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AMD's x86-64 Moves Forward
MBCook writes "AMD Hammer line is definatly moving forward. The Inquirer has a supposidly leaked memo from MS saying that they have working x86-64 silicon that runs both 32 and 64-bit Win XP. Van's Hardware is reporting that MS is backing x86-64 over Intel's IA-64, and that MS has apparently convinced Intel to move to x86-64! There is an article over at Ace's Hardware from CeBIT that includes some coverage of AMD's Hammer line (including its NUMA). Last but not least is News.com's report that MS is preparing Windows to support NUMA." And it looks like the line will be named Opteron.
that would explain why AMD is backing M$ in the M$ trial that's going on!
It scares me to see huge companies like this, conspiring in court.
Honestly though, I thought it would have been Intel, not AMD doing this.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Anyone here to give a good reason not to...
Intel MMX/SSE are 128-bits already.
But here are a few arguments against it--
1. bus widths at 256-bits are a friggin nightmare to design to run at multi-GHz...
2. To support 256-bits, every path needs to be this wide, which would blot the die so much that you couldn't meet gigahertz timing, not to mention how poor the yeilds would be
most game architectures pump graphics data around at 256,512,even 1k-bit wide busses... not the CPU core. But that kind of precision for the geometry processed in the CPU core is not necessary.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Much of the stuff mentioned in the article is confirmed and true, but this is a blatant lie to me:
:)
Van's Hardware is reporting that MS is backing x86-64 over Intel's IA-64
Windows XP has been running on IA-64 for ages now, Nvidia's got drivers for it, why would they support x86-64 OVER IA-64? Why not both? It appears they're doing both, and I've seen absolutely nothing to say otherwise.
It wouldn't make any sense for MS not to support both ISAs. It's entirely possible (it's been done already), so why not keep them out there?
I think Van Smith's a little off here.
Looks like AMD is getting their end of the bargain. Whether windows will even run on intels new chips or not, AMD looks like they have a headstart and the backing of M$.
I suppose I should have expected this. AMD was staking it's whole future on their 64 bit solution support for which might have been iffy. With this they practically guarantee their future, maybe even take the lead from intel. We'll have to see how well prepared intel was with plan B (copying AMD if plan A failed).
Now we can re-do those bill gates phonecalls in the last story and fill in the proper information.
Bill Gates: Hello mr Sanders, I need a favour. How would you like M$ to back amd-64 over intel-64?
Sanders: Ok Bill. What can I do for you?
Bill Gates: We would like you to be our witness in this pesky antitrust trial. What do you think you could say in our support?
Liberty.
One thing that worries me about x86-64 is the page tables. They're 4 levels deep, and that still only gives a 48-bit address space. They stick with 4k pages. I guess they had to do it for backward compatibility, but to me this is clearly not the best approach.
Though, IA-64 is pretty questionable too. The VLIW aspect is cool, but the compilers are a nightmare. Nobody knows how to write compilers to take advantage of speculative execution, for one thing.
I'm not familiar with any other 64-bit architectures, but surely they're better than both of these?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Hmmm... that's half an argument....
What do you suggest replacing it with???? There's always going to be 1 dominant force in any industry. I don't see what other architecture you could replace it with.
Even if you spent gazillions of $$$$$$s to fab something twice as fast for the same price the competition would catch up within 18 months anyway and there's no way your gonna get all those x86 binaries recompiled in time.
The nearest anyone got was Alpha with FX!32 recompling those x86 binaries on the fly. On the other hand how much faster is it now.... (please factor in cost) and where's that chip designer fellow gone... Hmmmmm....
There are many architectures to be chosen from - for now we have a clear winner - hyper pipelined CPUs with a huge instruction decoder chopping up the x86 instruction format. Perhaps stack machines or some kind of programmable logic perhaps logic in memory. 1 thing is clear - it had better be able to keep up with the best x86 CPU whilst running x86 code. It is the dominant binary format.
Matthew
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
Very simple. Lack of competition.. They held a monopoly on ALL OS / motherboards. The only real competition that I'm aware of were the 3'rd parties that sold the various chips / expansion cards.
When you have a vertical monopoly like that, you can coordinate an architectural shift. If Intel decided to start a new CPU line, and it turned out to not provide the best bang-for-the-buck, then AMD/Cyrix competitors could supply legacy and current MS-products a better alternative. Intel would have lost all that money. From the other side, MS is spread so thin that they don't have the time to rework their core to be optimal on multiple platforms (look at the death of NT on any non x86 platform). The lack of a compelling reason for someone to purcase the alternative platform says that MS shouldn't devote too many resources in that direction, which of course kills it off. Hense platform architects are at the mercy of software people, who must provide killer apps for that platform.. If any major killer app isn't immediately available, then a domino effect of lost support will occur; and more importantly, business people understand this a priori.
This is actually a lot more exciting then it might first appear. On the one hand, you have a controlling hand-of-God who enforces their will. So long as they can project a bottom line that benifits their customer, they can make radical changes (shedding virtually all of it's former self). On the other hand, we have multiple independant organizations, who each act in their own best interest. In monopolized environments, changes are swift and clean (but not always in the best interests of everyone). In independent environments, no organization can squander or otherwise take too great a risk. Efficiency is upheld, since only rational decisions can be made (involving the mutual benifit of progress). The side effects are a slowing of evolution, and an accumulation of "useless appendages". On the other hand, it provides an incredible level of trust on everbody's part that the architecture has staying power; that it'll weather the storm of change, instead of flippantly changing with the current mood; throwing 3'rd party interests aside when it's convinient (read Apple's resinding licences over the years).
Personally, I think an architecture that has "grown" over the years is more remarkable then one that simple borrows the best ideas that come out of universities.
Note that I'm not really advocating x86's. I'm just admiring it's successful history. The proliferation of UNIX and the general ability to recompile source could theoretically alleviate a "better" platforms' lack of killer apps, and thus perpetuate a radical acceleration of architectural designs.. Go Linux!!
-Michael
-Michael