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It's (Almost) Hammer Time
thelizman writes "C|Net is catching up on the buzz with AMD's Hammer line of processors. Of note in the article is how AMD demonstrated their 64-bit contender using Linux and Windows, instead of just Windows. In reality, Linux will likely have 64 bit applications more quickly than Microsoft, and will see use on this processor more readily than your average WinTel machine, so you know...like...it only makes sense."
Kevin McGrath (AMD senior tech) gave a great presentation at Stanford on the Hammer and how AMD took on many design concepts of the X86-64 architecture. This was probably one of the more informative lectures I have seen on the topic. The video is long though http://murl.microsoft.com/videos/stanford/ee380b/0 00927_ee380_OnDemand_100_100K_320x240.htm
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
The site also has a 64-bit simulator for you favorite 32-bit processor based Linux system.
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FYI, Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 on the Alpha were 32 bit still, not 64 bit. It was some sort of backward comaptibility 32 bit hack thing done with the compiler. (Aside: Anyone remeber FX/32 on the Alpha?)
AFAIK:
- NT code isn't 64 bit safe. 2000/XP I'm not sure of.
- the 64 bit port of NT was developed on the Alpha, initially anyway, and then ported to the Itanium.
- Alpha Linux has always been 64 bit. One of the earlier kernels had to be extensively revised to be 64 bit safe in order to run on the Alpha.
Soko
(O/T - The Alphas still killed the Intel machines at the time with MHz as well as memory and I/O bandwidth, which is why we used them. Oh well.)
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
x86-64, which is what AMD is shipping with Hammer *IS* a hybrid. It is a x86 processor with 64 bit instructions added on top of the 32 bit ones. Like Intel's extension of x86 from 8 bit to 16 and later 32 bitness. It allows backwards functionality, and forward extensibility through 64 bit applications that might need it. I think it's a much more intelligent solution as there are a lot of applications that don't need 64-bitness...
Winsows NT was ported to alpha, 2k was never (or at least never released).
64-bit on the desktop is next to useless IMHO, but the Hammer brings also many goodies:
- it's fast
- there are additional registers available which should help compilers quite a lot (avoiding false dependencies: more opportunities for executing more instructions at the same time)
- it's fast.
Ok maybe you could say that you don't need such speed, but the games you play don't look like Final Fantasy (the movie) and your opponents could really be smarter and I suspect that a good AI is very,very CPU-consuming.
How did this get modded up? Check www.sandpile.org. The P4 maxed out at 99 watts and the Athlon maxed out at 75 watts. Maybe AMD should add huge plastic brackets to their spec so people can use freakin huge heat sinks and then maybe they'll shut up about trying to cool a "megar" T-bird 1.4 gig@75 watts.
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FWIW, there are several "AMD64" conditional #defines in the Windows XP DDK.
It's been pointed out for ages in the NT Insider Newsletter.
My guess is: Microsoft doesn't work in a fishbowl like the Mozilla team does; but it must not cost them much to keep an IA-64->x86-64 port of XP64 ready, just in case (especially since I guesstimate the HAL should merely be a hybrid of x86 and IA-64, the compiler an extension of the x86 logic (much less difficult than VLIW and much well understood), and the code above HAL, once 64-bit clean, is (reportedly) written in compiled, not assembled, languages).
Anandtech has posted an article with lots of information and pictures Right here.