Whose (server) round is it anyway? Intel's or AMD's?

What a week, what a day, what a show! I am referring to the recent developments at Intel and AMD -- to their respective product launches and announcements, and of course, to Computex, in Taipei, Taiwan! Oh, and to the ongoing battle between AMD and Intel in the global servers market!

First Intel... Late May, Intel previewed the Nehalem-EX, a processor that will be at the heart of the next generation of intelligent and expandable high-end Intel server platforms, which will deliver a number of new technical advancements and boost enterprise computing performance.

The Nehalem-EX is said to feature up to eight cores/16 threads, 24MB of shared cache, integrated memory controllers, four high-bandwidth QPI links, Intel Hyper-Threading, Intel Turbo Boost, and 2.3B transistors. The Nehalem-EX is said to be on track for H2-09 production.

Some time later, Intel put out an in a local news daily, about "Sponsors of Tomorrow" -- a global campaign that conveys the message that gigantic advances of the digital age have been made possible by silicon -- the key ingredient in microprocessors.

And guess what, AMD promptly came up with an invitation to its Istanbul launch, stating that a smarter product today would help battle the slowdown, rather than look at tomorrow!

Quite appropriately, soon after, AMD launched its Istanbul six-core Opteron processor this week, which delivers up to 34 percent more performance-per-watt.

AMD's poking fun at Intel didn't really quite go down well at some quarters. I have always respected and appreciated -- may the best one, win, and if you really have the guts, do it yourself! And let the market decide who is the winner!!

I would surely expect the two heavyweights of the global semiconductor industry to not resort to such tactics. Instead, it would do both of them good to focus on their core businesses. Poking fun at each other will not bring in the dollars!

One AMD executive even went to the extent of highlighting the 'today vs. tomorrow' story on the dias, adding that when Intel comes out with an eight-core processor, AMD will come out with a 12-core processor. And, most importantly, that Intel is talking about tomorrow, but AMD is talking of today! Quite interesting!!

So, who is the winner of round one -- according to me, no one!

Now, switch to Computex Taipei, Taiwan! First AMD announced a flurry of launches -- such as its two new dual-core desktop processors. This was followed by a new chip for HDTV-on-the-PC reception.

Similarly, Intel made a flurry of announcements too, starting with the introduction of four new processors for ultra-thin laptops. Later, Intel's Sean Maloney outlined the industry growth opportunities, especially, future growth throughout the computing and communications industries, particularly in mobile and wireless.

Let's continue this in the next post, lest this grows too long! ;)