A rumour about possible adoption of microprocessors by Advanced Micro Devices by a long-time Intel supporter Dell Inc. seems to be gaining momentum. One more analyst said that Dell may start utilizing AMD processors as early as this spring and start from laptops.

“We believe there will be an AMD/Dell deal announced very soon; more specifically, we believe it will come as early as March and involve Dell notebooks. The deal will likely mature from there to include servers and desktops, in that order, in subsequent months,” Doug Freedman of American Technology Research is reported to have written in his note to clients, a news blog over Cnet News.com web-site claims.

The majority of industry analysts agree that advantages of AMD processors over Intel chips can be noted primarily in servers and desktops, as AMD Opteron architecture has somewhat better scalability when it comes to multiprocessor systems, whereas performance-demanding desktop applications can take a lot of advantage of integrated memory controller in the AMD Athlon 64 chips. Therefore, it would be quite strange for Dell to begin the adoption of AMD chips from notebooks, where the company’s products are not necessarily much better compared to Intel’s.

The majority of notebooks by Dell are developed, made and tested by the computer giant’s outsourcing partners, whereas servers are usually assembled and tested by Dell’s own specialists. High-end desktops may also require very experienced development and assembling staff. Given that laptops require the least amount of efforts from Dell, analysts believes that the company will start its adoption of AMD processors from this type of products.

However, back in November several wires reported that Dell had informed its Taiwan contract makers, such as Asus, Foxconn and Quanta, of plans to develop devices based on AMD’s microprocessors, and these suppliers were awaiting orders for global shipment. Foxconn, which belongs to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, reportedly develops AMD-powered servers, ASUS allegedly designs mainboards and Quanta Computer supposedly develops notebooks based on AMD microprocessors. Dell denied such claims at first, but recently the chairman of the company said that the firm may adopt AMD processors.

Rumours about possible usage of processors by Advanced Micro Devices by Dell, the world’s largest computers maker, recently emerged once again when an analyst said that Dell might be stockpiling AMD chips to gear up for a large scale launch. Other rumours suggest that Dell’s recently unveiled XPS 600 Renegade will sport either AMD’s or Intel Corp.’s processors.