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AMD's 64-Bit Chip
EyesWideOpen writes "AMD is set to release a 64-bit chip early next year which will be completely backwards compatible with the Athlon line. The current 64-bit offering from Intel, Itanium, is an entirely new chip that has no backwards compatibility with its x86 line of chips (from the 8080 chip to the Pentium IV) and is designed only for high end servers. AMD's solution to this problem is the Opteron chip (product info) which will be in servers, desktops and laptops. Here is a wired article."
I've seen duplicate stories, but this beats them all! :)
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
With Intel, you are basically buying a name. I've found AMD processors to be more reliable. With backwards compatibility, this will make powerful 64 bit apprications available to the general public, and the server industry will have a boom. AMD has finally surpassed Intel.
We're Doomed
Slow day, huh?
Pedro Côrte-Real.
Dismiss this as karma whoring all you want, but I'm still going to state that I'm completely in favor of the whole backwards-compatible thing. From the PS2 to the new AMD chips, this is a trend that hopefully catches on. What's the point of making something that is unsupported by a large chunk of today's software unless it's to make obscene amounts of money. . .er, nevermind. I think I answered my own question. You can all go back to your day now
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Ever since Intel released that the "next" processor would be incompatiable with the x86, I've been waiting for AMD to pick it up. A 64-bit x86 is just what the doctor ordered; easy to port too, and runs all of your old software to boot at a decent speed.
The Wired article was not bad (except for the typo about 1995 being the release of the 386 instead of 1985). And it's very true, would YOU expect your DVD player NOT to play your CDs? Not me.
BWP
Running programs in a hybrid 32/16 bit environment puts a serious strain on the Windows OS: It crashes. Pure systems do not crash as often. I really wonder if the problem will be magnified in a 32/64 bit environment?
We're Doomed
Interesting how Intel is the one breaking backwards compatibility, and AMD is keeping it in their chips. Intel, who historically have favored compatibility over moving forward with radical new technology. And AMD, who recently have been the underdogs with more innovative, higher-performing chips.
I'll bet everyone here is going to be singing the praises of AMD for making their 64-bit chip backwards compatible with x86. The very same people who have been spending the past several years decrying the evil of Intel for maintaining compatibility to such an outdated architecture.
Interesting eh?
Ford Motor Co. is set to release today a new car, the Model "A", based on the award winning and famously popular Model "T". The new Model "A" is backwards compatible with all previous 4 wheel gasoline powered Model "T" cars produced by Ford and its competitors, and can run on the same roads as them.
Infuriate left and right
Unfortunately, AMD may make great chips but I really don't see anything out there from the big/stable/well-tested motherboard makers that would make me want to use any AMD technology in a mission critical system. Case in point, I have a dual-proc P3-500 running Linux that has an uptime of 342 days. It runs on my internal network as a print/file/app server for a windows network. I tried running an Athlon system but it would randomly lock up once ever 120-145 hours. We finally traced the problem to a manufacturing defect in a whole batch of motherboards. I ended up replacing the motherboard and now it runs as a windows system in one of the kids rooms since it doesn't need long up times. AMD has to get the chipsets working in a stable fashion such that they can be trust for "real work"(tm).
Both the Itanium and the Itanium 2 will run x86 code. For details see: http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/files/unprotected/i tanium2.pdf
I've been waiting for these bad mama jamas. I must have spent a week trying to install OS X on my Athlon XP. I couldn't believe how rude the tech support at Apple was, even though I tried to switch. I thought that Quartz would make the windows framing my porn look pretty, but I haven't had a chance to see. I hope this 64 bit CPUs change all that. I used to write 64 bit assembler programs all the time, but they never compiled and linked right. I blame the makers of GeOS, that had to have been the worst IDE I've ever seen for ASM.
I'll definitely go for this. So long as Zalman is already in the works to making big enough Heatsink/Fan. This might be the first chip that recommends liquid cooling of somesort.
If you think
Well, I suppose your reaction to this depends on your personal product loyalty (or possibly lack thereof). Basically, a CPU will inherently run slower if it is backwards compatible with a completely different architecture. What AMD needs is a chip that solely does 64-bit ops, like the Itanium. Now, I realize that this would require all programs to be recompiled/rewritten, but isn't that what PDA's require anyways? And I'm sure the conversion from 32-bit to 64-bit is a lot easier than 32-bit to Async (could someone familiar with that process verify/refute this?).
This is, in essence, what I'm saying: AMD should come out with 2 64-bit processors, only one of which natively supports 32-bit apps. Why? Otherwise Intel will absolutely rip AMD to shreds in the benchmarks test. Being a loyal AMD user, I don't want to see this.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
...it'll be about a year past the release date of these chips that I may be able to afford to upgrade what I need to use them with all their 'Greatness'(tm) . Witnesses on scene reported that two years might be a better estimate...
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
I wonder if MS is going to include AMD 64 bit extensions into Win2K or XP. We already know that Linux will before the new AMD is even released.
If you remember, MS jumped through hoops to include Intel MMX support.
For a change I would like to see Intel make chip designs to be compatible with AMD innovations.
I want one, I want one, I want one.
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
x86 code can run on an Itanium processor but it is non-native so it runs slower. AMD got Microsoft support and now we see the same tactics of FUD! Lets move forward to a new architecture rather than living in the past with x86. X-Scale here we come!!!! =)
AMD has the right idea. Extend the old CISC instruction set even if it is a bad design. People have too much money invested in software to throw it away for new "Itanium-optimized" versions (assuming they're available).
If Windows runs on Itanium and not on AMD, that's the end of AMD.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
people complain about slashdot rerunning stories. have you looked in the newpaper recently? There are full of repetitions and dupilicates, sometimes much more frequently. How many times have you seen violence in the middle east or northern ireland? How many times can you read about some crappy Martin Lawrence movie? All the slashdot editors are doing is trying to keep up with the newspapers.
"AMD Reigns Supreme"??? Ha! I spit on your AMD!
Well, ok, to be honest I haven't got anything against AMD. They're better than Intel at any rate, and they make nice little chips for the home.
But the simple truth is: anyone who really needs the power of a 64 bit desktop is already happily using a Sun workstation.
...considered part of the x86 family? The first processor in that lineup is the 8086. I think the 8086 might've been source-code-compatible (to some extent) with the 8080, but you can't take an 8080 binary and run it on any x86 processor (emulation doesn't count).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
there's real mode, 16-bit protected mode segments, 32-bit protected mode segments, V86-mode, is there a 32-bit real mode?... is that what unreal mode is... and what are virtual machine hooks?
While the first 32-bit processor came out in 1995, the average PC used 1 MB of memory, so 4 GB was both unaffordable and generally not needed. But the recent advent of Windows XP and digital media has changed all of that.
The Mac shows how a great system with all the best features can not be worth a damn if they don't have the products to back it up. Think of the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, of small 32 bit programs are out on download.com right now. You can't use one of them on the itaniam. No kazaa, no winamp, no aim, no small shareware/freeware apps, and no GAMES!!! If Intel thinks they are going to get a desktop switch over to 64 bit in the next two years b/c they have a faster chip then they must have accidently hired some old Apple employees.
:)
And I have no clue if the mac OS is more stable, faster, etc. But I'm just going from what mac people tell me
I assume that also means electrically compatable? If not I wouldn't say fully.
The Hammers have three modes of operation:
;-)
1) 32-bit based. Run all your 32-bit apps on a 32-bit program. In 5 years, you get to look retro.
2) 32-64-bit hybrid. Run a 64-bit OS with a mix of 32 and 64 bit apps. Or all of one or the other. In 5 years, you get to look like a geek when you're running all the "old-skool" 32-bit programs that were never ported to 64-bit, and you're running them without an emulator! (you w00t 1337 dewd)
3) 64-bit only. Run a 64-bit OS with 64-bit apps only. In 5 years, look like everyone else
neye
Would you buy a DVD player that would play your CD-ROMs 20 times slower?
In other news... Pentium IV processors can now use DDR memory, you can now get dual-processor Athlons systems, and the Intel Pentium-3 processor has new instructions that will allow it to "revolutionize your internet experience" dubbed "SSE"
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
I've always liked AMD's chips and have had the best lucky with them. Infact, my school's finally upgrading a few boxes with AMD 1600XP's, ANYWAY, not the point of my comment. My comment is this: Ever since I saw the Hammer/Opteron chip, when they FIRST introduced the idea, I drooled over it. I can see the advanages of a back. compat. chip for x86 along with running 64 bit stuff, but I can also see a chip from AMD that JUST does 64-bit.
/. earlier). With the last, I think if they did that, they would totaly blow intel right out of the water.
ANYWAY.... What I would LOVE to see from AMD, is to take their Hammer design, and run with it. Meaning, if possible, move more onto the chip (e.g north bridge) this way you can just pop a new chip in, and you almost have a new motherboard, ALMOST. Also, I would like to see them combine the Hammer design with Clockless Tech (discussed here on
Considering my desktop is a Emachine Celery 400, and my laptop is a old IBM Thinkpad 600, at 266, I would LOVE to have a laptop AND a desktop with this chip, that would truely be AWESOME!
Athlon got me to switch to AMD for awhile, a short while. They never worked out their heat concerns. Now with 64-bit Intel is evolving past its mistakes and moving forward. AMD with it 64-bit is try to drag those same mistake into the future. At some point you have to leave the past to the past. CP/M. DOS, OS/2, Windows. or better yet 8080, Z80, 6502, 68000, 8088, 286...
The only time I've seen a successful migration from one platform to another was when Apple managed to migrate from 68K up to PowerPC, and that was only really possible because they controlled both the hardware and the software.
they were also successful because in part so many developers spent a lot of time making fat binaries that would run on either 68K or PPC platforms. The developers made things backwards and forwards compatible at the same time in one package.
neye
A properly designed 64-bit CPU does not need to 'run slower' to run 32-bit apps. AMD came up with a simple solution to the 32-bit limitations of X86 code: they added a new 'mode' to the processor to run 64-bit binaries. when this mode bit is set (similar to the old Real and and Protected modes of X86 chips), the chip utilizies the full 64-bit-wide pathways for data and cacluations, when this bit is not set, only the lower (or is it upper? AMD isn't saying...) 32-bits of the pathways are used. The same exact logic units are used for all 32-bit and 64-bit calculations, only the bit-depth precision changes. Thus if it takes an ADD instruction 16 cycles to add two registers and store the results in a third register, it takes 16 cycles reguardless fo whcih mode the processor is in. Of course, AMD also added an extra 8 registers for use in 64-bit mode... very useful.
The itantium does not get the majority of it's speed from being 64-bit - this is a common mistake people make. It has a _very_ different design and instruction set - EPIC - which places the burden of parallel instruction determiniation on the compiler. Basicly, they used the oldest software refactoring trick in the book, but on the whole processor design: they examined the amount of time spent executing, and looked for the bigest runtime performance-hit that could be moved from a O(n) to a O(1) penalty by simply moving the calculation. In this case, modern processors spend a great deal of time trying to handle multiple instructions at once, which may or may not be parralellizable (is that a word?) - thus the processor has to figure out, on the fly (in a P4, for example), if it can execute the next four add instructions in parallel, or if they are interdependant and cannot... By placing the burden of parellelism determination and instruction scheduling on the compiler, intel made the compiler writer's job much harder, but at the benefit of increased performance.
Oh, and most PDA processors are much more traditional, and thus don't require complex compilers like the itanium, so actually porting a compiler (or an assembly-lang app) to a PDA from x86(32-bit) is easier than creating one for the EPIC architecture.
And yes, I know the above is an oversimplification, and Intel and AMD both did a lot more, in a lot more detail, on thier 64-bit chips.
Oh, and I think the next few iterations of itaniums _will_ beat the AMD 64-bit chip on bechmarks. But not by a landslide.... And with the differences in price (EPIC chips are Expensive... capital E) the AMD chips will win the hearts of many and be the performance-price ratio king. And who wants to pay 3 times as much for 20% more performance?
man is machine
You know what would be a cool thing to do with a 64-bit chip that supports the i386 instruction set? Run one 32-bit OS (e.g., Windows) in the lower half and another one (Linux!) in the upper half.
Whole new meaning to the term "dual boot," and you can move things between address spaces with simple bit shifts!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Leaded gasoline was only developed in the 1930's, IIRC...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Man... I have owned 3 AMD XP boards. Each one has some random instability problems, compared to my celery system i was running 2 years ago. Once I get a chance, I am going to pickup a stable 2.4 p4, without all that extra heat
The current 64-bit offering from Intel, Itanium, is an entirely new chip that has no backwards compatibility with it's x86 line of chips
The current Itanium chips are compatible with the x86 instruction set. Intel even applied for patents on the compatibility technology, reported on Slashdot quite a while ago. It's real hardware, not emulation. The compatible portion of the chip is known as the "Intel Value Engine", acknowledging the "value" of being able to run x86 code.
The catch is that it is just compatible with the 32-bit x86 instruction set, and it isn't going to be faster than a top-of-the-line x86 processor. The x86 instructions in Itanium are not enhanced to 64 bits like in the AMD chip. If you want top speed on Itanium you have to go to the IA-64 instructions.
Another catch is that the OS has to support the ability to map a process to run in the x86 hardware mode, and the OS has to communicate with the x86 processes. Some OSes running on Itanium won't bother supporting that mode.
With the AMD chip you get native x86 compatibility, 64-bit data wrangling, and it runs competitively with other x86 chips. Sounds like a good story, giving an evolutionary path for legacy applications. Will AMD deliver? Will Intel bring out Yamhill to snuff AMD? Stay tuned.
my 800 MHz AMD is still doing the job. I don't really need a 64 bit chip until 00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 2038.
nahhh, gotta be a coincidence.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Itanium does have backwards compatibility:
Q10. Will Itanium processor-based systems be compatible with IA-32 systems? Will IT be able to effortlessly migrate their systems to Itanium processor-based systems? A10. Optimal performance for Itanium processor-based systems will be achieved with 64-bit software. The Intel Itanium processor supports 32-bit binary compatibility in hardware.
from this link
I honestly think we (the IBM PC users of Earth) should ditch IA-32 and use IA-64 as a stepping stone (future Itaniums will not have the binary compatibilty). The backwards compatibility is killing PC performance. Look at how high an x86 CPU has to be clocked just to achieve equal performance with a RISC computer. And higher clock rates == more heat and more power consumption.
~ SleezyG
"RISC: any computer announced after 1985." -- Steven Przybylski
"64-bit code is twice as big as 32-bit code" bloatware excuse
Unfounded. Though I find Itanium's instruction coding (16 bytes per 3 instructions) bloated, not all high-"bit" machines have to have bloated bytecodes. The ARMv4 architecture, used in processors such as the ARM7TDMI in the Game Boy Advance, has a standard 4-byte-per-instruction encoding, and an optional 2-byte-per-instruction encoding called "Thumb". Thumb code runs at about two-thirds of the speed of ARM code on machines with fast memory because some operations take more instructions on ARM than on Thumb, but Thumb code really shines when running on small or slow memory and can help drain less battery power on mobile machines. Apps will often have most of the app in Thumb but some of the time-critical inner loops in ARM.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You base your processor choice on one incident? That doesn't seem like a very scientifically sound method of doing things. I've never had a problem with the AMDs I've used. All my problems have been on Intel machines. But my point is just as irrelevent as yours. Luck of the draw I suppose. Plenty of well-respected motherboard manufacturers make good boards for AMDs: Abit, Asus, Tyan, etc.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
It is just not native code, therefore it is slower. But it runs 32-bit versions of Windows and Linux JUST FINE.
Except the FUDsters are right this time, as software written for x86 doesn't run on Itanium. Rather, it crawls on Itanium. The difference is most noticeable in soft-real-time applications such as video games.
Intel could have done the x86 emulation much more efficiently; read my other comment. Efficient recompilation in silicon is the approach AMD has used since the K5 processor and perfected in the Athlon product line.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In the past Fall and Spring semesters, I workded on an independant study project studying the x86-64 and Itanium architectures. Saying that Itanum has no x86 compatibility is ridiculous. It isn't as goot as AMD's compatibility, but it is there, though likely slower.
t'nera semordnilap
With an opteron running a 32 bit app is that app limited to a 4gb limit, or can it address above 4gb?
Depends on the operating system. Some kernels support allocation of memory through "far pointers" that refer to a "segment" of large memory, then a smaller offset within that segment. The Windows/286 operating system, versions 2.03 through 3.1, used far pointers as the common memory allocation type because the 286 limited offsets to 64 KB. Likewise, with the 4 GB offsets on the 386, 32-bit apps running on a suitable OS will be able to allocate multigigabytes of memory in 4 GB chunks. For instance, non-Celeron PIIs, PIIIs, P4s, and Xeon processors already support up to 64 GB of physical memory, given an appropriate motherboard. I'm not as sure about the Athlon, given that it still uses an older socket.
Will I retire or break 10K?
- "While the first 32-bit processor came out in 1995, the average PC used 1 MB of memory, so 4 GB was both unaffordable and generally not needed."
Without digging too deeply, it can be found that Motorola came out with the 68020, a true 32-bit processor, in June of 1984, 11 years prior to the debut of the 32-bit processor according to the nimrod author. I don't have solid dates but I know that within a year of this timeframe Suns and Apollo workstations were using this chip.How disgraceful.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
The Itanium we have takes a ton of power and has 6 fans. How does AMD expect to put their chips into a laptop?
Let's say you have an elaborately-customized server setup. Let's even imagine that some of your storage for both data and programs isn't sitting at a single PC, but is in network-attached storage. Now, you want to upgrade the hardware to 64-bit without having to recompile everything - or maybe just upgrade some of the servers while continue to share program code off the storage.
You get only one answer: AMD. You can take your complexly-configured servers and not have to redo them from scratch. And the hobbiest gains the same advantage - swap drives, compile yourself a 64-bit kernel, and forget about doing a virgin install of Debian 64.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Sure, everyone 15 years ago thought 4 GB of memory would be PLENTY. But how about in another 15 years? Will an exabyte of memory still be able to run the highest end applications including Microsoft Office 2017?
I believe, from most articles I've read, that the AMD Opteron is targetted solely at the server market, similar to Intel's Xeon series of processors. AMD is going to try to remain true to the Athlon name with all its upcoming desktop processors. Personally, I think they will go with "AMD Athlon 64" as the new desktop brand. What's really to wonder about is their model number versus clock speed system. Up until now, they've used a linear equation to relate them:
(1.5*CLOCK)-500=MODEL
or
((2*MODEL)+1000)/3=CLOCK
This is actually contrary to the popular belief that they compare the Athlon XP's model number to the Pentium 4s' or Thunderbirds' performance.
If you want a "fresh" architecture that isn't full of old junk, buy an Alpha. Or for that matter a MIPS, SPARC, or Power4. All of which are 64-bit and have either always been 64-bit, or at least had their original 32-bit designs planned around 64-bit expansions.
Personally, I think it's amazing how much old crap has been piled onto x86. It's really remarkable it runs at all, and it's even fast! I used to turn up my nose to the x86 given how they piled all the 32-bit extensions on the old 16-bit core. It's really a travesty. And the actual instruction set and register set looks like a damn train wreck compared to MIPS or PPC. But they are soooo cheap I eventually got over it, and just try to avoid thinking about any level lower than 'C' now so I don't go insane.
April fools?
Bill (Gates) announced that Microsoft(tm) would support Opteron. Jerry (Sanders) gave nice pro-Microsoft(tm) testimony at the anti-trust trial. Funny how Microsoft(tm) seems to encourage competition in the x86 market. Oh well. I'm not complaining if it keeps AMD and the x86 market viable.
What's stable enough for real work? My Athlon currently shows uptime of 47 days. Interestingly, I upgraded the OS about a month and a half ago. I don't shut down or reboot this machine except to upgrade it; I typically go for a couple of months without even logging out. I don't even quit Emacs every month. Is that what you mean by stable?
I do use this system for what could fairly be called "real work"; I usually use the compute cluster only for jobs that require more than 512 MB or aren't X86 compatible.
Well, in the case I have had to deal with directly, it didn't work. Supermicro motherboards have always been rock solid for me and that is what I want to stick with. Maybe, if I see more of my friends have better experiences with their setups, then I might give AMD another try. Until then, I don't want to spend any more money on AMD.
Sheesh. Can you say "been there, done that"? What was Apple's slogan? Windows95=Mac8x. How about Windows02=Linux9x. (I don't know the exact dates that Apple used in their ad, or when Linux was 64bit)
But I hate it when the media falsely portrays, MS as being this great,innovative company. I know I'm sounding like a stereotypical /. poster, but that attitude just gives me a nasty rash on my left testicle.
This isn't a criticism of MS. This is a criticism of mass media. They have the responsibility to provide correct information to the consumer. Sure Windows is used by 90-something percent of home users, but this is a chicken and egg problem. Are consumers uninformed because mass media does not provide the whole story, or does mass media not provide the whole story since consumers are uninformed?
A quick web search shows Itanium is x86 compatible.
Admittedly, the Itanium does this using emulation, whereas the Opteron is supposed to handle 32-bit instructions natively, however the statement that 32-bit code will not work on Itanium is quite misleading.
The Wired article has other errors as well. A 32-bit CPU isn't limited to 4GB; that confuses address space with physical memory. The definition of exabyte is wrong (1000 petabytes, not 1000 terabytes). The 8080 in 1981? Closer to 1975. And many have mentioned the bogus "no compatibility" claim.
One wonders if the whole thing wasn't a troll.
Just not the way you might think. An Intel Itanium-based computer running Linux64, Win64 (the codename for the 64-bit version of Windows 2000) or Windows XP 64-bit can run x86 (386, Pentium, Pentium Pro, etc) binaries unmodified. It will be significantly SLOWER than an equivalent x86 processor, because it does do it via hardware emulation, but it does do it.
Where the Itanium (and, I'm assuming, the Opteron/64-bit Athlon) really matter is in in large database and high-end workstation solutions. Basically, anything that needs more than 4GB of RAM. In these uses, it's not actually the processor speed that is needed, it's the RAM. The Itanium is meant for servers, yes. That is all the Itanium was designed for.
The cleverly named Itanium-2, however, is a horse of a different color. Not only is it faster (both MHz and IPC,) but it's cheaper, too! (You can get an Itanium-2 based system for about $3000.) The Itanium 2 at 900MHz is about twice as fast as the 'old' Itanium at 800MHz, performance-wise.
The only thing AMD has going for them (literally) is x86 compatibility. If it can run x86 code reasonably fast (i.e., a 1GHz Opteron running Pentium code at least as fast as a Pentium 3 1GHz) then it will be likely to take over the Workstation market from the Itanium 2. Unfortunately, I don't think anything could cause the Opteron to win over Itanium 2 in the high end server market.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
From what I remember, Itanium represents a fundamental change in the way a processor works, and that is why there is no native backward compatibility. Which is good (I think).
The backwards compatibility requirement restricts performence increases. And for those that are running operations systems that are available on many platforms, such as the best OS in the world, what use is x86 compatibility, other than the ability to buy cheap hardware?
Currently, most CPUs fall in to one of two categories: CISC (complex instruction set computer), or RISC (reduced instruction set computer).
Both CISC and RISC processors execute binary code that can be viewed as assembly code (which is really just machine/binary code, but represented in a more human-friendly format).
On a CISC machine, that machine code is furthur decomposed (automatically by the processor) from machine code into microcode operations, which the processor hardware executes. On a RISC system, this microcode layer does not exist; the processor layer just executes the requested operations.
On a CISC system, the instuction set is larger, and some of the instructions may be specialized functions that perform very complicated operations. MMX from Intel (and all the other things like it) is a good example.
Usually, the barrier of granularity that would demark the microcode realm for the assembly/binary/machine code is drawn based on timing issues. Microcode programming requires the code be produced with an eye for allowed timing limits; this means that it is possible to have microcode sequences which will fail to execute because they were traversed in a way that violated timing requirements for the processor. For example, say microcode instruction XYZ uses some circuitry on the processor for 3 internal clock ticks; XYZ is executed at internal-clock-tick=0, and again at internal-clock-tick=2. The both executions will be corrupt, and the reason is timing. (NOTE: I think I even remember seeing a linux driver that allowed you to read your processors microcode)
Well Itanium moves the microcode layer of abstraction into the compiler. In the old days, the human user programmed assembly and could not be trusted to adhere to all the timing restrictions. Since most programming is now done in higher-level languages, the machine-level code is generated by the compiler - and a compiler can be made to adhere to timing requirements.
Itanium is an advancement in processor design, and one worth given up the ability to boot into DOS for.
If your motherboard was designed right, it would notice the overtemperature, react, and shut it down. The real problem is the heatsink falling off- if that happens, your CPU will emit magic smoke faster than the temperature sensor can react.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Are you gay yourself?
It sure seems to me that you would like to think that there are many others like you.
Perhaps you should talk to your family and other close friends about the way you feel. You may find that by "coming out of the closet" that you will not be so angry at the world around you.
This is not the '50s anymore, man, you're not so repressed anymore.
HTH, HAND.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Gimme a break! The reason has nothing to do with Windows XP. It has to do with databases more than anything. Crikey.
I am sure that Intel is really happy that the chief architect for their partner in their 64-bit efforts is endorsing the competing technology.
The real future lies in the Octium Chip, created by e-com-con
But I don't need to tell you that.
my sig
"While the first 32-bit processor came out in 1995, the average PC used 1 MB of memory, so 4 GB was both unaffordable and generally not needed. But the recent advent of Windows XP and digital media has changed all of that."
Are there any ports of bochs that pass system calls through to the native system so that none of the actual OS is running inside Bochs? This would allow you to, say, run x86 Linux code on Linux PPC or Win x86 apps on Win ia64. This assumes, of course, that the system call numbers and arguments are the same across architectures. Maybe it would require too much OS-awareness in Bochs in order to fix the endianess, but it would be nice to move away from hardware x86 decoders.
Please someone tell me that all of the 64-bit mode instructions are the same length. (Maybe the caryover instructions from x86 need to be padded with nops.) Varaible-width instructions absoutely kill hardware or software decoding speed, especially if you're trying to parallelize it. Maybe we can all migrate to pure x86-64 instructions and slowly rid ourselves of the old x86 instructions?
Ideally, AMD would come out with a RISC cpu with an open source x86 emulator for the OS vendors to integrate with thier OS. I would love to be able to have comodity RISC or VLIW chips on pricewatch. x86 decoding is a waste of heat and chip realestate.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
I think you are wrong. As I remember, the 8088 was a version of the 8086 with an 8 bit data bus (the 8086 has a 16 bit bus) but was still a 16 bit processor. I also wouldn't say it failed quickly, as it was the basis of the IBM PC. Maybe you're thinking of a different CPU?
imagination is more important than knowledge --Albert Einstein-
The Opteron is compatible with all software made since the 8086. Therefore, the Opteron cannot truly be called new technology. It may have evolved in certain ways, but at its core it is no more advanced than the 8086. You can read AMD's whitepaper, and it will confirm: AMD knows that RISC, or specifically VLIW, is faster than CISC, but doesn't want to switch because of the installed base.
Intel, with the Itanium, takes the opposite stance. They know that CISC sucks, and that x86 was doomed from the start. It's not that "new things are better"; VLIW processors could have been developed in 1980, and if they were there would be no need for Itanium. But they didn't. So Intel wants to use 64-bit as an excuse to throw out x86, and start over the way they should have from the beginning.
Let's hope that Intel uses it's 75% marketshare power to win. It'll be unfortunate if AMD does.
Their PA-RISC machines have been pretty popular for things like airline reservation systems and low-end graphics workstations.
They also helped out with Itanium.
Yes, the lead acts as a lubricant for the valve/seat interface. Beefing up the valve seats fixes that problem. Lead is only required as an ugly, toxic hack to allow the use of cheap valve seats.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Hmm, well they got most of the info right, except the opturon the chip being marketted toward the server market. In fact, that is the second x86-64 chip to come out. and i believe that one is the sledgehammer chip, but that might be the second gen.
The desktop and laptop series will keep the athlon name
I doubt, therefore I might! So my sig sucks, so shoot me!
We don not want an 80x86 compatible chip. It's crap. It's an outdated CISC architecture. Has anybody read the complete white paper on the IA64 chip? Intel may have completely screwed up the implementation, but as specified (by H.P. originally) the chip is kicking ass and taking names.
Some extremely large percent of the silicon (and thus power dissipation and heat generation) on the athlon line is spent on the insanely complex variable length instruction decode needed to break old legacy x86 instructions into smaller pieces to feed to the well designed and powerful execution units.
A well designed RISC with optimization and caching hinds built into the object code will kick the living shit out of a 64 bit CISC hack built on top of an instruction set that was designed to run pocket calculators and automatic washing machines.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
Actually, lead's primary purpose in gasoline is for use as an antidetonation compound. Basically, it's a hack to allow higher compression ratios with lower-quality hydrocarbons. The higher the compression ratio (the factor by which the air in the cylinder is compressed) goes, the more likely the fuel is to combust spontaneously--detonation ("knocking"). This is why sporty cars, especially those with turbochargers, require higher-octane fuels. Lead allowed the same thing with cheaper fuels--they did not have to refine them as much. This is one of the reasons that most 80s American cars were anemic--hi-octane gas cost more than people wanted to pay, so low-compression engines were the way. It took the Big Three a while to figure out how to make power without the lead.
--Ribald
And Toyota still hasn't really figured it out... The Camry is one of the few cars I've encountered that requires anything higher than 87 octane.
(An exabyte is 1,000 terabytes and a terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.)
Isn't a 1,000 terabytes a petabyte?
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
The article is new. Might be out-dated, but it is a new article
No, binary compatible is the 8088/8086, the former
8-bit to the mainboard and thus exclusively used in
IBM PC and XT, the latter one year earlier, but with
its 16-bit bus making mainboards twice as expensive.
The 8080 has a different command set, but with some
macroes 8080 assembly source code can be re-compiled.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Why support AMD when they take advantage of open-source developers to get their product supported while at the same time embed Paladium / DRM garbage in their products which will be used by Microsoft to extinguish Linux?
I will certainly only buy another AMD processor if I hear they are dropping this ridiculous 'feature'.
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This is probably a stupid question but here goes:
Why can't they just make it completely 64 bit and have another processor handle the 16/32 bit code? That is, turn it into something a native 64 bit chip could handle easily.
Adding another chip to the motherboard is hard, but not if you have it as part of the original spec. The 16/32 chip could be similar to what the math-coprocessor was. The slot was empty unless you needed it. Though it was on the motherboards.
It shouldn't even be that hard. With all the work going into the 64 bit processors, the 16/32 bit coprocessor would need no development, and would be cheap to manufacture once the original design would be out. Of course, such a design would allow future developnment of the same. Should a 128 chip ever come out, the coprocessor could than be 16/32/64.
I still have a 5 1/4 inch floppy drive. Why? At the time I bought it, it was just in case, and it was an open slot in the case. It's there, in rare cases it get used, and it's cheap. I guess I'd like to see a 16/32 chip the same way. (Maybe even throw java onto it).
Now, obviously Intel and AMD have people looking at all the possibilities, so I am under the impression that this idea is not possible/feasible. Why is that?
Have you read my journal today?
Slashdot ran this story About Intel's 64 Bit x86 CPU if the Itanium fails or AMD's 64 bit chip does better.
A little like how Apple included the Classic and then Carbon compatibility level, so that Mac OS X can run old software. It meant that the first day I got the public beta, sure - there were a lot of little unix apps I could run at the command line, and a few little Aqua apps, but the majority of software I ran was through Classic.
As time has progressed (about 17 months later) there are plenty of Carbon and Aqua apps so that I almost never launch classic anymore.
- passion
This may be nonsense since I don't claim to fully understand how 32bit and 64bit differ at the application level, but here's my guess at the reasoning from a marketing standpoint:
Pure 64bit with no backward-compatibility -- this CPU is intended for dedicated software that's designed for 64bit from the ground up. I'd expect this to be aimed at primarily at the server and database market, where new apps are likely to be written simply because the old ones no longer handle the load -- while you're at it, might as well design 'em as pure 64bit from the gitgo and ditch the compatibility kludges. This CPU is likely to be a higher price bracket since the target audience is essentially the enterprise market.
64bit with 32bit compatibility -- that's for 32bit software that is already overstressing 32bit's 4gig memory-addressing limit. I'd expect this CPU to be aimed primarily at the CAD and video graphics market, where existing apps are likely to remain in primary use for some time (because they still do the job and are too expensive for their current market to replace). This CPU is likely to inhabit a lower price bracket since the target audience is independent designers, small studios, and the like.
IOW, it looks to me like AMD and Intel are courting two completely different and separate markets.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Was it based on a Via Chipset (with a 686B bus?) If it is, then it has what some people call the 686B Bug, which can be easily fixed if you get the newest 4in1 drivers from via.
Thank you©© That© was ¥ very helpful¥©
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
1) Lack of a thermal diode. The CPU will burn up easily if the heat sink falls off, even partially.
2) Cheaper packaging (this has to do with the construction of the cpu)
3) Cheaper motherboards. A bad motherboard is a bad investment, no matter how low the cost is. Don't buy a Via.
None of this should prevent people from buying AMD, but it is something to think about.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
Have an "old style" chip and a new-style chip. Big apps then use the 64-bit chip and the old one's use the 32-bit chip.
Table-ized A.I.
please ignore... testing out posting problems :-\
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I can't wait until the Voodoo3 is announced! Damn, that chip is gonna be sweet!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Met with some folks at AMD a few weeks ago, so maybe I can contribute here:
It does have a IHS (Integrated heat spreader) so you will not chip cores!
It still runs damn hot though.
It is HEAVY. I mean physically heavy. I don't know why.
Current Opteron chips (the Clawhammer) are running at 800-900MHz, and have a very high number of IPCs (instructions per clock cycle) so they perform very well.
They will ship at relatively low clock speeds, but perform equivlently to AthlonXPs or Pentium 4s clocked much higher.
The first of the series will likely either be called the Opteron 3000+.
reflect the fact that the Itanium is a piece of crap.
It's too expensive a solution. There are better solutions, since they are not powerful enough to warrent the extra cost over a normal x86 server and cannot approach the power/flexibility of a multi proc server from Sun/IBM.
It's just a bad decision from a money perspective.
The best thing about the Itanium is that not only can you run your x86 binaries really slowly, you can also run all those PA-RISC binaries you have laying around really slowly, too. How helpful!
I'm just being annoying here. No disrespect to any PA-RISC users intended at all. I quite like the PA-RISC architechture, and the workstations built with it are top of the line equipment, at least in my experience.
PA-RISC Powered, Baby! Hell, yeah!
Sorry.
-Lawrence
Visit Zymurgy Records!
believe me, i am no amd weenie. ;)
and i have moderator points, that i could have used on that post, but decided to reply instead.
that post was(is?) flamebaitish, the guy just spewed a bunch of stuff he admitted he had no evidence for. especially that part about amd having more performance...sheesh..
Hum. Not so true. My MB ML430 needs 91 octane. The sticker say so...(oh and it runs like shit and backfires a ton on anything less.)
Anyone who really needs the power of a 32 bit desktop was already happily using a VAX workstation 15 years ago.
Best Slashdot comment ever
All I know is the Civ3 with a hugh map on an AMD 2100+ w/512 DDR crawls. I would be really happy for any CPU that can make a turn at the tail end of the game (4 players, 300+ cities, 1000's of units) take less then the 10 mins. it takes to churn thru now! Who give a damn about datebases, or weather sims, or data, et. al. - make my game run faster! (Note: This is scarcasim.)
so the next version of Windows will be "Windows 64", the next Office "Office 64", and word "word 64"
I am not sure where you get this information from, or why not the editors have not checked this statement. The IA64 platfrom supports IA32 code. Read Intel Itanium Architecture Software Developer's Manual Vol. 2 rev. 2.0: System Architecture Part II chapter 9 entitled IA32 Application Support
Support by the operating system is needed, something that already has been built into the Linux kernel. I recomend reading Chapter 11 in IA64 Linux Kernel - design and implementation. IA32 programs will think they are running on a Pentium III computer.
The recomendation is to not run IA32 programs on IA64, but to recompile them for the new architechture... but that is kind of obvious..
With Moore's Law doubling performance every 18 months...
;9
This shows how little the author knows about the subject, the rest af the article looks like rewrite and tidbits from other articles.
On the other hand, did he mean that Moore's Law increases the performance of the chips? Then one is left wondering what research and engineers are for...
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Sun has been producing a VLIW processor as well,called MAJC (pronounced "magic"), since 1999. Look here
Stick Men
Yet the Alpha seems to be forced into complete non-relevance by the mass media. (Witness the Wired article, where it's not even mentioned.) Is the Alpha really that irrelevant? Is the experience gained (both technically *and* marketing-wise) to be tossed and never thought of again?
It's a bit older than some of the other RISC designs, but it is rather cool and cheap and used in an awful lot of places (e.g. GBA).
Actually, the Athlons do have a thermal diode, just like the Intel chips. It's only that older motherboards dont use the cpu thermal diode, but use their own external one instead. And that one cant react fast enough to a heatsink removal. It will react to fan failure tho.
If you get a motherboard that does use the internal one you dont have a problem.
Of course... I cant say I find it likely that a heatsink would fall off. You'd have to drop the box from a pretty fair height to manage that.
When is it time for us to move on from such an old architecture? Surely there is some luggage in there we can now do away with?
Even software languages have broken compatibility at times to advance. Can't hardware do the same?
The 8086 was a 8080 with 16bit extentions.
So x86-64 is 64bit extionsion of a 32bit extention of a 16bit extiontion of an original 8bit CISC instruction set.
Yes, because each 32bit app, will be able to address 4Gbyte, where as today they have to share it (except with some silly xeon hack in the Windows Advanced Server).
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Physical memory was extended to 36 bits by the PII (or was it PPro?).
For greater than 4Gb virtual, you can still use segmentation. A process can have (what, 12 bits of local segments, 12 bits of global segemnts) 8192 segments, each with 4 Gig memory. Hardly a hard limit. It just means data has to be broken up. All you old 286 programmers know how to do that don't you.
Note: AMDs X86-64 will supposedly discontinue support for segmentation in 64-bit mode.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
As you said, each processor has its own memory. If a processor needs data in another processors memory space, it has to request it over the Hyperchannel bus, not quite a local request (NUMA).
Multithreaded programs share a lot of data between threads.
Sooo. what you really mean is that two independant processes will each run as if on a dedicated processor (which they will). But multithreading will still have some memory and bus contention.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Yay!
It's all good.
Not to knock the Doozie, but note that many cars today will reach 120mph with about 1/3 the engine displacement. Not to mention they probably produce 1/10 the pollution and are immeasurably safer. So, see kids, the automobile industry is capable of making progress.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
All of these cars could be tuned to run on 87. Yes, you'd give up a little power - but on a 95 Camaro, or a Porsche 911/996, you wouldn't miss it much.
(The Porsche may be an exception, you'd have a hard time getting the turbo model to run nice on 87)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That was true of the older chips, but Athlons from about the XP/1600+ onward have much better (on-chip) thermal protection.
I don't know where the author got this piece of misinformation. Perhaps it's a FUD distortion from AMD relating to the fact that Itanium was not designed to run 32-bit apps, so it's not terribly efficient (read slower) in doing so -whereas Opteron, which is basically a 32-bit processor with address extensions is more efficient at running legacy code. Presumably, Hammer will not perform as well on real 64-bit apps as Itanium since it lacks massive parallelism and other architectural differences that Intel felt they needed to put into IA64.
Wow, thank you for the brilliant and insightful remark. Incidentally I'm pretty sure my mom's pussy didn't stink in 1929, as it did not exist yet. My grandmother's might have, but I can't very well ask her as she's no longer with us.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!