AS WELL AS introducing the Mini iPod yesterday, Apple also introduced the "64-bit" Xserve G5, and that's sparked a row over whether it or AMD has the fastest server in the world.


The Xserve G5 page, here (http://www.apple.com/xserve/ ) makes a number of claims for performance including a claim that it's eight per cent faster than 3.2GHz Xeons and 50 per cent faster than 2GHz AMD Opteron server using HPC Linpack.

Apple claims that: "The machine simply blasts past others in its class that cost over four times as much".

That has led, for example, AMD Zone to speculate that Apple has crippled the Opteron box in its benchmarks. That site claims that the numbers Apple gives just don't add up.

The spat, no doubt, will continue. µ

* IT'S WORTH pointing out - as Tech-Report points out, that Apple's new servers will use 90 nanometre CPUs from Big Blue in as little as six to eight weeks