's.
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According to Microsoft's page, the minimum CPU sppeds required are an Opteron 140 (1.4GHz), a Xeon 2.80GHz with 800MHz front side bus and EM64T, or an Intel Pentium (4) processor with hyperthreading and running at 3.20GHz and with an 800MHz front side bus and EM64T.
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As far as we can see by consulting the INQ crib sheet, here, the lowest specced Pentium 4 in the 5XX series which satisfies Microsoft's requirements is the 541.
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Microsoft said that you'll need 4GB of hard drive space, and a minimum of 512MB of memory. It also says that the system requirements are "subject to change" before final release of the product.
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There is not a lot of love between Intel and Microsoft, despite the facade of a perfectly happy 50s style marriage. Intel thinks Microsoft is "cheating" on it with AMD and with IBM, a view reinforced by AMD at every opportunity. A ménage à trois between Sam Palmisano, Hector Ruiz, and Bill Gates does, of course, beggar the imagination. But now we've put the image into your head, it will be hard for you to forget it, we suggest.
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For example, at the launch of the Opteron in New York just two years ago, AMD produced a Microsoft wizard who essentially said that it and the smaller chip company had cooperated on design of the 64-32 processor.
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While of course "history is bunk", the fact that Microsoft's Dave Cutler, AMD's Dirk Meyer and Bob "walk in wardrobe" Palmer all worked for DEC is of course just one of those coincidences that make our industry so interesting.
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