As far as I know, FB-DIMM is really very power-hungry, which would explain both why intel does poorly and why it does more poorly on high-memory systems. Everything I've read about FB-DIMM tells me Intel really shot themselves in the foot requiring Xeon systems to use it.

If you want to do more with one processor, you need more of everything else in the machine too. More RAM may well push Intel platforms farther into power inefficiency.

I have to wonder how much FB-DIMMs matter to this though. Both in terms of how the AMD platform would perform with it, and in terms of the actuall reliability FB-DIMMs provide. (I'm sure they account for the price difference between the Intel and AMD platforms)

Was there a period where Intel pushed out less heat / used less power ? I must have slept through it.

There was a period where Intel used less power and produced less heat... Remember the AMD K5 and K6 (not the K6-2 or K6-3)? Those were the days when Intel was still the best.

Right now I think Intel has some desktop chips that beat AMD all round... But I highly doubt they are the Intel top sellers...

..because a fact is that Intel Core (Centrino derived) architectures and revisions are the best ones on the market and Intel R&D has more efficient and powerful CPUs in the works for the next few years. Another fact is that AMD delivered poorly and keeps being unable to achieve the expected results disappointing both investors and customers, there has been quite a shift of AMD customers back to Intel in the last 18 months or so since the first Core CPUs started replacing the inefficient power-hungry P4 Prescott core derived CPUs.

Reality is that Intel is going to sell even more CPUs than ever before unless they would do some major mistakes while AMD only hope to regain market share is Intel making mistakes, which is far from what an efficient business should work and act...

Just bought a brand new desktop, Guess who's board and processor is inside?

After getting that new fangled set of windows stabalized, meaning several reinstalls, now my new computer running an AMD processor and board are nice am satisfied, and I didn't have to buy a monopolized product.

Hey Joerg wake up! That Centrino archeticture is a dead horse, why do you think intel is busting it's "butt trying to develop it's own athlon (floating point-hypertransport) it's not because of the superiority of their present design