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Story: AMD chips in with Cray for world's fastest computer

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It seems ironic that Intel launch a superb range of processors - with emphasis not only on high performance, but also on lower power consumption, then Cray announce a petaflop machine based around AMD processors.

My inner cynic is muttering things like "subsidies" and "badly needed positive marketing." Up until last Tuesday I would have put AMD in the top spot, processor-wise. Now I'd say they're trailing badly.

I was lucky enough to attend the London (Hyde Park) launch of the new processors - and even luckier, to have a VIP pass to the event - and talking to the manufacturers present only strengthened my feeling that Intel (who brought their chip release forward two quarters) have really come out to bat now, with some superb product.

I'm not sure about one aspect of buffered RAM though - the way it works in the new Intel setup is that the RAM nearest the processor is going to do the most work. As a techy, that just screams "hot spot" - it remains to be seen whether this causes a problem in enclosed spaces such as rack and blade server environments.

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