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AMD's 64-bit Plot
ceebABC writes "In a long interview with eWEEK, AMD's CEO Hector de Ruiz talks about struggling to compete with Intel, but more importantly about their upcoming 64-bit processors. He says that AMD's 64-bit chips will be comparatively priced to the 32-bit ones, and backwards compatible. He also thinks there will be a market for desktop 64-bit systems. Skip to the last page for the most interesting stuff."
will it be faster than 32 bit offerings? For almost anyone out there, it's the only factor when buying a CPU: speed! Adressing >4Gb of memory is not that worries me first :)
have you been defaced today?
Yes 64 bit CPU's for desktops will soon be the next new thing, but who really needs them? Grandma and grampa checking their email won't need something that fast and even the normal computer user will never experience such CPU intensive work to need a larger word size. Trust me I am not saying I won't be one of the first people to run out and get one, but there really is no need for the general public to have 64 bit processors.
those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. -isaac asimov
Both Intel and AMD have been betting big on 64 bit computing and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Itanium 1 was a flop. Itanium 2 has respectable performance, but is not IA-32 backward compatible, where AMD x86-64 is backward compatible.
I will bet that backward compatibility will tilt the balance to Opteron and that Intel will scramble to introduce a new chip Yamhill(?) designed to provide the backward compatibility that IA64 lacks.
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There's really not much need for 64bits even in gaming. The side-effects of going to these 64 bit chips (Hammer and Itanium), like executing more instructions per cycle, will help out, but the 64-bitness of the chips is not at all important for games for the foreseeable future.
At first they will be expensive, then they will be in the $599 desktops. Why wouldn't you use them?
If you have a 64-bit 2 GHz processor and a 32-bit 2 GHz processor, the 64-bit processor is going to be much faster. This speeds up the whole system, not just the rate at which you make giblets fly.
Ehrmm. no, if it were that easy we would all be using 64bit by now. 64bit has historically been faster because they belong to a better group of architectures called RISC, the new AMD 64-bit will be faster not because they have more bits but because AMD has upgraded the architecture and added more registers.
The number of bits is a meaningless as counting the number of seats in a car, twice as many seats doesnt make a faster car. In fact it makes the car harder to design to be fast, so does 64bit processors.
I think the problem was that no-one actually read the story... just the sensationlist Slashdot article.
All the article said was that AMD saw the ridiculous waste of time in simply jacking up the speed of processes continually... We're up to 3GHz now... and what actually requires that? Not much... so why not spend the time building COOLER chips that can be cooled in a QUIETER way... in fact, why not ship your chips with a QUIET fan, like really QUIET (why am I shouting the word QUIET? Oh yeah, so I can be heard over my AMD with noisy FAN!)...
Cooler... damn that would be nice... my media server, sitting in my entertainment cabinet... pumps out a lot of heat... it's ridiculous really... I got a relatively lowly Duron 1GHz and it's pouring the heat out.
Surely, now that they're up at 3GHz... rather than screaming towards 4GHz like mad things, why don't they work on making the 2GHz and lower cooler?
2^32 addressing is obsolete already -- it cannot keep up. Most enthusiasts have a gig of RAM (or more) in their DESKTOP PCs. In 2005, most of them will have hit the 4gb limit. In 2009, most consumer PCs will have hit the same limit. Servers have already hit this limit. That's why there are special instructions (a return to segmented memory access) on P3 and P4 processors, allowing up to 64gb of RAM in 4gb segments to be addressed. If you remember doing DOS programming (I do), you know why this 64-bits is good, while 32-bit segmented access isn't.
:)
2^32 addressing limits addressable HD space to 2 terabytes. "2 terabytes? But that's way larger than even enthusiasts use in their PCs, despite their larger than average needs." This ignores the fact that many companies have storage arrays that are at 2 terabytes. Some work went into the 2.5 Linux kernel to increase the number of blocks that could be addressed by moving internally to 64-bits. Storage needs are always increasing. If we're hitting 2tb today, isn't it a good thing that we're moving to a better amount of bits?
2^64 addressing is not the only benefit of the change. FPUs see additional benefit when they have more bits. More bits means more precission; this is very important and desirable, especially when working with numbers that have fractional components. For proper 3D rendering, physics models, and anything else that involves computing numbers that have fractional parts, more is better. When the FPU can handle a double in one clock cycle because it works natively on 64-bit IEEE floating point numbers, you will notice a performance boost in addition to the increased accuracy.
64-bit word operations means that databuses can be slower, since each clock-tick sends more data. 64-bits means you can do more, more flexibly, with your computer.
There will always people who resist change, even when there is no reason to resist change. The same people are posting comments on Slashdot about how 32-bits is enough, and how happy they are with 32-bit applications. These are the same people who had to be carried, kicking and screaming, from their 286s to the new 386 and 486 machines which had 32-bit addressing and data operations. Don't let these people hold back your exploration of new technology!
For those of you who are saying, "what about 64 bits? Will 64 bits be enough?" 2^64 is 32 orders of magnitude bigger than 2^32. 2^32 is roughly 4.5 billion (unsigned). 2^64 unsigned is 18,446,744,073,709,551,616, or roughly 2220 * 8309 trillion. 4.5 billion goes into that number 4.5 billion times. 2^64 is certainly enough for at least a hundred years
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Perhaps, what I'm asking is, can anybody compare and contrast the two architectures; is there a certain advantage to one or the other?
Yah - AMD will offer it to the consumer combined with motherboards from tier-1 manufacturers like Asus, Abit, IWill, Tyan, and so forth, all at an attractive price (read: the same price as the Athalon XP CPUs).
Intel, on the other hand, will keep their 64 bit CPUs out of the consumer hands by pricing them above what most consumers are willing to pay, thus reaping a premium on them by selling them in servers through Dell and IBM (making even more money on cases and motherboards). There will be limited support for the CPU outside Intel's own motherboard offerings, and if you run with a hard-drive, video card, CD-Rom that has not been explicitly approved by Intel, then forget support (we've had this problem with Intel on some of their server motherboards).
Intel is taking the Cathedral approach, and AMD a Bazaar approach.
How about.. Hey Ruiz, see YOU in court.
Unless he has proof, that would be libel, no? Of course not - in his world, when a competitor gets more business by offering a substantial discount that you cant match - thats bribery. When you do it, that's good business.
Maybe Gateway cant deal with the support cost of overheated (and dead) Athlons? Or maybe too many processor cores are getting crushed when putting on the heatsinks? Maybe they just DONT SELL to gateway's customers. I can think of a lot of reasons not to want to stock AMDs CPUs that don't involve some giant corporate conspiracy.
Now,
AMD has their thumbs just as deep in MSFTs Palladium pie, they just have smaller thumbs and leave smaller prints.
Why do you assume because a company is struggling in a market makes them somehow kinder and fuzzier?
What makes you think AMD gives a flying fuck about open source? Are they a non-profit orginization now?
If tomorrow, AMD magically had 80% (desktop) market share, and Intel 20%, would the world be a better place?
If you really wanted to make a difference, you'd boycott anything and everything digital, DVDs, CDs, video games, computers, and make a statement that you don't like the way the industry is treating us with DRM et al.
Anything short of that is not only pointless - it's hypocritical. Hear yourself saying "Intel is an evil company! Buy AMD!". It's moronic.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I think you'll be surprised where 64-bit CPU's may become useful consumers.
The first place where this will be useful is video editing. With the proliferation of MiniDV camcorders that have IEEE-1394 connections to desktop computers, many camcorder users are downloading video onto their computers for editing and creating home-made VideoCD or DVD-R discs. With 64-bit CPU processing we now can see the development much more sophisticated (yet easier to use) programs that make video editing and VideoCD or DVD-R disc creation almost a snap.
The second place this is useful is still image editing. With the proliferation of digital still cameras with USB ports people are doing more and more image processing of still images before printing out the pictures. With 64-bit CPU processing we can see image-editing tools that can do image processing that is far more sophisticated than what even Photoshop 7.0 can do today, yet would be easier to use than ever.
The final place is games. 64-bit processing makes it possible to do extremely sophisticated graphics effects in real time without over-reliance on an expensive high-end graphics card; a lot of games that need fast motion with complex backgrounds could benefit from going to 64-bit CPU processing.
That's not exactly accurate. A 64 bit processor has a large data pathway, and is more comparable to a roadway than a car. The cars are the data, and a 64-bit roadway has twice the space for cars (data) on it, which is where the extra speed is. But I do agree with you otherwise.
Besides, remember those pointers address *virtual* memory. I can eaily imagine wanting to mmap a DVD or big database even if I didn't have that much RAM.
I'm amazed to read the discussion, wether or not 64 bit will succeed over 32 bit processors.
This is 10 years after DEC has introduced the Alpha Architecture (in spring 1992).
Yes.. and you might have noticed that we're NOT all running Alphas, or even 64 bit CPUs. In fact, we're still running 32 bit CPUs.
So, why is it you're you so amazed to read this discussion? Your two sentences are unrelated, you are not deserving of your +5.
(We're not worthy! We're not worthy!)
The flaw in your logic is that Intel's actually making a profit, while AMD is still, I believe, in the red. Seeing as how it tends to be difficult to turn a profit when your primary product is sold at a loss, I'll take a stab in the dark and guess that they're not actually selling any chips for below the production cost.
Also, don't forget that Intel's manafacturing technology is about three years ahead of AMD. Their production costs are half of AMD's per unit.
A big problem with AMD chips, and something that I suspect is a not insignificant factor when it comes to the big OEMs, is that AMD builds fragile chips! If I need to build and ship x thousands of computers per day, if half the chips I buy get cracked during installation, I'm effectively paying double the unit cost.
The current pentium-4 Xeon chip supports 64 gig of RAM, despite being a 32-bit processor.
Yes, that's true, but it's horribly hacky. Addressing your RAM in 4gb segments? It's enough to make any old-skool DOS coder cry.
If only this were the case, the itanium 2 is very different to the alpha.
Really they should have continued the alpha, instead of creating a new architecture... The alpha is the cleanest of all the 64bit architectures, and has always been the most performant, plus by using an existing architecture you would already have a software and user base.
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I don't have to read the article. I've been working with Alphas all my life. There is nothing for 99.9% of the applications you use everyday that could benefit from running itself in a 64 bit address space.
After looking at your title and seeing no relation to your first paragraph, I know I wouldn't have to read the rest of your post and still know exactly where you went wrong. The "market" for a computer is not necessarily defined by what new applications it can offer. It can be defined by Joe Average coming home to his house carrying a huge box, telling his wife "You've gotta check this out. Its got sixty-four bits!"
(Chances are he's never worked with a "computer" in his life, and thinks he'll have to assemble all 64 pieces manually.)
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh