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Remember the floating-point-calculation bug in the early Pentiums? Intel had found it, fixed it in their new Pentiums, and kept quiet, hoping nobody will notice. Of course someone did, (someone always does!) and it turned out that lots of people were using faulty calculations in their work.

The decision not to extend the Pentium processor line to 64-bit, and to stick with the Itanium ( which does not natively support 32-bit operation) is another shot-in-the-leg. Market signals (very few Itaniums sold) and voiced concerns from people like Linus Torvalds did not cut into their strategy.

AMD on the other hand, is building a new factory (Fab 36) in anticipation of the increased demand for Opterons and Athlon64s. The desktops we will be buying in 2005 (2004?) will be 64-bit, and it looks they won't be "Intel inside".

And not "Windows outside", I think :)

But right now, I'm stuck with Celeron/WinXP boxes at work, unfortunately. Gasp.

The Inquirer: Linus Torvalds, Itanium "threw out all the good parts of the x86"
AMD Breaks Ground on 300 Millimeter Manufacturing Facility in Dresden, Germany

Seriously. Have you seen how you have to install the heatsink? The instructions tell you to use a screwdriver and jam the little doohicky thing until it snaps onto the casing. I was freaking out during this whole procedure. I thought that my motherboard was going to snap in half.

These are delicate devices we are dealing with. Also, you'd think they would make this easier since the (almost) majority of the people installing these dont have much upper-body strength.

This just is another step in Intel's ploy to rule the wireless market through cheap and underhanded business practices. Not many people know this, or at least I didn't till I started shopping for a laptop 2 days ago, but all new laptops carrying the Centrino designation have to come with an Intel miniPCI WLAN card preinstalled or they cannot be called Centrino. Which is great except that Intel refuses to support Linux on their stinkin' card. (Yes I could go elsewhere, but for the price, speed, and power consumption, Centrino is far and away the best on the market right now.) If you want to monopolize an entire hardware sector, fine--good luck trying. But don't chain me to a stupid Wintel platform because of it. If Intel had their way they'd be the only supplier of WiFi cards within a few short years--then WTF do we do if we're not on Windows?

I guess you can count AMD amoungst the lazy ones, because they call it AMD64 as well.

Well, I didn't. Where does one sign up for the free manuals? Got a link handy?

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD /0,,30_2252_875_4622,00.html

Something like Athlon is probably overkill for just like every embedded market there is. It's damn fast but it's also (just like all the other fast desktop chips) power-hungry and runs damn hot.

AMD does make small chips for embedded systems... I don't see them trowing those out, this is just for the biggies, and even for them, why would they throw away the designs just because they don't make the things any more?

Something like Athlon is probably overkill for just like every embedded market there is. It's damn fast but it's also (just like all the other fast desktop chips) power-hungry and runs damn hot.

AMD does make small chips for embedded systems... I don't see them trowing those out, this is just for the biggies, and even for them, why would they throw away the designs just because they don't make the things any more?

Actually AMD makes plenty of embedded chips that use both 32-bit x86 architecture or their own custom tailored architectures for whatever they're used for. So yes they are in the mobile market and actually it's a big part of their business strategy.

As far as 32-bit emulation on 64-bit chips... Intel had to eat crow and release a software emulator for the Itanium because of how lousy its hardware emulation was.
The beauty (and only thing beautiful about it) of the x86-64 architecture is that it lets 32-bit code run side-by-side with 64-bit code with no performance loss. There's no emulation or anything of that sort. And once they get their yields up, there will be no reason a Hammer based CPU couldn't be priced similarly to current 32-bit Athlons, and it will still offer superior 32-bit performance compared to the current Athlon without the 64-bit portions of the chip ever being touched.

Yes, 32-bit only CPUs will still be quite useful in the embedded market (much like the Z80 and M68k CPUs live on) but the way things are going we may be running 32-bit apps on 64-bit CPUs in the not too distant future (kinda like running 16-bit Windows 3.x on a 386)

"By running the current version of the Solaris OS on the AMD Opteron processor platform, we are experiencing substantial improvements in kernel performance for Solaris over other x86-based systems, " said John Fowler, chief technology officer, software, Sun Microsystems. "With the Solaris OS running on the AMD Opteron processor, our customers and partners can take advantage of unique features such as containers delivering virtualization and high levels of security. Solaris has led the industry in proven military grade security built-in to the OS, and with Trusted Solaris OS, offering unmatched levels of privacy, second only to the Windows .NET security framework. Finally, the highly advanced Opteron processor with, it's built in ability to remove IP-infringing packets at the network layer will soon make copyright infringement lawsuits a thing of the past."

Sun's intent to collaborate with AMD to accelerate the holistic global portal platform development, to optimize and fully web-alize the dynamic performance of mission-critical e-services and increase enterprise adoption for Solaris and the Sun Java open-synergy relationship system on the AMD Opteron processor

The new nickname for the 40 teraflops system is "Thor's Hammer".

Ah, curious. I guess what goes around comes around. But, shouldn't it be "Thor's Hammers"? It's got 10,368 Hammers, y'know.

You're right about one thing, that this MCC is overpriced. However, I'd much rather spend my sheckles on buying a laptop from someone who knows how to make a chip that runs cool enough and has low enough power consumption to fit into a mobile. My next laptop is going to be 64 bits, and I laugh at the primitive screwheads who are stuck on platforms where only 32 bit laptops are available.

Theres a reason for the PS/2 ports. See, a PS/2 mouse prevents your AMD system from crashing. Don't believe me? Read AMD's errata for the AMD 768 PDF Here and look at issue #10.

I discovered this from a post on the LKML when I was trying to diagnose strange crashes that occurred when doing IO-intensive stuff. I actually thought it was a bug in the kernel IDE driver for the 768. Sure enough, I plugged in an old dying ps/2 mouse and could write 2 GB of data to the drive without a problem, when it normally would have locked up hard with no errors somewhere between 900 and 1100MB.

Hmm, 30watt Opteron 240s will be sampling soon.

Is this a troll? AMD's own documentation says the Opteron's dissipation is on the order of 80 watts.

All this foofaraw over the G5 and Athlon 64 is just revisionist history. ;)

...not mentioning the fact that Opteron beat the G5 to market by over 4 months...

*sigh* If we are going to get into a pissing match as to whose 64-bit CPU was introduced first, then it still goes to Apple/IBM/Moto. Anyone remember the PPC 620 which was released in 1995? Also, if AMD introduced their Opteron 4 months ago, why did they have to introduce their "desktop" CPU only a month ago (remember, Apple's claim was the first 64-bit "desktop")? And why can't I buy one at Dell? Geeze, get real. This article is merely for the benefit of their readers to make them feel good about being behind the curve with respect to innovation.

I remember around 1995 I went to a Melbourne Computer Expo. Every stall I went to had a pair of these JUSTer Active 75 80W speakers. They sounded awesome, and at just AU$80, I got myself a pair.

Nowdays, my system consists of:
Gentoo GNU/Linux 1.4
AMD Athlon XP 2100+
CoolerMaster Aero 7+ HSF
ASUS A7N8XDeluxe (nVidia nForce 2 based)
Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2x256MB & 1x512MB DDR-333 dual-channeled)
PowerColor Evil Master II Multi-Display Edition (ATi Radeon 8500)
Maxtor 60GB 2MB 7400RPM IDE
Seagate 120GB 8MB 7400RPM SATA (x2 in RAID)
Hitachi CML175SXW B 17" Multimedia TFT LCD
Pioneer 12X DVD
ASUS 52x24x52x
Enermax expensive as all hell PSU
Enermax FS-710 Aluminum case
Netgear WG311 802.11g network card
Logitech Cordless iTouch keyboard
Logitech TrackMan Marble Wheel
JUSTer Active 75 80W

As you can see, my speakers and mouse are the odd ones out - both aren't made anymore but I'll never give them up (unless I get a bigger apartment which allows for a 5.1 speaker setup).

Coming to this discussion late, but what the hell...

In some of my business classes in college, we were taught about McDonald's & Burger King as a case study in marketing approaches.

• McDonald's, it seems, has a huge research budget for making sure that any new store will be in a profitable neighborhood, with adequate traffic flow & other resources in the area, so that the new store will do well.
• Burger King, on the other hand, waits for McDonald's to open up a store, then they build one next door. This may guarantee that they're never first, but it also saves the from the bother of having to keep up the research department.

The same seems to be going on here. The ubiquitous references to Apple products in movies & TV shows is very well known. However, there is a perception that this is just spontaneous -- Apple hardware just looks better than more or less any Wintel box, so of course that's what gets used for props, right? Not exactly...

Quoting from a Wired article I just read:

Garrett Beauvais, a marketing executive at Advanced Micro Devices, which makes chips for PCs, suggested that's Apple's famously vigorous product-placement efforts are the source of the plot device.

"Apple Computer outspends all other PC companies in product placement and is perhaps more active in the area than any other technology company outside of Microsoft," Beauvais wrote.

That article was from May 2002. The implication is clear: [a] the "spontaneous" placement of Apple products in all these shows is not a coincidence, and [b] it seems that Microsoft has been trying to emulate Apple's success here for a long time.

Apple is playing the McDonald's role, Microsoft is Burger King.

The only wrinkle is that McDonald's is much larger than Burger King (I'm not sure what the spread is, but it's significant), and Apple is something like 20 times smaller than Microsoft -- at least in terms of market share.

Still, it's clear what roles they're trying to follow.

It looks pretty cool - http://www.amd.com/us-en/ConnectivitySolutions/Pro ductInformation/0,,50_2330_6625_6012%5E8407,00.htm l

Handheld Computing Device
3.0x5.5x0.8 inches
2.1x2.8-inch Portrait Mode Panel

266MHz 400MHz Operation
MIPS32 Instruction Set
1.2V Core Operating Voltage, 3.3V I/O

64 Mbytes SDRAM
32 Mbytes AMD Flash Memory

Video Support
TFT QVGA Panel with LED Frontlight
Integrated Touchscreen

Li Polymer Battery
Target Normal Operation 2.5 - 4 Hours
Removable and Rechargeable through Docking Station or with AC Adapter

Compact Flash Memory Slot
Secure Digital Card Slot
Audio via WM9705 Wolfson AC-97 CODEC
Integrated Speaker, Stereo Headphone Jack
Integrated Microphone
IrDA
Integrated Joystick
4 Programmable Buttons
USB Type B (Device) Connector

Docking Station
USB Type A (Host) Connector
USB Type B (Device) Connector
10/100 Ethernet Connection
DC Jack for Standard AC Adapter
Serial Connector
EJTAG

Right, big tech companies obviously avoid Linux -- say big tech companies like:

• IBM
• SAP
• HP
• Oracle
• Dell
• Intel
• AMD
• Sun

Or which big technology companies were you referrring to exactly? Sure, it was a troll, but hey -- who isn't supporting Linux that doesn't make a competing OS? I mean, heck Sun, HP and IBM do make competing OSes and they've all jumped on the Linux bandwaggon.

They might not have come from Intel, but they do exist.

Get them here.

Then go make your favorite compiler or windowing system work better on this.

You can't call the Pentium or Itanic open standards.

The opcodes are known and well documented. Multiple companies besides Intel has created their own reimplementation of the "x86 standard". Dozens more individual programmers have duplicated it in software.

It seems much like an open standard.

AMD has been making Intel-compatible processors under license from Intel since the 8088 processor.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are going to want a good 64 bit laptop. And they're going to get them next week, when some innovative company releases the first mass-market 64 bit computers designed for the mobile market. Probably be price competetive with current x86 laptops too.

Why do you need more than 4Gb of memory, today?

It's been done

Getting increasingly common, and doesn't really push the price up that much

unix

Free

Also been done

Also Free

All you need is a burner. The rest is free. Apple are just using mass-market drives anyway.

So, let's see what that sort of hardware normally retails for...

Five minutes with google located this review, of a similar PC available for $3300... in 2001. So Apple are selling kit at the prices the rest of the world were using two years ago.

Applying Moore's law (combined with the knowledge that in the hardware industry, prices stay fairly constant while performance increases), we can conclude that this is a little over twice a suitable price for equivalent value. Somebody with more time than me is invited to track down a current workstation price.

And that jives with my experience of Apple, too. Equivalent (often identical, once you remove the ugly translucent plastic cover) hardware to what everybody else is selling, at approximately twice the price.

...who just assemble components and sell them as expensive boxes. How does that benefit us, exactly? It's not like they invented most of the hardware in those things. A significant chunk of it came from IBM, and most of the rest is just normal retail hardware (hard drives, dvd drives, network chips, usb controllers, graphics chips...).

Many of the current MCUs are ball grid array (BGA) devices, which make them pretty hard to work with if you're not a professional, but a few can be had in PLCC or QFP packages, which means you can get an adapter board or socket.

You can also buy preassembled demo/development boards (this is the route I'm taking) and wire-up anything the board doesn't include by hand. Most of the MCUs on the market will have 32-bit memory busses (though they may not support more that 25 or 26 address lines), so you can attach just about anything you want to them.

This is exactly the kind of thing that Steve Ciarcia (of Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar) used to do: building personal computers from microcontrollers. Most of his designs used Z80 based devices, which was fine back in the mid- to late-eighties. Now, however, you can do a fair bit better.

As for speed, I don't know exactly what you're looking for, but the ARM devices can be had in speeds from 50MHz to 400MHz, and the same is true of the PPC and MIPS devices. That may not seem like much, compared to a 2GHz Pentium, but it's really quite nice.

Some good resources: Digi-Key is a reasonable source for all sorts of parts, Atmel makes some nice MCUs, programmable logic, and Flash RAM, Cirrus Logic makes some ARM MCUs and networking chips (amoung other things), Sharp, Samsung, Motorola, and AMD all make nice MCUs, Cogent Computers builds some nice development boards, and EarthLCD has good prices on LCDs and has an ARM based board in the works.

Sure, Opteron can do arithmetic with 64 bit integers (as can the Pentium 4 using SSE2 instructions). What makes a processor 64-bit is whether it can deal with 64-bit addresses. The Opteron's TLB supports only a 48-bit virtual address space and a 40-bit physical address space. Read the fine print here. Competing 64-bit processors such as the Itanium 2 support a full 64-bit virtual address space. It would be very difficult for the x86-64 platform to use 64-bit virtual addresses because of the heirarchical page table structure which it uses (based on the ia-32 page table structure which was designed for a 32-bit virtual address space).

It's pretty hot, although it's well within AMD's spec(they say 85C max).

I run a 2400+ with the FSB overclocked enough to turn it into a 2600+, and mine is about 40C. I used to have fast loud fans, but I just switched to a Innovatek water cooling system and slow, quiet fans.

Cool!... People, mod up parent!

OT

By the way go get the new Athlon64 movie from AMD and watch while you are getting Matrix trailer

It's spelt out in full, page 225:

Future processors with more or wider multipliers and adders will achieve better throughput using SSE and SSE2 instructions (Today's processors implement a 128-bit wide SSE or SSE2 operation as two 64-bit operations that are internally pipelined).

(...)

The SIMD instructions provide a theoretical single-precision peak throughput of two additions and two multiplications per clock cycle, whereas x87 instructions can only sustain one addition and one multiplication per clock cycle. The SSE2 and x87 double-precision peak throughput is the same, but SSE2 instructions provide better code density

(emphasis mine)

So, in other words:

1. SSE is twice as fast as single-precision x87
2. their initial implementation of SSE2 is actually just an implementation of the instruction set, the actual execution units are borrowed from the x87 and have the same throughput limitations
3. if you are writing really large code, you might get some benefits from SSE2 because of L1 savings (but your case has to be pretty borderline for that to make a significant difference, or you have to be able to interleave a significant amount of integer code with your FP code that using SSE2 frees enough decoder bandwith).
4. In the future, they might bother with spending more space for more double-precision FP units (I'd think that if they can sort out the manufacturing problems, and the HPC segment seems like the area they're selling to, then it may make sense to spend a few mm to double SSE2 performance. Depends on who actually buys Opterons once the software/OS front lines are settled)
5. Today's AMD64 SSE2 performance in double-precision is not going to be leaps away from their x87 stuff (unlike the P4), but you have to remember that AMD's x87 is really good.
6. Don't forget that in long mode, you have 16 128-bit registers, which may help your compiler make more out of SSE2/64 code than x87 code; some benchmarks with SSE/SSE2 enabled compilers would help clarifiy whether that's the case or not.

You need the 64 bit OS, as you might expect, because allowing an application to address a 64 bit memory space while the OS is only capable of managing a 32 bit one, well, wouldn't work out very well. Hint: It's really tough returning from system calls made from the upper few terabytes of memory.

So, a 32 bit OS starts out "seeing" your standard 32 bit X86 CPU. This is the legacy mode, and looks like any 32 bit CPU out there today.

On Opteron, a 64 bit OS will also know how to set the new "Long Mode". Bzzt...A bunch of new instructions and handy registers magically appear.

From there, the OS can mark each code segment (your program) as being in "Compatibilty" (32 bit) or "64 bit" mode.

For more than you ever wanted to know...

Opteron Tech Manuals can be found here.

" It is well-known that the Opteron chips and mobos are manufactured in mainland China"

Not according to AMD: AMD Opteron(TM) Processor
All Opterons are made in Germany.

The only two fabs they they have are Dresden, Germany(fab 30) and Austin, Texas(fab 25).

Yeah, and you also need to reboot your Pentiums to run 16-bit code.

It is just the state of a flag in a control register. In particular, see page 68 of
AMD's Opteron System Programming Guide.

64-bit mode is enabled with the flip of bit 8 of the EFER Model-Specific Register. Otherwise it defaults to 32-bit mode. OS designers should test/set this bit just before running a thread in the scheduler, or jumping into system code as it can only be modified by code running in ring 0. This is the same way people treated the Virtual-8086 (16-bit) mode bit in CR0. In fact, you can combine the protected-mode, virtual-8086 mode, and "long mode" bits to have a variety of register-size and memory addressing modes per thread.

AMD makes the MIPS32-compatible Au1500 chip and development boards. Another company which I can't find right now uses these chips to build a credit-card sized board that just takes 5V input IIRC.

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

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| ____a,___jk_GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_ |
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First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

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First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

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First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

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First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
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If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
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| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
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| ____a,___jk_GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_ |
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
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| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
| _________j1___________________________________ |
| ____a,___jk_GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_ |
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'

BTW, a tip for you. You can order bound manuals for the Pentium I/II/III/4 directly from Intel's website AT NO COST. Apparently, this is a result of their deal with the justice department to resolve possible anti-trust charges. They take a month or two to get, but they are nice manuals with plenty of detail.

PUUHHleeasse. Why bother with Intel when AMD offers the same deal? Quit obscuring the truth!!! Surely any company who can deliver a superior, innovative, reliable product has something to hide!

I'm not buying it...

p.s. If you must belong to the dark side, follow along with that other sheep.

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

This post proudly brought to you by the GNAA president

________________________________________________
| ______________________________________._a,____ |
| _______a_._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
| __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
| _________j1___________________________________ |
| ____a,___jk_GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_ |
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

This post proudly brought to you by the GNAA president

________________________________________________
| ______________________________________._a,____ |
| _______a_._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
| __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
| _________j1___________________________________ |
| ____a,___jk_GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_ |
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'

Check this

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Christ...I think you forgot your sense of humor somewhere....

He was just trying to make light of the fact that traditionally, AMD CPUs (at least of the x86 variety since the K6) have generated very large amounts of heat. Don't believe me...go ahead, check their specs..

He wasn't trolling, just being funny, but apparently you missed that.

The Sandia National Labs supercomputer (code name: Red Storm), currently being built by Cray, is going to be powered by 10,000 Opteron processors. A 40 Teraflop theoretical peak will put it at the top of the supercomputer list, being approximately 4 Teraflops faster than the NEC Earth Simulator, the current champ.

Actually, Intel does have the 64 bit Itanium processor for "enterprise solutions". Though based on the last half of your post, you were wondering about desktop processors, in which case the answer probably goes something to the effect of, "Apple has had the G5 for about a month now, AMD will have the Athlon 64 in a month and a half, and we have nothing. Better up the P4 clock rate to 5 GHz in the next 6 months and pray Joe Idiot still thinks it's faster." Just my assumption at the next Intel marketing move.

No, you only need special firmware on the card if you want the computer's firmware to be able to talk to the card. Modern OSes use the firmware for very little, or they don't use it at all. For example, on a PC, you can disable a hard drive in the BIOS, but Linux will still be able to access it (assuming it's not your boot drive). Linux accesses the drive controller directly; it doesn't use the BIOS.

So, you'll only need a special NIC if you want to netboot with that NIC. And you'll only need a special graphics card if you want to see the boot process on that card (you can use a serial console if you don't... at least these machies had better support serial console).

5: What about power consumption issues? Last I've seen the G5's, they gobbled power faster than an overclocked Athlon.

When did you last see a G5? A 1.8GHz PPC970 uses about 42W, while an Athlon XP 2500+ (1.833GHz) draws around 54W. I don't know how fast an overclocked Athlon would gobble power, but I'll note that the max power consumption of a non-overclocked Athlon 3200+ (2.2GHz) is 77W.