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Dual Athlons Released
Malk-a-mite was one of the first to e-mail about the
announcement from AMD concerning their demonstration of a Dual Athlon workstation. It is using their "AMD-760 MP chipset, and next-generation Double Data Rate (DDR)
memory. "Update: 10/11 06:26 PM by H : My mistake. This was a dupe article - the older story went up yesterday - Microprocessor Forum.
As with all articles of thsi nature, take it with a grain of salt. I don't expect to see such machine available to any "REAL" people on the street until Dec-Jan time frame. Thats at the earliest.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Maybe the editors should actually read their own site/a&g t;.
But I wanted a quad! Really though, if they can do a dual how hard is it for them to add more processors? Anyone know? Would the Linux kernel currently handle SMP w/ AMD or do we hafta wait for an updated kernel?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Dual Athlons have not been released. A demonstration motherboard was displayed at the Microprocessor Forum 2000. They're close, but nothing has been released yet.
:)
Mind you, I'm drolling waiting for these things
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Only demonstrated. Read the press release.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
The great thing about the internet is the speed at which news travels! For instance: I read about this yesterday! Even though SlashDot.Org is a quality news site, I dont think its quite as good as the site that posted this same story yesterday. I think I'm going to stick to that other news site for more up-to-the-second news stories.
[sorry, the sarcasm key was stuck]
-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Will the current MP OSes run correctly and unchanged on this system?
I see in my BIOS that I can choose between MPS 1.1 and MPS 1.4. Does this refer to a hardware API that a MP OS utilises? If so, is the AMD product compatible with this, or the OSes have to be modified to handle some other standard (I thought I had heard AMD was doing things the same way as Alpha's).
The last time I checked, the MPS 1.1 and 1.4 specifications were owned by Intel and that was one of the many things keeping AMD from producing dual systems. While there was an effort underway known as OpenSMP, it never really saw the light of day. Were they forced into a licensing agreement? I'm really curious about some of the underlying issues on this one.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Cautionary Statement
This release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are generally preceded by words such as "plans," "expects," "believes," "anticipates" or "intends." Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Forward looking statements in this release include the risk that AMD will be not successfully introduce a commercially available multiprocessing solution and that such solution may not be accepted by the market. We urge investors to review in detail the risks and uncertainties in the Company's filings with the United States Securities Exchange Commission.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
http://www.segfault.org/story.phtml?mode=2&id=39d
Dear Answer Guy,
I thought about buying an Athlon, but now my TV screams all the time about some Bi-Athlon and even Tri-Athlon. Is that just a vaporware or should I wait to buy such a beast?
-Ox Ford from Ohio
Dear Ox Ford,
Olympic Fever has struck the airwaves! Unknown to most people, the Athlon is the official microprocessor of the 2000 Olympic Games. To better suit Olympians, AMD came out with a Bi-Athlon and Tri-Athlon. These are actually multiprocessor units that have many advantages over their single-processor sibling. First, the processor speeds have been doubled, allowing the CPU to use time-sharing more efficiently (time-sharing is sometimes called "cycling," which is also an Olympic event). Processes can be re-prioritized in hardware, allowing certain applications to get a greater time share which causes it to run faster (also called "sprinting," which is an Olympic sport). Also, think of the Athlon as a unicycle, the Bi-Athlon as a bicycle, and the Tri-Athlon as a tricycle. The Bi-Athlon and the Tri-Athlon are much better at handling an unbalanced load, namely because they have more wheels. All of these things make the Athlon family the number one choice among Olympic athletes.
Folks, now you know what to do if you want your news submitted. It's easy to get rejected on the submission queue, but apparently if you e-mail an editor, even redundant articles will get posted!
Do keep in mind though that e-mails from a large group of people might cause too much junk in the mailbox, but if e-mail is a good way to punish redundant posts or get higher priority than in a submission queue, by all means e-mail is the way to go!
This link to Toms Hardware has some info about the upcoming athlon chipsets. It looks like Via's SMP/DDR chipset (KX266) should be out by then end of the year.
Of course, I think I'll wait for the second itteration of these chipsets. By then they will have most of the kinks worked out, and the platform optimized. Also, by then the Athlon will be much faster per dollar.
--
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet
might be running loose in your pants."
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
Yes, this is based on the AMD chipset. AMD makes reference chipsets, and others (presently VIA) will make derivatives to supply the market. This is a sort of division of labor: AMD does (most) of the design, and VIA does (most) of the production.
It's not like VIA is competing with AMD. AMD designs reference chipsets because their processors (which are what they are really interested in selling) are unusable without. AMD can't make much money on selling chipsets, so they'd just as soon that somebody else take up that business. But somebody has to design the thing before it can be produced, and AMD foots the bill for that.
--Lenny