Slashdot Mirror
Is Prescott 64-bit?
unassimilatible writes "According to The Inquirer, Intel's new Prescott has 64 bit instructions lurking inside. Could really rain on the parade of those who thought the new Athlon 64's would be supreme - especially when you look at Intel's price roadmap. Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet..."
Intel, those typical insensitve clods, are spreading FUD around to kill AMD.
"I'll stick with Intel, thanks. Any of you guys actually have a *good* AMD processor?"
My 450MHz AMD K6-2 worked fine, at 4.5x100MHz, my 1.2GHz Athlon Thunderbird worked fine, and my Athlon XP2400+ (2.055 GHz after some interesting bus overclocking) works just fine.
I've never had a problem with them. Do you know what you're doing? Setting the voltage levels is required on the older boards, and that actually means reading the provided motherboard manual.
I'm looking forward to a dual-AMD 64 bit configuration for home at some point, it looks pretty sweet.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is a disaster for Intel, and if you follow along, HP, which is trying to sell Itanium solutions to counter IBM. I love big blue and AMD, so I can't say I'll shed a tear.
SCO: 800-726-8649
Verisign: 800-361-8319, 888-642-9675
Diebold: 800-433-VOTE (8683)
"I'll stick with Intel, thanks. Any of you guys actually have a *good* AMD processor?"
Yes. Both my machine at work and at home are dual Athlons. Not only do they work great, but they also were very good price wise. On top of that, Lightwave (3d Rendering App) competes very nicely with the P4s, though LW is heavily optimized for Intel.
I'm not an AMD zealot, but I guarantee you that if I had the problems you did, my AMD'd be in the trashcan in a heartbeat. I can't afford aborted renderings.
"Derp de derp."
Hey! There's a rumour that Intel might have not bothered marketing their new developments properly. You should ignore what is on the market and working just in case you can tweak a future chip to get something a bit like it. You heard it here first!!!
Idiot.
The allegedly informative statement is couched in so many conditionals that they of course can once again squirm their way out of any uncomfortable spot they might get stuck in.
Plus, I don't see Microsoft supporting not one but TWO Intel-specific 64-bit platforms.
Hold on to your Athlon64 pre-orders, boys and girls.
Chip Architect was speculating on this way back when intel's 64 bit extensions were still called Yamhill. They make some interesting observations that lead them to belive the second 32 bit ALU was to allow for 64 bit integer operations in a 2x32 bit format. And not to assist with eliminating resource shortages in HT as some others had suggested.
And even if that does pan out it's highly unlikley to appear in desktop Prescott core chips anytime soon. Seems much more like something you'd find in Xeon MPs and later DPs to eliminate the need for that hack they call PAE.
Though i hardly see how 'somebody told us a seinor exec said' makes Slashdot.' (I understand that's what the Inquirier bases most of their news on, i thought we had slightly higher standards of reliability)
You're reasoning is faulty. In fact, it is the presence of competition and the inability of Intel to completely shape the PC platform that is holding back technology.
Look at the Apple Macintosh. The platform is completely proprietary, and controlled by Apple. Apple successfully switched architectures in the mid-90s, from the CISC 68000 to the PowerPC. These architectures were completely incompatible at the machine code level. But since no one was selling souped-up knockoff 68000 Mac clones in competition, the PowerPC was the only way forward and all users eventually upgraded. Apple is going to do the same thing again, this time to the 64-bit platform, and no one is dragging their feet this time either.
This happens all the time when hardware is proprietary. Sun, HP, and SGI all used to sell workstations based on the 68000 architecture, and were able to transition to RISC architectures due to the proprietary platform. But look at the PC architecture...the same outdated CISC architecture that was used in 1981 is still there in today's PC's. If Intel had complete control, we'd all have switched to the i960 or Itanium by now. But no, there is competition, so we're stuck in the past.
Fear, uncertainty, doubt ... not just the tool of Microsoft!
Let's see ... the Athlon 64 is out, officially, in a few days ... Intel's 64 bit part, the Itanium, is having trouble shaking its nickname, Itanic ... lots of developers are excited 'bout having a chip running 64 and 32 bit software.
Solution? Don't make a better chip ... just float a rumour that you'll be producing something better with some 64 bit instructions... Real Soon Now! With luck, you'll tank the sales of your competitor's chip, without doing any real work!
Blah blah blah.
(To put that into perspective, the twin G5s in Apple's PowerMac together put out 90W total.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If Athlon 64 doesn't take off, Intel could keep things bottled up untill needed, or even nerver turn it on, letting consumers get 64 bit computing in a future chip that they've had time to improve the instruction set on or something.
It really is an interesting idea, and quite a consipracy theory. Is it true? Who knows! But with all the hub-bub around the Opteron and the upcomming Athlon 64, I wouldn't be suprised if Intel were to drop a bomb like this soon. Just think. Intel first steals AMD's thunder by anouncing the P4EE. Not only is it announced first, but it trounces the competition in benchmarks (this is speculation, I haven't seen any numbers). If the P4EE is fast enough in benchmarks and the price is competitive with the Athlon 64, AMD could be in some trouble. Now if in a few months, Intel announces something like this, AMD's savior that they seem to be betting the farm on could be in BIG TROUBLE. If this happens, AMD's best hope is that Intel DOES use their instruction set, because if they don't things could get very ugly.
So will any of this happen? Who knows! But that can't stop me from speculating! There is one last thing I'll comment on. If Intel does release a 64 bit processor soon, and doesn't use AMD's instruction set, there is a small possiblity that THEY (Intel) could be in trouble if the Athlon 64 (and friends) make a big enough splash. They might come too late to the party to make big decisions (like which instruction set rules).
These things seem a bit more likely, given that Intel seems to be in trouble right now (IMHO). While they are ratcheting up the P4 fast, the fact is that they weren't planning on 64 bits any time soon, AMD has forced the issue on them. If AMD is right, that will put them in trouble. And anyone who follows this kind of stuff knows that Intel has some major heat issues. Current opterons put out what, 70 watts? And some of Intel's upcomming chips are looking at 120 watts during usage (maybe as high as 150 under full load). Between heat, stagnation, and pathetic sales of the Itanic, Intel seems to be in Trouble.
The last thing that I'll say is a message to Intel: when you move to 64 bits (or even if you are just going to stick with 32 for a long time more)... DROP THE NAME PENTIUM. I'm tired of it. There have been FOUR of them (not counting all the different core revisions of each one). I know you have marketed that name for years, but it's time to move on. When will it stop? The Pentium 5, which you might call the Pentium Pentium, or Pentium Squared? Will I have to wait untill the Pentium 17 before you get a new name? Come one guys. Time for a name change.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Float a rumor that their next chip wil have some 64 bit instructions, so don't upgrade to that competitor that is true 64-bit?
I have a Centrino-based Acer and it rarely gets even noticeably warm. Intel may have screwed some things up but they got the Pentium-M right.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
The article doesn't mention "64-bit" anywhere. Where did this sensationalist
"reporter" pull his news from?
"Intel's new Prescott has 64 bit instructions lurking inside. Could really rain on the parade of those who thought the new Athlon 64's would be supreme - especially when you look at Intel's price roadmap. Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet..."
This is the Prescott with the 103W Thermal Dissipation? Will we still hear people complaining that their 68W AthlonXP turns their room into a sauna?
Do you not think AMD will match or better those prices?
WHy would it rain on their parade? It would simply mean that software would be ported much more quickly if Intel announced that they were implementing AMD's x86-64 architecture. There is no way they could start a different architecture, Intel-x86-64 would be a flop.
What would happen if they succeded in causing AMD to go out of business? Then the only other option for consumers are VIA C3's and Transmeta which will never match Intel's. So then once again at the top of their game and after buying auctioned assets off AMD's corpse they ratchet prices back up and we lose out on innovation.
Can you say "astroturfing to ruin the release of Athlon64 coming up next week"?
I knew you could!
Assuming it's true that Prescott has 64-bit capabilities built in but not enabled, the reason to keep it secret is to not have a cheap Intel 64-bit capable processor cannibalize their expensive Itanium sales. If a dual or quad proc Prescott 64-bit system costs the same as a single proc Itanium system, which would you buy?
Is the submitter an employee of Intel? Isn't this classic FUD tactics? "Wait, don't buy that guy's product, we're coming up with something even more super duper in just a few months...".
I smell a rat.
There may be nothing malicious to this, but the specific exhortation not to buy a competitor's product just because of the possible future abilities of some other company's products just turns me off. Of course they're all going to have something better in six months, a year, a decade, etc.
The only way to make sense of it all is to compare apples to apples: the Althon64 & PowerPC G5 are both on the market now, or about to be, so comparisons there are valid. Comparisons to what Intel might possibly be making later are just... well, they seem very questionable to me.
(And since I've been pointing fingers willy nilly, I have no vested interest in whether Intel or AMD does better in the market. I mostly use Macs and am indifferent to who has their brand name on any x86 hardware I might use to run Linux...)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
64 bit... who really cares RIGHT NOW? The Athlon 64 appears to be posting up a very nice showing with today's apps and games, so the processor you buy tomorrow morning ought to be the one that will run your programs the best today and next week. Next month and next year... Bah. You can drive yourself crazy trying to lead-turn the chip industry. Get a cpu with "hidden 64 bit inside" and by the time any software is written to take advantage of it (meaning it actually runs faster than before), there will be another cheaper cpu already available that once again runs "today's" programs faster. If you need bleeding edge performance at any cost, go ahead and buy the latest cpu every 3 months and be happy. If not, buy the best bang/buck AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE and just accept that you may want to upgrade 6 months from now. 40-50% of the price will buy you 80-90% of the performance of the top cpu out there, so that makes it a lot easier to afford an upgrade that will leapfrog past what used to be the top cpu at the time of your original purchase.
Buying a cpu for applications more than 3ish months away is a foolish decision. The price and product cycles makes buying those capabilities ahead of time a bad idea. You only have to look back at the early pentium adopters to realize what a little patience can do for you. Back then, a fast 486 would hands-down beat a pentium in any application except for a couple of image editing apps, and things stayed that way for months. Things stayed that way for nearly a year until Intel nearly doubled the speed of the pentium, finally putting the 486 out of the picture. A 64 bit processor better be damn fast today or it shouldn't be purchased. By the time the extra performance seen from 64 bit apps and operating systems is realized, you'll be able to buy an even faster/newer cpu for less money. Save your pennies and get what works the best today.
For what it's worth, TODAY the fastest cpu seems to be an Athlon64 or Opteron. Hidden 64 bit instructions won't change that a bit. Show me the application benchmarks and I'll believe. Until then, I'm saving my coin for the next upgrade cycle.
For most of the 90s intel didn't really have a competitor. But if the chips never get faster who is going to upgrade?
Competition lowers prices, there's no guarantee that it will effect innovation.
The guy who started The Register (Mike Magee) left and started The Inquirer. So, it's not really a wanna-be...
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
I'm afraid this line of reasoning just doesn't cut it.
Intel does not want a 64bit x86 on the market. They want to lead everyone to Itanium where they don't have those pesky AMD guys competing with them.
It's for this precise reason that everyone SHOULD run out and buy an Athlon64. If nobody buys them, Intel will have no reason to jump into the 64bit x86 market at all.
I for one can't wait for Athlon 64 to hit the market... I need a viable 64bit Linux workstation solution and I need it yesterday.
-cjs
The AMD vs Intel war has been going on since the 386 days. When you bought a 386 or 486, you probably had an equal chance of getting AMD or Intel, and you didn't even know it. AMD won the war in the 486 market, remember the DX4120 or DX4133? Those were AMD chips. Intel just has a better marketing machine. Intel Inside(r) came around in the late 486 and Pentium days. AMD nor Intel will win or lose in this battle. The only people that will come out ahead will be the consumer. I just can't wait till the price cuts come around.
Just how Intel saying "We're also a little bit 64bit" change the equation? Last I checked, the greatest benefits to 64 bits were twofold 1) possibility to interlayer multiple instructions 2) Faster memory throughput Now Intel, with hyperthreading, has been saying until Prescott "Hyperthreading gives you the multiple instructions goodness of RISC, without the cost" With Prescott around: "Now with the multiple intruction goodness of RISC" Intellectual honesty is dead, marketing is dancing on it's grace As for 2) Intel won't give you that(and a sizeable cache to do something useful with it) unless you buy a "server" chip, for several hundreds of dollars more. It's called good business practice... (Charge what people are willing to pay...) And guess what, people who buy servers are willing to pay more for high-throughput, because they need it to make money... Apologies for the oversimplifications, and for anyone who might posted similar ideas earlier... Intel's been saying they were better than everyone else, until they lose enough money to have to lay off their entire PR department/outsourcer, they'll never really try to prove it...
It's why they don't call them laptops anymore. Look on any major computer manufacturer webpage, you'd be hardpressed to find the word "laptop"
Dell - Notebook
HPAQ - Notebook
Alienware - mobile gaming
VoodooPC- mobile
They don't call em laptops anymore because, as you've noticed, they often don't work well in your lap
Jeez man. I am at a loss for words! You work on the tech section of the wsj and you are so tech illiterate?
Which websites do you frequent? nerve.com, disgruntledhousewife.com ? cosmpolitan?
Maybe you should frequent some hardcore tech sites before you troll.
AMD is more value for money and a better perfomer than the Intel processor.
"My current AMD is way too hot and my laptop burns my lap". Unless you have a ultra low voltage Pentium 3 even the normal Pentium 4 and Pentium 4 mobile will leave you sterile.
On hindsight, maybe that's a good idea.
"Oh, and my college computer was an AMD too, and broke several times."
Ok, even more proof that you are fscking clueless about technology. God only knows hows you got employment in the tech section of the wsj.
If the AMD processor was the problem, you would only have to replace the processor ONCE.
I've dealt with about 15 AMD processors in the pas 3 years and once the processor went bad( a friend's). Got a free replacement due to the 3 year warranty and everything was rolling again.
If your computer breaks repeatedly, the problem is fscking somehwhere ELSE!
Why blame the processor?
You might have used a el cheapo heatsink, maybe the ram was bad, the motherboard....
The best reason I can think of is maybe YOU messed up something.
Maybe I should use my subscription and let the editors at wsj know what a tech illiterate person they've employed.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
Thing is, if I wanted an expensive non-x86 64 bit platform that outperforms x86 platforms, why not IBM Power4 stuff? Why not some other existing tried and tested 64 bit platform? They've been out for years already. There are TONS of alternatives, and in those areas performance is often not that dependent on CPU either, nor the main thing.
Itanium is a late-comer to the nonx86 64 bit club (PowerPC, Power, SPARC, SPARC compats (PRIMEPOWER), MIPS, Alpha).
I can see why one would pick Opteron over the others even if it doesn't perform quite as well. Just for the 32 bit x86 compatibility and performance.
If you go back in time it's like asking someone back then to switch from Intel 386/486 to Intel 88000. Why not Alpha, Motorola 680x0, SPARC etc then? If you're going to do that sort of thing then I sure hope Intel is making it extremely worth it.
Intel must be really worried. But they have a very efficient weapon, called FUD. You have certainly heard of it, it has bee used extensively by Microsoft, to undermine already existing products with rumors of an upcoming OS that will blow everybody's hat off. Remember Windows NT 5.0? That was supposed to come out in 1997 (Allchin has announced it many times - shifting the release date a few months in the future, every time).
So, here we have Itanium that isn't doing well on the market, porting to it's 64 bit ISA is hary and which performs legacy code horribly. No, really horribly.
And then here we have Athlon 64, which is cheaper than Itanium, requires very little porting to 64 bit code and which performs legacy code fantasticly - in fact, it's so good that you might consider and Athlon 64 just to run your legacy x86 code, 'coz it's so fast.
So what does Intel do? Float a flaming horseshit of FUD about Prescott being somewhat 64 bit - but hey, Intel didn't say it, the source was, uh, the Inquirer, for cryin' out loud!
Well, until someone doesn't put the Prescott under an electronic microscope and makes their conclusions based on hard facts, and concludes that, indeed, The Inquirer is right, I say FUD and double FUD from a company that is known to engage in it!
Sigged!
Stuck in the past? Holding back technology?
:)
Check out the price/performance of x86 some time. Also in many cases they don't even run much hotter or consume that much more power if you compare processors of similar performance.
The larva has evolved, grown wings and it flies. It's still an ugly bug, but it flies. And to the disgust of many chip architecture academics in their ivory towers, it flies faster than many supposedly elegantly designed RISC/postRISC bugs.
Heck, I hope the x86-64 becomes popular just to see the look on their faces.
BTW, have you actually looked at the PC architecture recently? Have you actually looked at the memory bandwidth? Have you noticed that Sun and Apple have PCI slots and aren't talking much about s-bus and nubus anymore?
Stuck in the past? Maybe you are, and you still long for the good old days when a vendor held you by your balls and said "Jump!".
Not only I don't remember what it is - I also don't have a clue what your joke was.
AAA - Adjust after add
AAS - Adjust after sub
??? wtf? ???