Question : Problem: AMD Opteron 1210 Versus Intel Xeon 1.7GHz

We've just bought a cheap server running Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 and it has a Dual-Core Opteron 1210 / 1.8 GHz processor. My engineer insists that the current server has a far superior processor in a Xeon 1.70GHz.

As far as I can tell the Xeon dates from 2001 (which looking at the state of the machine looks about right). Is he right or is it as I suspect, that he is not upto date with server technology?

Any comparison sites would be useful...

dc

Answer : Problem: AMD Opteron 1210 Versus Intel Xeon 1.7GHz

No doubt you have run into the--> Intel is better than AMD<-- mindset
I'd have to go with the Opteron just based on the larger cache size along with the faster bus speed, not to mention the dual to single core differences. The opteron also uses 90 nm technology where the Xeon is either 180nm or 130nm depending on the model. This allows higher density of transistors placed on the cpu in the same amount of silicon space.
Opteron
http://products.amd.com/en-us/OpteronCPUSideBySide.aspx?id=297&id=298

Xeon
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon%201.7%20GHz%20-%20RN80528KC029G0K%20(BX80528KL170GA).html