I was in NJ this week attending an AMD/Microsoft Tech Conference. The AMD part was pretty interesting. The discussions around AMD's rollout of L3 cache, hypertransport, and split power plane technologies were of interest to the group that attended (Barcelona & Shanghai). To me, AMD seems a little more honest in their marketing than Intel does except in one subject:

The announcement of a three-core processor. I'd just expect that they call it what it is - enough failure of the quad-core processor that they could open up a new niche, and for $20-50 less, sell the quad processor with one core disabled because it wasn't reliable or working. But I digress.

The important thing is that us tech managers and users all win. I'm for capitalism and using the best technology to get the best job done.

AMD's approach to architecture is interesting and Supermicro makes some pretty rowdy stuff to run it. The latest two are:

- Densest Server Blades in the World

- Supermicro Launches Native "Quad-Core" AMD Server & Workstation Platforms

These two announcements are getting a lot of attention in the Linux/OSS community because of the nature of the apps that users need to run on the AMD platform. Read more on the L3 cache and memory controller on the chip from AMD here:

Barcelona's Innovative Architecture Is Driven by a New Shared Cache