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Clawhammer to be 1/2 size of P4
selectspec writes "According to this news, AMD's 64bit ClawHammer will be roughly the same size as the Athlon, making it about 1/2 size of Intel's P4." Lookit them there transistors. They're so tiny.
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You AMD fanboys have a sad misunderstanding of the world. Intel has many times the fab capacity of AMD.
Running at 100% production, AMD has about 21% marketshare. They can't steal any marketshare without building more fabs. Building fabs takes time and lots and lots of money. Therefore, unless Intel's sales nosedive, AMD is stuck at ~20% share for a while.
When designing a system, you really design towards the typical number. That's what you expect to see most of the time. You have to design to be able to handle the max power number, but usually only for short periods of time.
AMD parts have much smaller variances between typical and max, typically only a couple of watts. Basically, they run at full power constantly.
The 7200 was a second generation powermac with a PCI bus and a ppc 601 soldered on the motherboard.
But where are they going to store the 4 ounces of chedder cheese they use for L2 cache?
IRNI
Any idea just what this will provide except for possibly lower power consumption and less heat?
You say you want a revolution....
Actually, the first-generation PPC (601) could run 68K apps faster than the fastest Quadra. And not even the fastest 601. My 7200/75 with a 1-MB cache posts better benchmarks in 68K mode than the Quadra 840AV.
Even better. This seems to be pretty solid evidence of the Pentaveret, a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world.
F.O. Dobbs
Apple dealt with this problem by not putting FPU emulation in the 68K emulator. This killed off all the engineering apps, and another market segment was lost by the Mac.
Then those developers should have gotten off their lazy asses and rewritten their apps to take advantage of the PowerPC (as all serious developers eventually did). Instead they set a nice example for Be, who threw a tantrum and quit developing for the Mac because Apple didn't hold their hands every step of the way.
Side note: I really wansn't expecting my post to get modded up. Since Rob racheted up moderating, it seems you can fart on Slashdot and gain karma these days.
the Ball-Peen Hammer.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Actually, I didn't expect to get modded up - I was just trying to help prove the point from the parent post...
:)
Besides, I don't work for Microelectronics Division
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Usually that means 105mm per side:
<- 105 mm ->
^
|
105mm
|
v
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
A Pentium 150 *would* be plenty, as long as the user didn't want to use any recent software...
Even *playing* an MP3 on a system that slow takes up a significant percentage of the CPU time. The speed is absolutely needed, it just takes a little while for the applications to catch up to the hardware. Real time 3D, Voice Recognition, etc all gets *real easy* when you're working with a 4GHz Clawhammer with an NVidia GEforce 4 and SB Live++
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Ok but hang on, 133 x 2.5 = 332.5? and the p4 bus is what? 400MHz..
when everything is working perfectly.. BREAK SOMETHING before something else FUCKS up!
Smaller manufacturing process means less heat for same frequency. Not necessarily smaller die size. For example, the Duron is known to run 4-5 degrees C warmer than the Athlon at the same frequency. How could this be so? Well, the athlon has more area to dissipate heat through. The duron core is so tiny that it has trouble transmitting all that heat through the tiny surface area. A solution to this is to use a metal heat transfer plate which is physically bonded to the packaging, like is used on the P4, and the K6 series. I beleive AMD will have to use this when it goes to .13 micron.
So when 64bit applications are in mass production (there's already efforts by...the Linux community and I'm guessing the *BSD community...
Sigh.. You know, linux is already 64bit ready and runs very well on Alpha, UltraSparc, PA-RISC, PowerPC-64, and maybe a couple of others. FreeBSD runs on Alpha, but I dont know how well. I wonder if you know what it takes to make an application "64bit". Would you be surprised, even dumbfounded, to learn that all it takes is a recompilation? That's right.. fire up gcc and whamo, you've got a 64bit app. Wow.. It's like magic.
Of course when you write spaghetti code that is really disgusting to look at and contains assembly in odd places, you're not going to be able to just recompile for 64bits. I think Microsoft is what I'm referring to. They've had NT out for Alpha for how long... and they still can't get it to run on Itaniun without x86 compatability unit? Har..
Spec isn't a CPU test anymore. It's not a CPU, Memory bus test.
It breaks down like this with spec. On spec subtests that stress only the cpu the athlon is faster by about 10-20%. On tests that are limited by the memory bus, the P4 is faster by about 40-50%. So when you add it all up, it looks like intel gave amd a good whalloping. In reallity, the P4 just streams data faster, and can work around latency issues by prefetching data from main memory before it knows that a cache lookup has actually missed (saving maybe 10-20 cycles.)
"Computer-intensive" applications covers the gamut. AMD kicks ass on some, intel on others. And as regards spec - if amd had a 30million dollar compiler writing team, I bet they could up their spec scores by at least 75 to 90 points.
Át the risk of losing karma d/t being "offtopic", thank you for your thank you -- that's a rarity too. :)
-Joe G.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
ÕÕ
ÕÕ
they use nanobits!
During the presentation CEO W.J. Sanders III presented a few interesting slides which compare the die sizes of the Athlon and P4 at both the 18 and 13 micron process, plus their new processor roadmap and projected performance of the clawhammer vs. P4 (guess which one wins?). I've mirrored them here so you don't have to watch the whole hour long presentation. If your into AMD though it is actually an watch.
Sanders jokes about hating the blue men (who doesn't?) notes that if you had bought intel stock 2 years ago you'd have 0 earnings, but if you'd bought AMD you'd have made over %200. And on the topic of this disucssion, he extols the Atholn's much smaller die size (the P4 is 1.8x bigger than the Athlon) AMD can get much higher yeilds, and therefore sell at a much lower price.
To those who keep shouting about heat and heatsinks, take note that AMD is planning on licensing these chips to component manufacturers and the like -- and while it's not like video cards and such haven't been known to have heatsinks and fans, it's unlikely that you'll see more than one card in your computer that needs a fan on it -- case temperature would get prohibitively high.
And I'd have to like the claw hammer in a head to head competition.
t
The p4 truly is a "worst CPU ever" contender. Whatever the clockspeed, they're still a generation behind with it. Not even the blue man group can save their asses with this one.
Well, at least we agree that Rambus is a joke at the current prices.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
Just a correction, on intel's site the PIII 1.13 is supposed to be released again in Late Q2/Early Q3 and there is some newfangled FCPGA2 that abit is selling on their new boards (ST6) that I can't find any info about on Intel's site. So maybe the PIII isn't dead yet.
Read my plan to save the Bengals
shouldn't the patent for x86 be running out soon?
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
The 64bit chip is smaller than a Pentium too. And a 486 for that matter.
;-)
You know, you could make living out of that in Hollywood!!
Each of the new procs will ship with a golden orb fan included, and a coupon for a major discount on a water cooling system! They also said that they fully expect 40% of AMD proc consumers to build custom cooling solutions for their own machines... ;)
I tried to violate a quantum mechanic once, but she slapped me.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Intel's already stated that when it hit's 2Ghz the form factor will change.
Don't forget about Intel's marketing power as well. They will continue to play on the publics perception of "more is better" with the release of higher clock rates with a chip that cycle for cycle can't compete with AMD.
I feel sorry for the Intel engineers who are obviously being told to cater to the publics perception rather than build a better product. Just another example of what happens when big business doesn't listen to people who actually build the product.
It's almost akin to the 70s-80s car market situation. Detroit was king and nobody was going to tell them how to build a car. They kept cranking out big iron while their market shares fell with the idea that, we know what the American public wants. Sadly for Detroit they learned that the American consumer (and pretty much all others as well) will buy what works best for them and not what big business dictates
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
First off, shutup. the ppro did NOT run 32bit code twice as fast, more like 20% faster. second, win95 was out at that time and EVERYONE was writeing 32bit code.
Second, the P4 was crippled to conserve costs. The P4 is TOO slow per clock to keep up if it weren't for intels marketing power.
Third, the P4 will NEVER hit 10Ghz, it will Never hit 4Ghz. It MIGHT make it to 3Ghz. Intel plans a transition to 64bit before 2006, 10Ghz isn't planned 5Ghz till 2005 and then will end the 32bit line of chips probably before they hit 6Ghz. Thats IF chips aren't radically different by then. oh, and the p3 should hit 1.5Ghz(tehnma or whatever codename they are using now)
no no , no no. Intel Can't undercut AMD on costs because the die size for the P4 will still be larger than the athlon and intel still has ties to RAMBUS unfortunately. They have HUGE manufacturing capacity but they are not transitioning to cheaper methods , jsut smaller, also, AMD dresden was built with the intent to go to .13 very soon so the upgrade will be cheap compared to upgrade one of intels plants. Austin may be expensive but not as expensive as an intel plant either because they planned on .13 when they upgraded the .18 for the athlon.
I like AMD as well, the p3 was a great chip, but it was built with intel being cocky, not thinking AMD would compete so well. the p4 is a dissapointment, crippled from the beginning. I think intel knows what they are doing so they will compete very strongly for a long while, but now AMD is top dog, and unlike intel, they had to bust some A*s*s* to get where they are fighting an uphill battle against a monopoly. Intel has the muscles and the marketing power, but AMD has the heart and the fanbase. it will be fun to watch, and to see the processor speed soar from competition :)
"this is all imho, not woo be taken seriously"
Apples mistake was not going to a radically new architecture, it was going specifically to the powerPC. this was not a mistake at the time of coarse, but if they could have seen the future more clearly. i think:
:-)
:-)
apple should have stayed SCSI
(ok this is expensive but it was just plan cool)
apple should have gone ALPHA risc
(cause alphas could scale WELL beyond the PowerPC, and they were much faster per clock)
apple should have done something intuitive when asked to put a second mouse button on.
apple should have gone next or beos when they thought of it, BeOS kicks !!
and apple should have never lost the education market.
btw, dresden is @ %50 capacity, AMD can cover about 35% market share at funn capacity, just thought you should know
i think the point was that tunnelling currents are now something that is being considered as the next hurdle instead of someday we will make chip that are 200nanometers accross(like 486 days) now we are just below the size and we have the same norrow look ahead BUT at lease the old sci-fi is comming true :-) btw, where is my flying car?
ahh, the first to see the light :-)
1:
the hammer series will run 32bit significantly faster than current 32bit chips.
2:
AMD uses a fairly up-to-date implementation of the x86 codeset, especially compared to the aging p3 line
3.Lots of people use linux
4.didn't you know? MS is also developing hammer native versions of XP.
5. no, i didn't buy a PPro to run 3.11, oh wait, i didnt even buy a PPro at all, i liked my AMD DX5 120Mhz thank you very much!
6. Leave Cmndr Taco alone, he is a hero damn it!
7. intel didnt inovate for 9 years(p6), and now their inovation commes when there are 2billion x86 PCs on the planet and no one wants to buy new software.
8.did i mention that LOTS of people use linux / BSD, and that linux is the fasted growing OS? i use linux, in fact unless im wrong on this, slashdots servers are on a *nix like OS?(netBSD?)
9.glitzy 64bit extentions are bad? i think its a VERY inovative way to maintain compatability AND still increase performance.
10.Hammer will run win95, win98, win2000, winXP, winnt.etc win 32bit mode with a significate spead boost.
an electron has width, fundemental law of physics, anything with any mass has demention, the electrons have virtually no mass, but "virtually" not "literally" there is some thing there, therefore there is width. and thats the whole point tunneling isn't going to happen until we are using a MUCH smaller scale.
a:
yes
b:
the whole point of the lawsuit that allowed AMD (and others)to use x86 stated that there is a fixed price, and that that fixed price is relatively low to allow for fair competition.
ok, so i didn't say x86-64 or even AA64 applications, but I think you can tell where I'm going, trying to be technical here isn't gonna win you points in my book... I know that there's 64bit Alpha chips out there, 128bit Sun chips, etc, etc, etc, but I'm talking about 64bit apps for x86! And yeah, I know it takes just a recompilation to make a 32bit app 64bits unless it's pure asm with things like: mov eax, [blah] vs. mov rax, [blah] ;; see www.sandpile.org
but i'm talking kernel wise... and my guess is that MOST kernels for today's well known desktop/workstation/server/etc OSes don't use pure C/C++, or if they do, they *WILL* lose some needed speed that only comes from assembler (regardless of the level of compiler optimization today)!
well that depends... it's not an all new instruction set like the Itanium, it still has mov, push, pop, movsx, movzx, ... but it extended them, if you want to know more, click the "x86-64" link on www.sandpile.org . Hope that helps :)
As to the new core, it's certainly not the K5, and the K6's FPU wasn't pipelined, so it's certainly not that one either, so either it's athlon based, or completely new... With the fact it's got 16 new GPR's (again, see sandpile for details) and they're all 64bits, I'm thinking it's gonna be a new core...
Damn, Dude!!! I nearly choked to death while eating my lunch and browsing /. when I read your "clamwhammer" comment.
Seriously wasn't there a Clamwhammer 2000 marketed by Ronco http://shop.ronco.com/ a couple of years ago?
Thanks for the laugh!
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[an error occurred while processing this directive]
They had virtually no saturation in the corporate business market, so there was nothing substantial to lose. And what they did have, they lost because there was awkwards backwards compatibility so it was a good time to transition back to the good old trusty x86 architecture.
Yeah, apple never ceases to amaze me about how many of their own feet they have put bullet holes into.
Right now I miss my BX board, and unless AMD starts making their own chipsets, or they get 3rd parties to make damn good ones, nobody will put the hammer series to any good use.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Also, already back then AMD made smaller chips, my AMD 5x86 (a 486 class CPU) is just a little chip on a big circuit-board that makes it fit in a normal 486 socket. (Though I admit it was probably made a lot later than the first 486s..)
And of course the industrial-strength jackhammer.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
Price/performance ratio. Tell me how you can put together a multicpu Ultrasparc box for under $1000. Or a single cpu power pc system without paying the appletax(tm). I'm not AMD loyal, they just happen to be the best as far as performance for price.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
The ClawHammer will be cheaper than Durons are currently. Not at the initial release, but once things have calmed down.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
Then enjoy your Cyrix cpu. I suppose you don't drive a car either, considering how hot the engines get. Heck if it wasn't for the radiator the engine would melt.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
Kentucky Fried Thunderbirds.
munch munch munch.
Does this come in extra crispy?
Is this right? Over at Firing Squad they did a huge slew of benchmarks and at best the P4 was equivalent to a slower clocked AMD chip. Where are you getting your info? Or are you just looking at very specialized applications?
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/pentium4170 0/default.asp
Joe Consumer was the FIRST to know that MHz didn't matter! It's people who live in the real world who know that what matters is fast internet connections, large monitors, long battery life and ergonimic I/O. For human beings who just use their PCs for e-mail, web, word processing, downloading MP3s and occasionally ripping MP3s, a Pentium 150 is plenty. It's us nerds who keep harping on about GHz, L2 cache, DDR, Rambus, and Altivec.
With your new Thunderbird that runs at 66 watts, you can make Athlon Fried Chicken.
This article has a few problems, not the least of which is that the clawhammer isn't really in any way related to the P4. It won't be out for a while, and by that point the P4 may be the same size again, and also the P4 and the Clawhammer aren't even competitors in any real sense. Maybe if they compared the Itanium to the Clawhammer it might be an accurate comparison, but even then there's more to that decision than chip size or cost. The Itanium is a pure 64bit chipset with a new instruction set from which the legacy garbage from the old 8 bit x86's from the early 80's has been removed, the clawhammer is not, and still contains those same annoying problems. Also the assumption made later in this thread about merely recompiling is not completely correct, true you will be able to make 32 bit programs run merely by recompiling them on a 64 bit environment, but that doesn't mean they'll be optimized for 64 bit, or that they'll be taking advantage of the technology available.
I use AMD, and I am glad to see that they are heading in the right direction. Pentium 3 was a ok chip and the p4 was a disappointment for me. AMD is definitely a better chip, in my opinion.
Well, if you are right and they did mean 105 mm**2, then the chip is 1.25 cm x 1.25 cm (10.25mm) That's a wee bit smaller than anything I've heard of, so I'd have to guess that the chip really is 4in*4in (so is a P4 8"x8"??)
I don't think size really matters in a desktop system. I want a processor to be fast as well as inexpensive, and while I understand that a smaller chip means a slower travel time for electrons, does that really make a difference?
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Get Win2K B3, it run on Alpha, or tel Compaq to convince MS to restore Win2K on Alpha. It was Compaq's insistance that cause Win2K-Alpha to be discontinued.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
As a note, MS is neutral on this war, XP will support both Intel & AMD 64 Chips.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
My main problem with AMD is that I can ruin my CPU just by *using* it.
The P4 termal throtteling is a *Good Thing(tm)*.
When P4's speed goes down, an AMD would *melt*.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
http://www.sourcemagazine.com/csm/Forum1/HTML/0000 06-2.html
Watch out for that annoying space, AC.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5753893.html? tag=lthd
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
I don't intend to test this claim!
-mazor
Worst episode ever!
I'm searching for a laptop that runs AMD. The best I've found is something that does 800x600.
What happened to all the high-end AMD based laptops?!?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
actually, if the P4 is double the size, it would make it something equivelant to 4" X 8"
(I didn't feel like figuring out the numbers to the nth decimel place to make the two sides equal, sorry...)
at the same time. Pretty cool - a 64 bit chip that is smaller by 10% than a 32 bit chip. I remember when intel sued some engineers of theirs. That's what you get when marketing gets out of hand...
Unless I'm mistaken the ClawHammer will also run 32-bit code, and it's supposed to do it very well. So it's not following the same path as the PPro. You can get your 64-bit chip and still run your 32-bit apps. As a side note, I believe the Itanium _only_ runs 64 bit code, which seems to follow right PPro's footsteps.
Do you remember the original PIII? GOD DID IT SUCK! My friend had a p3 500, and it was nothing compared to the coppermine 667 I bought 4 months later. It wasn't the speed so much as the quality of the chip
Intel rushed P4. I will admit that. But think about it: The northwood chip, second generation P4, will probably be excellent. Besides, as was pointed out previously, it's new set of instructions will become implemented in new programs such as Win XP.
As for RIMMs... I rather like my pc133 CAS 2 Latency RAM... but that's RAMBUS for you.
well thats great that its smaller, but if amd cant make their processors cooler, then im still not buying an amd
-
No, they're not violating the laws of physics by making it smaller. And sorry to shatter your entire arguement, but silicon isn't a conductor... hence no need for a "non-silicon" composite around it. Did you forget about the substrate?
Please do not interfere in Slashdot's gay love affair with AMD.
I enjoy your FUD, so let me play with it the way you play with your caca.
First of all, calling the P4 "slow" is rather strange considering it's only a few percentage points off the fastest chip in the market.
Second, it "overheats" in the exact same way the Athlon overheats - in inproper installations. Except the Athlon fries itself and the P4 doesn't. You guys should stop bringing this up - it's embarassing. Actually, anything x86 is a big fucking kludgy hotplate monster compared to PPC, so lets none us bring that up.
Third, having a bunch of useless 64-bit circuts in a consumer-bound chip is the definition of a marketing kludge. Another embarassing point, so stop bringing it up. (I have respect for the folks that are going to run a native OS on this chip - everyone else is effectively just sizing dicks - as in 64 is twice as big as 32, no matter that the Windows ME packin still runs partially in real mode.)
Ask mac G4 overclockers (www.xlr8yourmac.com). IIRC, the G4 has been SOI for a while now...
How'd they allow that info to be leaked to the public? Don't they know that by revealing the dimensions of their new processor before it's released, they're just feeding their competition with information that can be used to make an identical chip -- and perhaps even release it before AMD can? Things like the length and width of the chip are valuable trade secrets that should never be public knowledge.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
(emphasis mine) duh?
DNA just wants to be free...
Intel is on the ropes and only by tuning small parts of the core OS to run at the "marketed speed" can they keep fooling the public into thinking it's a faster chip.
AMD learned that the public thinks clock-speed is the measuring stick back when they had faster chips at lower clock speeds. They now make sure their clock speed outperforms Intels at equal speeds but Intel realized this too and played tricks with how it spec's it's speeds.....
The internet is now very pervasive and Intels tricks are being exposed daily. It is time to sell Intel stock. IMHO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The thing that hurt the Pentium Pro was the fact the CPU core was over-optimized for 32-bit code, so the Pentium Pro 200 MHz ran Windows 95/98 like a Pentium 166 MHz CPU.
I believe Intel tweaked the P6 core of the Pentium Pro when it was adapted for the Pentium II core, so it ran 16-bit code quite a bit faster. It's the Pentium II core that became the basis for the Celeron and Pentium III CPU's.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
The idea is, if your fan breaks, your Pentium4 won't melt, it'll just run a little slower. Don't try that with your Athlon!
my motherboard has temp sensors(as do most motherboards these days), that will give a warning beep and eventually shut down the pc.
some motherboards/software even clock your fan RPMs so if it's 0, it will tell you.
And their SMP-optimised server version will be named "Sledgehammer."
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Is it me or is there a strong familial resemblance between Jerry Sanders and Colonel Sanders? Maybe the Colonel faked his own death to take over AMD? Think about it.
F.O. Dobbs
AMD is a smaller, more nimble company than Intel; it is easier for them to adopt new manufacturing processes (or new anything for that matter). As long as AMD doesn't outgrow itself it should be able to beat Intel to the punch quite often.
> Third, having a bunch of useless 64-bit circuts
> in a consumer-bound chip is the definition of a
> marketing kludge.
No.
There are some people who need 64-bit addressing. Hammer is going to be the cheapest, fastest 64-bit CPU around. Some people are going to notice that and take advantage of it.
Also, the 64-bit "long mode" has advantages other than just providing 64-bit operations. It provides double the number of general purpose registers, and also a new "IP-relative" addressing mode that will make shared library code smaller and faster. Many apps should run faster in this mode even if they don't need a 64-bit address space. Some people are going to take advantage of that too.
Finally, it will take a while for stuff to get ported to long mode. Even if most people aren't using the mode, it's great to have it available to developers.
nuff said
Best Slashdot Co
GIMPS is the distributed project which searches for very large prime numbers. The software used, Prime95, has been widely hailed as the most efficient FFT program ever written for the x86 architecture. The writer, George Woltman, recently posted that latest timing for the P4 version of the FFT code:
Gee. Over 2.5 times faster. From what I can see, the deal with Intel is that they have the fastest mass-market processor on the planet, but it's going to take awhile for the software industry to catch up.
Tunneling effects won't be important until you reach barrier widths of around 50 Angstroms.
Ummm, have you seen what the gate oxide thicknesses are on these transistors? We are talking about 20-30 Angstroms. That would be the barrier width for the gate to channel, and yes, we do see tunnelling currents. There are many other issues to be dealt with, but yes, we do have tunnelling problems at the levels we are running today, that is why Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling models are now standard on device simulation packages. No, it isn't a bunch of crap, people just apply it to the wrong dimension.
Thats actually what I thought at first, too. Then I looked it up here. The little box with "Clawhammer" in it also says "w/ x86-64 technology", which is their way of saying "it runs 64-bit." It's just made for 1-2 processor configurations, while the Sledgehammer is for bigger SMPs (like up to 8).
Would that be the same stupid stick that has been going around Microsoft for the last few years?
Oh, no, the Mac fanatics...
The big problem was the FPU. The 68K family has an 80-bit FPU, but the PPC only has a 64-bit FPU. (That was an IBM thing; IBM mainframes had a 64-bit FPU, and so when they did a RISC machine...) Apple dealt with this problem by not putting FPU emulation in the 68K emulator. This killed off all the engineering apps, and another market segment was lost by the Mac. The mainstream engineering apps, like AutoCAD and various electronic desigh tools, were never ported to PPC.
Yes, there was a software FPU emulator, but it was really slow and Apple didn't support it.
I still keep a Mac IIci around so I can run Working Model.
The PII was actually slower than the PPro when it first came out in a very real sense (they had to sacrifice the PPro's nice cache to fit in the MMX stuff).
This is demonstrated to a point by the fact that the Pentium II Overdrive (PII that fits in the PPro's Socket 8) at 333 MHz is actually faster than a "Real" Pentium II at 333 MHz.
Ian
Yeah, he threatens 'em with a ten inch claw hammer.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So what you're saying is, it's like a PowerPC; It's got a new instruction set, and it's 64 a true 64 bit architecture, but it handles x86 instructions as well, probably through some mutated sliced-up K5 or K7 core (why would they even try to use the K6?) kind of like PPC would run 68k instructions.
I'm very interested in seeing the classic "Compare and Contrast" between IBMotorola's way of doing this :) and AMD's. Does anyone have any input on that?
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Q4 '03: Holy Hand Grenade
Q1 '04: Chip that says "neeee!"
Once again, proving the stereotype that geeks always quote Monty Python.
CNet response: "..square, round. Whatever...."
Blarf.
You are correct: a large number of motherboards have thermal sensors that connect to the fan's voltage regulator.
However, the time it takes for the off-die sensor to respond to on-die overheating is far too long (on the order of msec). This lag in the off-die feedback loop makes it essentially useless as a thermal control device for CPUs, especially when we're in the gigahertz-plus operating frequencies.
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Yet again, AMD shows that a little engineering can go a loooong way. I can't wait to see the benchmark results for the clawhammer. Am I the only one to notice that intel's been choking incredibly hard latlely? Look at the P4 mobo requirements. An Additional 6 volt AND 12 volt connectors. REQUIRES a copper plate between CPU and Aluminium fins on the heat sink. Heat sink needs to be BOLTED to the chasis. Am I the only one to think Intel's just given up trying any more?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Actually what I think ought to be pointed out is not just size and heat issues, but the fact that it is 64bits and still fully compatible with x86 as it stands today... So when 64bit applications are in mass production (there's already efforts by M$, the Linux community and I'm guessing the *BSD community too) they'll naturally be faster & more efficient than the current instruction set... I mean you can now manipulate 64bits at one time rather than just 32bits, and all without touching an MMX &/or SSE register!
http://www.tech-report.com/cpu/
Somehow, I manage to keep my overclocked K7-1050 at a relatively cool 42C, but I have the feeling that it could vaporise an ice cube in five seconds if I were to remove the heatsink.
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Probably, but AMD really needs to come up with a marketing campaign that drives home the point that raw MHz does NOT mean raw performance. We geeks know AMD blows the PIII away and puts the P4 in a column with an asterisk (* "until apps are optimized")
That said - just got our new 1GHz 266FSB Athlon server going with IBM Ultrastar SCSI disks. Oh my lord! What a sweet setup. I cannot believe a top line mobo (A7V133) with a 1GHz Athlon (266FBS) cost me about $300. I've never seen Perl and apache compile so fast - and I've got a 700MHz Athlon (non TBird) SCSI based desktop.
Go AMD Go!
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rather, it's how you use those cycles...
yeah, baby..
This is great, but how about a high quality MP chipset? -ted
Smaller transistor sizes may mean less heat but a smaller chip size is no guarantee. For instance the current Thunderbird is smaller than the P4 but generates more heat than the P4.
As for the less stuff in the waffer vibrating argument, that doesn't really make any sense. The smaller the transistors the higher the gate density and thus the more stuff per unit area vibrating.
The advantage is what you said in your first sentence, lower voltage requirements. With smaller transistors you can operate at lower voltages. The problem is that you can also use higher densities. Thus while heat generated per transistors drops, you have more transistors per unit area and overall heat production rises. This is why the PIII at 106 mm^2 (28+ million transitors) generates more heat than a Pentium which was 161 mm^2 (3+ million transistors). You can realize a temperature drop my spreading the transistors out but then you lose the second advantage of transistor size, yield rate. As you increase the densisty your die size shrinks which causes an increase in yield (the majority of garbage chips are caused by substrate imperfections).
Anyway, by the time AMD releases this thing the P4 will be on 0.13 micron tech as well giving it a size of 116 mm^2. Not much different than the AMD size of 105 mm^2.
Myrv
Intel should pray that their transition is as smooth as Apple's 68k->PPC changeover; I don't think it will be. Apple really made that work as well as possible. In fact, Apple seems to be pretty good at that: the MacOS9->MacOSX transition looks like it's going OK as well.
105mm square is larger than any chip that I've ever heard of... that's four inches per side; I can only presume that they meant to say 105 square millimeters.
Duron is currently 100mm (al) while Athlon is 120mm (cu).. That the Clawhammer is 105mm doesn't seem that impressive given the shrink from .18 to .13 SOI. Especially since the PentiumIV will be down to 116mm (rumor: and possibly have an upgrade from 256K L2 to 512K L2 cache!) The fact that the Athlon is currently half the size of the PentiumIV and is overall slightly faster is (was) news worthy. The fact that the clawhammer is going to only be 91% of the size of the PentiumIV isn't really a big deal. Just because the PentiumIV takes 10% more die space isn't going to add up to much, especially since Intel has much more than 10% more fab space to throw at it.
According to Ace's Hardware's 2001 shareholder's meeting coverage the Clawhammer will be introduced 2nd half of 2002. Anybody want to guess at what "But it will deliver more than three times the clock speed of the first Athlon..." means?
According to sandpile the first Athlon was introduced on a .25 process at 500, 550, and 600Mhz Jun 23rd 1999, but went up to 700Mhz by Oct 4th before switching to a .18 micron process.
I guess this means the clawhammer, with its .13micro SOI manufacturing and architectural enhancements over a standard K7, will reach atleast 1.5Ghz 2H 2002? I should hope so!
2Ghz seems like a better low end guess for clock speed, but it'll probably be closer to 2.5Ghz than 2..
Electrons don't have width. They are fundamental point particles (to our best knowledge).
Tunneling will become an issue roughly when you're within a couple of angstroms of the surface (~ radius of a hydrogen atom or so).
It's highly unlikely that electron tunneling will ever be a problem - if you ever build a chip that electron tunneling might be a concern on, I guarantee you're going to have defects in that chip that short two of the wires, rather than needing to worry about electron tunneling. Without major overhauls in process control, this just won't happen.
On topic: AMD *has* had massive screwups with their processors - it just isn't advertised as it doesn't affect most people. Except me, of course - I have an old AMD-K6 200 with the bug that causes it to be unstable with >32MB of RAM. Happy day.
Though it should be noted that AMD did offer to replace these processors- I just didn't know about it till I got Linux, and it told me.
Regular structures like memory can (and are) be made with redundancy. When the die is checked any defective rows are identified and a laser cuts predefined tracks to route the memory interface to the functioning rows.
Since memory make up a significant part of a modern CPU this improves yield quite a bit.
Also I believe some designs have been able to cut out non-functioning ALUs so they can use those dies for low cost versions.
Once they start cranking these babies out at
I expect they can yeild ~15,000 functional units per 30cm wafer (about 21,000mm2).
Let's see the obligitory cluster of these!!!
-Joe
*Note to moderators: This entire post is humor.
Hardware engineers are usually Electrical Engineers and have taken quite a few physics courses, especially if they want to go into this type of design. At the same time these people need to look into high frequency radar type classes so they can do all the impedance and transmission line calculations. When this stuff starts happening your program crashes. Not even Linux can overcome those type of obstacles.
On a side note. Even if AMD does really well and Intel eventually loses the majority of the market share on X86, Intel still wins because AMD has to pay Intel for the patent use on X86.
Trust me when I say you are not smarter than them.
Would Cnet write an article that states AMD will release a processor in 2 years that is 2x as fast as the current P4? I doubt it....who cares about comparing future size/speed/etc to current standards. We all know things get faster and smaller.
ÕÕ
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Since when have Intel processors been gracefull? Also, they have better luck at actually #producing# the chips they say they can. My Athlon hasn't been recalled, and that's more than you can say about the P!!!. Also, what's the deal with supposedly next gen CPUs that perform the same or worse than previous gen CPUs in some benchmarks? Seems that with your beloved SSE and higher clock speed, things don't get any better. Maybe Intel needs something with raw processing power that's priced in the consumer range (and no, Xeon's are not priced in the consumer range).
Not only that, but I recall an article a while back about AMD moving to making chips out of just the isotope of silicon that conducts heat better; it claimed they had a Duron made that way running fine using just a heat sink. My ears will thank them...
Thank God we have AMD!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
You mentioned the PPC chip - with each successive generation of the PPC, it's made a jump in power and performance. Usually, the jump is pretty significant, like with the G3 to the G4 and the 601 to the 604.
Intel used to be able to produce those kinds of results - like the 286 to 386 to 486 to pentium. But then they seem to have petered out - the PPro stunk, even in 32 bit mode, compaired to its OWN design spec. It was strangled by really bad memory bandwidth and heat thrown off by the cache. The PII was actually slower than the PPro when it first came out in a very real sense (they had to sacrifice the PPro's nice cache to fit in the MMX stuff). The PIII was basically a fix for the PII, for all I can tell - it has some more spiffy instructions that no one seems to use for anything, and they put a decent cache back in, like with the late PII models.
I'm not an expert, but that seems to be how things played out, more or less. I'm just surprised Intel is still faltering when they've got so much talent on their payrole.
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In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
This news post and the title seems biased towards AMD. By the time the Clawhammer is widely available, both Intel P4 and AMD will be of more or less same size. The size of of P4 will be 116 millimeters square to that Clawhammer's 105 millimeters square. I don't see anything unique to what is being done by AMD (well may be the cost is unique, but Intel is also cutting down now thanks to AMD).
I recall that on a typical wafer as made many years ago, the waste of nonfunctional CPUs was some absurd percentage. I wonder what it is with these things?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
You're being misleading.
First, this is a realiability mechanism in addition to the catastrophic failure sensor. AMD has neither of these features!!! The idea is, if your fan breaks, your Pentium4 won't melt, it'll just run a little slower. Don't try that with your Athlon! This is an advantage over the other sensor, which has been around since Pentium II days: it shuts down the CPU when it gets too hot so you can reboot (AMD also doesn't have that protection). So instead of a bluescreen or system hang it just gets slower. That's a BIG difference over AMDs crap, um, parts.
Also, this throttling thingy toggles a pin on the package when active, and Tom Pabst nor Annandtech has ever seen a P4 enter this slow mode on any benchmarks.
As for the power, you forgot to check Athlon's maximum power rating in their data sheet.
1333 70 W 63 W 95 C
That's 70 W at 1.33 MHz. Not too shabby if the P4 operates at 1.5 at the same power as Athlon, when you consider scaling athlon to 1.5 would put it at ~78.9 W.
Also notice the games AMD plays: they measure power at 95 C junction temp!!, Intel is at 90, AMD uses 42 C Ambient case!!, intel uses 45. This means Intel is far more conservative then AMD, which obviously is barely on the edge of spec'ing a reliable thermal envelope with those numbers.
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What about the handheld device version, the tackhammer?
Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
I wonder how the chips made with the new .13 micron spec hold up when overclocked? I would imagine that there's less tolerance for variations. Also, the SOI...I wonder how well THAT would tolerate overclocking. Might there be a bit of trouble with heat transfer from one layer to another that gets worse when you're running it very hot with a very cold surface above it, as is done with a peltier?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
The P4 probably has many flaws, but for compute-intensive applications, the fastest P4 is significantly faster than the fastest Athlon. If you haven't benchmarked it yourself, check out the benchmarks at spec.org.
and instructions designed to improve internet connect speed to their Pentium 4
The Pentium4 is your modem or NIC now? So bascially, I can just screw DSL and stick with my 28.8 and get faster internet access? Jesus, you're a retard!
AMD's practice of brute force processing is innefficient and wasteful.
Wow, I guess we no longer need faster processors, Beowulf clusters, and distributed computing since you say they're innefficient and wasteful.
It requires more power, and outputs more heat.
Uh no, we're talking about less power and less heat... smaller chips, smaller fabication...
Not only that, but AMD processors don't even have built-in thermal protection, so if their processor gets TOO hot, you'll end up burning out your processor.
Oh yes, it's more efficient to kill off clock cycles waiting for your processor to cool instead of making a chip that produces less heat or to use a... DAH-DUM-DADA... HEATSINK.
Your email address is a hotmail.com. No wonder.
Why bother.
We all know AMD's strategy is market share, not so much the margin. What this means is lower prices overall because intel will have to compete. Quit your whining about "intel's better" (besides they're not) and just be happy that there's some competition and a company like AMD fighting for better market share with a better product. If you only buy for clock cycles and name brand you're not make in intelligent purchase. Kudos AMD. If it wasn't for them processors would be half the current speed at twice the cost because of the lack of competition and the innovation needed to win at competition.
Beware blue cats moving at
Intel is pushing a very anemic P4, which can't keep up with an Athlon running a clock speed approx. 25% slower (at least on anything approaching real-world computer usage). On top of that they're getting ready to bet the company on the IA-64 architecture which is going to have more compatibility and conversion issues than you can count, even while it's competing with AMD's more nimble and better performing hammer series.
This horse race is just starting to get interesting...
Nobody is going to make the mistake Apple made when they went to PowerPC and had most apps (and for years, most of the OS) running in software emulation.
That wasn't a mistake; in fact I challenge you to name a more flawless example of a major technology transition. 99.99999% of the old m68k apps ran just fine on a powerpc, even better as the speed of the chips increaed. Neither did the legacy code noticably slow down most operations, that came from the lack of protected memory.
They're comparing sizes of an in-production chip made on a .18 micron process to one that WILL be made on a .13 micron process. A P4 on the .13 process is approximately the same size as the Clawhammer.
Sigh...
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To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
I quote from the arcticle:
"Intel's forthcoming 0.13-micron Pentium 4 chip, code-named Northwood, is expected to be about 116 millimeters square, much smaller than current 0.18-micron chips' 217 millimeters square."
It's a perfectly fair comparison: Pentium 4 is 116 mm square on 0.13 technology, Clawhammer is 105 mm square.
Sure the difference isn't that great, but it's the simple fact that the P4 is a 7th generation, 32-bit only chip, while Clawhammer is 8th generation, with 32- and 64-bit capability. And it's STILL smaller.
If I had points, I'd mod this way up...
/ soi/">
/ &l t;/A>
From < A HREF="http://www.chips.ibm.com/bluelogic/showcase
http://www.chips.ibm.com/bluelogic/showcase/soi
"SOI technology improves performance over bulk CMOS technology by 25 to 35%, equivalent to two years of bulk CMOS advances. SOI technology also brings power use advantages of 1.7 to 3 times. IBM is currently working with many circuit designers and product groups that are designing with SOI technology. The company expects SOI to eventually replace bulk CMOS as the most commonly used substrate for advanced CMOS in mainstream microprocessors and other emerging wireless electronic devices requiring low power."
A power use adantage of 1.7 to 3 times... that's pretty nice. There's a good pdf on that site (linked from the page above). Read it.
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Ok ok, it's nice that it'll be smaller. What I want to know is what kind of heat is this generating? Sure the chip is half the size. But if the heatsink/fan? I mean the fact that a Pentium 4 requires a frickin heatsink that has to be attach to the case else it would rip the chip out is pretty damn silly. As has been mentioned before it's ultimately not the Mhz / Ghz that counts for raw performance. While I understand AMD and Intel's constant push for higher Mhz I think people need to be aware (by people I mean Joe Consumer) that there are other issues that are becoming much more important than the cpu. Graphics card... Hard drive speed / interface.
:-)
Pretty damn small chip though
S.t.e.v.e.
Now come on. By insulating the transistors from the rest of the silicon, you're dissipating less power. That's the whole point of SOI. I suppose we could petition the chip manufaturers to use germanium semiconductors, but you're more likely to lose the CPU without a good heatsink. Granted, it'll have more transistors, but they'll be smaller and dissipate less power because of the size. I think AMD might surprise us with this one. I didn't find anything about the actual power savings from SOI or moving to a smaller transistor, but I'd be willing to bet it'll dissipate the same amount of power as the current Athlon. I'd have to belive they're looking into this heavily; it's a big issue nowadays.
Speaking of Pintos, did you know that when Ford originally introduced the Pinto into Brazil, it sold *very* poorly. They couldn't figure out why until someone in the know explained it to them.
Pinto is Portugese slang for small male genitals. No joke.
Ford changed the name, and sales picked up substantially.
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What happens when a very powerful computer can be small (concealable)?
Well, you might not see that concealed 10Gig processor the size of a nail clipping. On the other hand, it might be a wee bit tougher hiding that car battery with the 1200 cranking amps to keep it going. What's worse, trying to get that darn liquid nitrogen tank hidden away.
You don't need super hi-tech to play big brother anyway. We have the income tax to monitor every penny you make. We have a phone system that congress okay'd nearly unlimited tapping abilities on. Low tech servers running at ISP's monitoring traffic for the FBI. Egads, we even have folks begging to have chips installed into our TV's to monitor "incorrect" programs for our children.
If you're going to be paranoid, at least do so concerning to those things that really are a danger to privacy. A faster/smaller chip isn't the concern. It's them bigger/slower governments that individuals need to be wary of.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Did someone hit them with a stupid stick?
If the ClawHammer is even a little bit cooler than the Thunderbird (like 15% more awsome), it'll just beat the pants off the P4.
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In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
That Clawhammer will be smaller than a P4 sounds nice, but not all that relevant to me in the near future (trying to be more trailing edge than bleeding edge in the interest of my wallet of late;)).
What does interest me is the idea that the equivalent to today's highest-end-and-beyond chips will be be smaller packages. OK, ok, that's an obvious point given the March of Progress thus far, right? But when it comes to *lower* powered devices, this is particularly cool, because they're going to be even smaller.
Remember, the power in an iPaq handheld would have been the Computer Buyer's Holy Grail not long ago, and it's only in comparison with the amazingly powerful processors available lo even at WalMart that it appears wimpy. Not long from now, you will be able to buy a computer over the salesperson's objection that "b-b-b-b-but that's only the power equivalent of a Pentium 4 at 3 Ghz! You'll never get Office 2004 to run on *that*!"
Really, though I like the convenience of the various plug-in buses of desktop PCs, I really wish my PC case could be more the size of a laptop, and getting processors, motherboards, etc smaller would be a nice step toward (at least household) ubiquity.
simon
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
Here's the comment from a Inquest white paper:
It's still on the ArsTechnica home page.
>They include AMD's plans to ship a 1.4GHz Athlon chip this quarter
Well, that chip is already available at the local computer store.(on the bottom of the page) 660 DM are about $300.
Jan
When scrolling quickly by, I though the subject of this article was a "clamwhammer". Boy, was that weird.
How many clams could a clamwhammer wham
if a clamwhammer could wham clams?
The technology in the new chip is not as new as everybody is pretending it is. Yes, everybody likes to think that small size means tunneling and violates some law of quantum mechanics they heard somewhere. It's all crap, I say. Tunneling effects won't be important until you reach barrier widths of around 50 Angstroms. The uncertainty principle is much stranger than you think, and they are currently working on a single electron transistor (strange, but true, and does not violate any quantum mechanics).
First, the small feature size quoted in the article has been researched for years. The main problem was the RC time delay. By cramming the devices so close together, the capacitance of the interconnects increased (remember, C~1/d). Since Al is usually used as an interconnect material (it plays nice with Si), there is a very high resistance (Al has 5x the resistivity of Cu) in traditional chips. That's why they started researching other materials, especially copper. Look up the dual damascene process for copper metalization, you will see the challenges involved. It's just exciting to see the small feature size finally released commercially. It means the technology is finally out of the research stage.
In crystal growth, it was nice to hear some discussion of the 12-inch "John Holmes" wafer.
Intel is now moving forward with the "Chips that can slice, maim, and render our competition's chips senseless" Naming Scheme. In keeping with that, here's the next few chips they plan to release:
Q3 '01: Hacksaw
Q1 '02: Whirling Razor
Q3 '02: Electron Accelerator with Mass de-Magnetizing eXtensions (MMX)
Q4 '02: Lightning Fast Invisble Microchip of Flaming Destruction
Q2 '03: Small Little Bunny Chip with Deceptively Sharp Pointy Teeth
They should compare AMD's 64-bit processor to Intel's 64-bit processor!
How big IS the Pentium 4 anyways? My claw hammer is about 10 inches long, to give me plenty of leverage when hammering nails. It also weighs in at right around a pound. Does this mean the Pentium 4 is about 20" across?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The Apple switch to PowerPC was one of the smartest and best examples of shaping up that has been done. Granted, there was a lot of software in emulation, but after a couple turns of the crank, that loss was more than gained back in raw speed.
Kind of like the FX!32 emulator for NT on Alpha. At the time it was out (and still supported), the emulated apps on the Alpha massively outperformed the same code running natively on the newest Intel hardware (PPro and early P-IIs).
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
So the PPC and the 68k were incompatable. Apple realized that they had to move onward and upward and the old 68k's weren't going to cut it, no way, no how. The PPC was what they needed, with the caveat that it was a totally different architecture. But the damned thing ran so much FASTER than the 68k that the second generation of PPC (603) was running 68k software *FASTER* than even the fastest Quadra could handle.
In this fashion, Apple was able to get a next generation processor to market, and maintain compatability with existing (and now horribly outdated) hardware.
HOW is that a *MISTAKE* ?
At this rate, I'm never going to be able to meet my old goal of using my CPU as a stove, or even a hot plate. I had high hopes for 3dfx, or possibly even nVidia... And I guess there's always intel.
I get hungry at work, damn it.
-Puk
Intel's "Inanium", as it's called in Silicon Valley, is a wierd and painful machine. If you liked programming the Sony PS2, you'll love the Itanium. Nobody likes VILW machines; it's what you do when you can't make a more friendly architecture work fast enough.
Intel's marketing operation, though, is getting design wins for the Inanium, even though that architecture needs a near-omniscient compiler to get good performance. Despite the drawbacks of the Itanium, it's going to get considerable market share.
Both machines still run old x86 code. Nobody is going to make the mistake Apple made when they went to PowerPC and had most apps (and for years, most of the OS) running in software emulation.
No, Intel just fucked up. Purely human error in designing the lookup tables for floating point division.
Uhhh... yeah. Last I checked AMD made some pretty damn good parts and always has. AMD's chips haven't always been performance leaders, but to my knowledge they haven't had quite the cavalcade of errors intel has (F00F anyone?).
Oh, and the part where you're rabbiting on about quantum tunneling, well, this is not a significant factor on the scale of a cpu. When the walls are the width of an electron, maybe... Even if an electron or two was heading south of the border, components are not triggered by one electron yet. Maybe in 50 years this will be a problem.
Mod me down for being harsh if you want, I'll still be right and I've got karma to burn.
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Sorry myamid, but you're the one who screwed up this time. :)
The Register: At the high end, ClawHammer will be AMD's first implementation of its 8th generation architecture. ClawHammer will feature the x86-64 technology aimed at rivalling Intel's IA-64 McKinley. Sampling in Q4 2001, ClawHammer will be SMP capable and go into production at the beginning of 2002.
Silicon Strategies: AMD also looks forward to bringing the 64-bit microprocessor generation to the desktop. A previously undisclosed version of AMD's 64-bit Hammer chip, Clawhammer, will begin sampling at the end of 2001 for desktops and server appliances and enter production in the first quarter of 2002. Sledgehammer, a 4- and 8-way capable part for servers, will sample in the first quarter of 2002 and ship a quarter later.
I'd link to more, but it's all reprintings of the same press release, more or less.
I disagree. Consider that a 64 bit chip is smaller than a 32 bit chip. That REALLY drives it home...
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REAL
SIG: HUP
There seem to be alot of comments here about heat and power consumption. This article isn't about heat or power; it's much more about cost. A smaller chip means more chips can be fit onto the same wafer and thereby bring down the cost of each chip.
Whether the consumer sees any real savings isn't certain. AMD could choose to take a higher profit margin on each chip and pass nothing on to us. Also, a smaller process invariably means more chips come out as duds (cosmic rays and whatnot).
But, a smaller chip isn't really meant to be a feature of a of a microprocessor, except in as much as it effects price. I think this was more of an announcement intended for the corporate/investment folks, not so much us.
-nostradorkmus
It's interesting to note that AMD is still about 3/4 of a release cycle ahead of Intel with regard to adoption of 0.13-micron manufacturing process. This is presumable a result of the relitive age of each companies manufacturing plants and the cost to retrofit rather than build new plants.
-- CTH
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