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AMD focuses efforts on Palomino core
eviljolly writes: "ZDnet's Gamespot reports about the new AMD Palomino core which will be released at 1.5ghz. They also mention something about AMD's first 64bit processor called the ClawHammer which will come out in early 2002 at 2ghz"
You are correct.
The number one goal is to run 32-bit x86 applications fast. On top of that AMD adds a 64-bit mode that cleans up the instruction set somewhat, adds another 8 general purpose registers and of course 64-bit instructions and addressing, all designed to be fairly easy to target since it's just a variant of the x86 instruction set. The 64-bit mode is there for high-end servers or any OS that wants to use it --- the extra registers and IP-relative addressing should make it faster than regular x86 mode if you can recompile your code. But since the 64-bit and 32-bit code runs on the same core, it doesn't matter too much if people don't use the 64-bit stuff initially.
If AMD ships the Hammer processors according to schedule then Intel is going to be in a very bad position. IA64 performance simply *sucks* and it always will; static scheduling just does not work, and the smartest compilers in the world can't get around that. Intel gambled and lost on that one. Consequently IA64 will keep slipping and probably never ship in volume. There's just no market for a very expensive, very slow, incompatible CPU.
However, because of the investement and credibility, Intel can't just abandon the IA64. It'll be dragging them down for years. Meanwhile the best they can do is to keep revving the P4, which is already slower than the Athlon, and marketing it as hard as they can. That'll keep them going for a while but customers who want actual performance or a 64-bit architecture, not to mention value for money, will increasingly go to AMD.
The only bright spot for Intel is the rumoured SMT capabilities of the future P4 rev, Foster. That could give them a boost; we'll have to wait and see.
Actually, Intel's plan makes perfect sense. They're trying to market their chip first to the kinds of users who are willing to rewrite/recompile their software to take advantage of the new instruction set. Those people are the ones running Open Source code like Linux and Apache or homebuilt applications for special purpose applications. Note, for instance, that RedHat is already working on an Itanium version of their distro. That market will then give vendors like Microsoft a reason to develop versions of their software for the Itanium. You can be that if Linux + Apache + Perl on Itanium turns out to be a successful web serving environment that MS is going to want to produce a Windows + IIS + ASP competitor. Once the hard part of porting Windows is done, MS is going to want to move their other apps to the new architecture, too, and the whole market will move over. Intel is looking at it taking 5 years or so to move completely from x86 to IA64, but they've actually figured out a way of breaking backward compatibility and not dying for it. Of course they're also keeping an alternative around by keeping their x86 development, so if things blow up on them they'll still have chips to sell.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Further down the road for AMD's desktop plans come Thoroughbred and ClawHammer. Both are on the same early 2002 schedule AMD announced last fall.
CmdrTaco should do a "make sense" check before he posts stories. It's well past early 2001.