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.

Comments

Apples and oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

They should compare AMD's 64-bit processor to Intel's 64-bit processor!

Maybe this is a dumb question

[sharkey]

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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Re:Maybe this is a dumb question

[Jens]

"My claw hammer is about 10 inches"

So THAT is why you get all the chicks.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Re:The vanilla processor

[Tower]

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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This was a mistake HOW?

[solios]

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Apple was able to get a next generation processor to market, and maintain compatability with existing (and now horribly outdated) hardware.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* ?

What ever happened to convergence?

[Puk]

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

The vanilla processor

[Animats]

I met the head of the Clawhammer effort when he spoke at EE380 at Stanford. He spoke about the Clawhammer architecture, although in 2000 he wasn't willing to say much about implementations. The Clawhammer is a straightforward application of current superscalar technology to a 64-bit x86-like architecture. It's very vanilla. It's the logical extension of x86; no more, no less.

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.

troll or just stupid? Re:Transistors

[StandardDeviant]

I think that they suffered from this very problem.

No, Intel just fucked up. Purely human error in designing the lookup tables for floating point division.

Let's guarantee we are getting quality products (though from AMD, it's less than likely).

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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News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org

Re:Someone screwed up with this post

[startled]

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.

Re:What's the deal with Intel?

[boaworm]

>> Why did they bother with the P4? It's a disaster

Well, any new release from Intel has been the "worst ever". When the Pentium Pro came, it was a "disaster" since it ran 16 bit code slower then the old Pentium. Noone cared about that it was twice as fast on 32bit code.. who writes 32bit code anyway ? ;)

The P4 might look bad now, but Intel think they can clock it a lot higher. At least 2 Ghz, perhaps 10 in the future. The P3 wont go any futher then 1 Ghz.

But right now you're right, and the rambus memory is way to expensive.

Hummers to Pintos

[autocracy]

I disagree. Consider that a 64 bit chip is smaller than a 32 bit chip. That REALLY drives it home...

REAL /.ers only have a karma of 49...

Size, heat and power consumption

[nostradorkmus]

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.

AMD still the leader in manufacturing processes

[hillct]

From the C|Net Article:

Intel shifts to a new manufacturing process around the same time Clawhammer hits the market.

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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