I've said this before: I've had mixed results with AMD processors in the past, but not with intel based systems.
The big sticking point AMD has are their 64-bit systems which is the "must have" thing for gamers and even the rendering comunity that I am a part of. Having worked around 64-bit UltraSparc and Alpha systems in the past, I'm not sure how that is going to help AMD in the business world that consumes most of the PC purchased. Most business applications are tuned for 32-bit and 64-bit doesn't buy you a whole lot in performance if your not doing serious number crunching.
Now I think where AMD is really gaining ground on Intel is in the Server market thanks to the bust of Itanium. That set Intel back a couple years. That being said, Intel is now stressing performance per Watt and AMD doesn't seem to care about that, only trying to get the image of the best performance benchmarks.
When you look at the heat modern equipement puts out and juice it sucks down, performance per watt is something to consider especially given that energy costs are not going down anytime soon. But the one Market that Intel has a serious lock on and AMD has major catch up to do is the mobile industry.
Last year notebooks/laptops outsold desktops. That is a trend I see continuing as more businesses just purchase laptops for their employees and people buy them for home computing over desktops as well. This is really where performance per watt matters and something that AMD doesn't seem to care all that much about at the moment. To me that is potential pitfall down the road.
The enterprise server market however is one that Intel is losing. That is a different ball game compared to desktops/laptops. It is also one of the more lucrative, but it is clear that high end performance folks are shelling out money for the AMD Opteron over anything Intel. The one execption maybe the SMB market thanks to dominance by Dell.
I know most companies in our business that use a mixed enviroment are buying AMD64 servers for Mental Ray rendering on Linux. (We're an Mac shop and we've had a number of G5's for a couple years now)
Still, if I were going to buy a laptop in the next year, it would be an Intel based Macbook Pro. Otherwise it would be something running a centrino processor to max performance and batterylife.
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