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AnandTech Peeks At The Athlon 4
tupac writes: "AnandTech has posted a story about AMD's new Athlon 4 processor and also included some information about Silicon on Insulator transistors in their article. SOI technology has been used by IBM in recent history and AMD will begin using it in 2002." This is the chip which has been known for a while as Palomino. Reader Diabolus points to the same article, saying "the big news is a 20% reduction in power consumption, and that they'll be using the exact same chip for servers, workstations, desktops and even notebooks. The article details exactly what is new compared with the Tbird."
Chip Maker Trustworthy announced today they'll be cutting to the chase and releasing a 5terrahertz chip which is the fastest on any market, touting a catchy slogan "Powered by God."
"We didn't want to get involved in the whole marketing game at all. We've had these chips for years but had to sell all other lower speed chips in order to make money. Well all that is in the past, from now on we will release things to the public immediately. No more lies." stated Swedish born CEO Karl Karlssson who is now a converted Born Again Christian Chipmaker.
The company however faces a lengthy delay after residents of South Beach Miami claimed to own the patents to create the sand used to make the silicon used to make the chips. "What about dew prossis" claimed a big breasted South Beach Miami blonde wearing an Intel t-shirt looking in the mirror.
"We decided to give the chips to the people, without any side stepping. As is, and we're confident the powers of the Pope will annoint this chip and smoat the "Blue Man Group" of Intel who resemble satanists." stated Karl.
Stay tuned for this lengthy battle.
Q & A with John Young of Cryptome.org
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Contrast this to Intel, who is so bent on shoving stuff down our throats that they willingly sell products that have a short or no real life span expectancy. (p462 anyone?)
Sorry to nitpick, but Socket 462 is the same as Socket A, for AMD Athlon/Duron.
The current P4 socket is Socket 423, whereas P4 Northwood will require Socket 478.
/Dervak
Ace's Hardware has a nice summary and set of links for the Athlon 4.
Unfortunately Sharkyextreme and HardOCP do not have reviews of the chip up for comparison yet.
Tom's does have a review up.
The Bi Athlon (in addition to being a familiar, if stupid, Olympic event, this name has sexual connotations and should slightly benefit from men who want a faster proc for pr0n)
The Athlone Ranger (OK, this one's a bit of a stretch)
Athlon as You're Happy, That's All that Matters (may appeal to moms)
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
...was created so that Intel could have an enforcable trademark on their chip name (unlike 386 or 486).
:-) Time to roll out the Sexium.
So now, because marketing got so attached to the name "Pentium," AMD can again match version numbers in their product names.
That's hilarious. Heads are gonna roll.
sig fault
Looks good.
Well, to answer the gentleman who said "Athlon 4" was a "stupid marketing ploy", consider - The readership of Slashdot, and persons who assemble their own PC's, period.. Are a far, far smaller percentage of the computer-buying public than the cluebies who buy PC's at Best Buy as though they were $1,000 toaster ovens. Branding is important; It's how THOSE people will remember "Athlon." YOU remember specs, performance - Technical information. THOSE people need a counter to Blue Man Group's P4 commercials. Like.. Stomp hopping around on trash can lids, singing the praise of Athlon Instead.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
From the article:
That notebook you saw on QVC is real. It is the desktop model that will not ship until August.
All these pages of blah-blah and they could not cut to the chase and do a single review/benchmark of Q3A??
Gimme a break!
2)Socket A Thunderbird with larger/faster cache.
3)"Athlon C". Thunderbird core with 266 MHz bus.
4) Upcoming Palomino core discussed in the article.
It's not that hard, people
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Granted Athlon has had two previous cores but whatever happened to the third one? Unless they go in powers of two (1,2, 4.. Athlon 8 = Sledgehammer? After all it would be K8..) .18 micron core(2), the T'bird(3), and now the Palomino(4).
The article states the following:
"Technically speaking, the Palomino core does mark the fourth AMD Athlon core since the release of the original K7 core in 1999. If we begin counting at the K7 core there was the 0.18-micron Athlon which was based on the K75 core, then the 0.18-micron Thunderbird with on-die L2 cache and the fourth Athlon core would be the 0.18-micron Palomino core."
So there's the origional core(1),
i wish i was but oh well
It supports both SDR and DDR chipsets. For some reason the Compaq laptop which is available right now uses SDR, however that is not because DDR chipsets are not available (Ali makes DDR laptop chipset). DDR should become very popular for portables because it uses a lot less power than SDR.
The most important part of this article was AMD's statement that the socket-A layout will continue throughout this series and the next two.
Contrast this to Intel, who is so bent on shoving stuff down our throats that they willingly sell products that have a short or no real life span expectancy. (p462 anyone?)
I think this statement from AMD may actually help them among the fence sitting OEMs who still seem glued to AMD. By keeping the same socket it allowd manufacturers to refine the product, instead of trying to figure out a new one.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
All of these changes sound good on paper, but it seems AMD has overlooked one detail. The pentium 4 core was built to allow for an amazing ramp-up of clock speeds. That's why it has a 20 stage pipeline. What Intel definitely understands is that the public thinks Mhz == speed. Yes, the enthusiast crowd knows this is false, but it sells anyway. I wonder how far they can push the improved Athlon core before they hit architectural limits on speed....
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.