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..."

Comments

Hrmm

[acehole]

I haven't even run out and bought a 32bit. Contiki and c64 1mhz 8bit power keep me warm at night.

Re:Hrmm

[squiggleslash]

According to El Reg, Prescott really will keep you warm at night. 100W power dissipation... mmmmms :)

(To put that into perspective, the twin G5s in Apple's PowerMac together put out 90W total.)

Re:Hrmm

[stilwebm]

According to El Reg, Prescott really will keep you warm at night. 100W power dissipation... mmmmms :)

An Easy Bake Oven uses a 100W incadescent light bulb as the heating element. So with a heatsink and a fan, does that make a case with Prescott Inside an Easy Bake Convection Oven?

Re:Hrmm

[Groo Wanderer]

According to Le Inq, Prescott takes more than that.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11588
Now these may have been taken from a roadmap that I really should not have seen, but you can see that the 100w number is a bit conservative. The next few generations are specced to narrow the gap between min and max power usage, but not lessen it. Depressing.

-Charlie

Re:Hrmm

[VikingBerserker]

Now I know what my next case mod will look like. Thanks!

Re:Hrmm

[jonadab]

You don't upgrade to get a faster CPU. Not these days. You upgrade
for other reasons -- your old motherboard is maxed out for RAM, and
you need more. Your old motherboard is USB1.1 and you want 2.0. You
could get an expansion card, but you've only got one slot left and you
really wanted to add IEEEwhateverthenumberisforthattrademarkedbus.
The new board supports SATA RAID, which will give you a performance
boost for disk-intensive applications. And so on and so forth.

Do you go for a faster CPU while you're upgrading? Well, sure.
Nobody wants to buy a new computer with the same MHz number as the
old one, for psychological reasons if nothing else. But unless you
raytrace animations for a living or something, it's probably not the
thing driving you to upgrade.

FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel, those typical insensitve clods, are spreading FUD around to kill AMD.

Re:FUD

[javiercero]

This is no flame bait, it is Intel's business practice. They have done it over and over and over, if any of you were alive during the 80's you'd know about intel's 32bit move with the 386 which took forever to come out, meanwhile... other people released 32bit solutions, mostly NS and Motorola. Intel's FUD machine went into high gear and told customers to hold on since the 386 was going to be out any day then and was going to be the best processor ever. So better processors that were years ahead of the 386 got killed that way.

In the 90s Intel did the same with the Pentium and the R4000s that were going to be the basis for the ARC platform. Intel said that the Pentium was going to be out any day then and it was going to run circles around the RISC machines. The pentium was at least 4 years late and was well behind RISC offerings in performance. But Intel managed to kill the ARC consortium.

This is the latest in Intels FUD campaign, maybe it is time to break the circle... buy intel and have 64bits TODAY... screw them, with their "ooooh we may have a surprise for you" and all that nonsense.

Re:FUD

[MarcoAtWork]

buy intel and have 64bits TODAY

you did mean AMD, didn't you? or maybe intel's marketing is so good that it made you change your mind halfway through your post :)

Re:FUD

[cbreaker]

"And please do not try to use the car analogy, it just plain doesn't work. There are at least 10 car manufacturers which offer commodity cars."

Well, maybe he's proving your point with his Ford analogy, even though he doesn't realize it. Ford may have been the biggest car manufacturer at one point, the leader, the only choice. But times change, and like you said, there's true competition and choice now in the car market.

Let us hope that Intel's "Ford years" are nearing an end as well.

It would almost have to follow AMD's conventions

[Phosphor3k]

Or there will be virtuly no software for it when it comes out and for months to come. AMD has had books on the x86-64 instruction set for years now. Not to mention emulators have been available for almost as long.

I would...

[TWX]

"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.

The tide is turning for AMD

[dankdirk77]

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.

Great!!

[Daath]

I'll be able to afford it, and then run a thirty-two bit extension and GUI shell to a sixteen bit patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition, on a sixty-four bit processor!
Uhm... Maybe I'll buy it and install linux on it, all the big good games are coming to linux now it seems :) Can't wait! 178$ - wow! :)
Doubt that I will totally be rid of windows in the next few years though. You know. Work and such ;)

Re:Great!!

[asadsalm]

GUI Extension = 32 Bits
Patch = 16 Bits
O/S = 08 Bits
Coded For = 04 Bits
Company = 02 Bits
Competition = 01 Bit
-----------------------
Total = 63 Bits

There you go! You certainly need a 64 Bit processor to run that, and you get a Bit to spare !

Let me see if i can understand this

[Disevidence]

The "Prescott" has 2 32 bit cores, but the "secondary" core is missing an AGU, among other things, and this is pointing to the fact that most Prescotts have some sort of 64 bit functionality in them, but their keeping their lips shut about it?

So it seems to me that possibly Intel are waiting to see how AMD's 64 bit chip goes, and if its going better as a 32/64 bit chip then Intel's Itanium, release their Prescott with "fully" added 64 bit functionality?

Am i correct in my logic? I can't really follow why they're keeping tight about it.

Re:Let me see if i can understand this

[xswl0931]

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?

Re:Let me see if i can understand this

[CAIMLAS]

"back in the day"? You must be, what, 15, 16?

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[NanoGator]

"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.

IInntteerreessttiinng

[Eponymous Cowboy]

II aamm rruunniinngg aann eevvaalluuaattiioonn PPrreessccootttt rriigghhtt nnooww,, aanndd II aamm nnoott ppoossiittiivvee,, bbuutt II tthhiinnkk tthhee eexxttrraa bbiittss mmaayy nnoott bbee iinnddiivviidduuaallyy aaddrreessaabbllee,, bbuutt aarree jjuusstt uusseedd ffoorr rreedduunnddaannccyy..

Re:IInntteerreessttiinng

[Waffle Iron]

You're guess is basically on the right track. I don't want to violate any NDAs, but let me just say that the AAA and AAS opcodes will now support Unicode.

Re:IInntteerreessttiinng

[Waffle Iron]

Ok, ok, people. +5 informative... Thanks, but it was supposed to be a stinkin' joke. I guess nobody remembers what the AAA and AAS opcodes do. (They were introduced around the 8080-era and not much used since. Hint: A is for ASCII.)

Wow! Not.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This is pure speculation

[dzym]

From The Inquirer, the The Register wanna-be no less.

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.

Re:This is pure speculation

[mauriceh]

Mike Magee STARTED The Register, and still owns part of it.
He left due to an internal disagreement and started The Inquirer.

Get som facts before you babble my friend!

Re:This is pure speculation

[TheLink]

Well so far in my experience The Inquirer's pure speculation has been a lot more accurate than tons of other news sources.

Especially when it comes to info technology.

They often get the scoop on things well before anyone else does. It's useful to know about things before they happen.

I've never bought Intel

[RichiP]

Since 1997, all my machines have been AMD's. The K6-2 is still alive, actually. One of them (a Duron 600) has been running 24x7 for the last 3 years. My gaming rig's a dual Athlon MP2000+. My current workstation's an Athlon XP2400+. I've NEVER had any problems with them, either hardward or software (Linux).

My biggest problem is what to do with the old mobos and processors that I put aside due to upgrading.

No, I've never had a reason to spend more for so little (it's even arguable whether you get more for spending more ... I know. I've administered Intel-based servers).

Finally caught on?

[freidog]

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)

There's more to it than 64-bit instructions

[StandardCell]

For one thing, I wonder what its physical external address bus looks like. Can it address more than 4GB of physical memory without paging? The Athlon64 and Opteron can. In addition, they are discounting the benefits of an on-board memory controller. This feature alone is a huge performance boost. To top it off, AMD gear comes with HyperTransport and a host of other goodies associated with AMD, like nForce chipsets with the best on-board sound of any integrated solution (and I don't suspect this will be different with nForce3 chipsets). In short, it seems like Intel is starting a concerted marketing blitz against AMD but with little avail. With the Prescott and this new extreme edition P4 with 2.5MB cache (I shudder at the yield hit that much cache has per wafer for them), we have a lot of sudden refocus towards Intel just prior to the launch. Product quality counts, but so does marketing.

Re:There's more to it than 64-bit instructions

[Wesley Felter]

Intel x86 CPUs can already address 36 bits of physical memory, which should be enough for the next few years.

Intel doesn't do on-board memory controllers because they got burned by Timna.

Re:gotta compete

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits

[vlad_petric]

MMX and SSE can already do integer operations on 64 bits ... What people don't realize is that the performance improvement comes from a significant change in the instruction set architecture (ISA). While x86 is the most commercially-successful ISA, it is ugly as hell, difficult to compile for and stressing the memory system unnecessarily, as it has very few registers ("difficult to explain and impossible to love" once said an Intel designer).

Itanium is a full fix to the problem. The horrendous x86 ISA is completely replaced by an explicitly-parallel (EPIC) instruction set that has all the nice properties of a RISC machine (easier to compile for, less stress on the memory system as you get 128 registers, easier for the machine to decode the instructions as they're fix format and don't require RISC conversion, etc.). The problems with it are:

1. You need a compiler that "knows" how to bundle instructions effectively (a VLIW-compiler). GCC clearly isn't there yet (it's not uncommon for the intel compiler to beat gcc by 30->50% when running computationally-intensive stuff)

2. Being completely different than x86, it can't be very efficient at emulating x86 programs.

AMD partially fixes the problem by extending the x86 ISA to 64 bits, *and* adding 8 general purpose registers. Because they just extended the ISA, running old code is just as fast. Furthermore, new code can benefit from from the extra 8 registers, and run even faster.

For the short term the Opteron is a pretty impressive chip, but I really don't see how AMD is going to stay on Moore's curve with such a shitty instruction set architecture.

P.S. Clearly 32 bits can only address 4GB of RAM, and for *some* servers more addressing space buys you something. But I'd say they are a very small minority.

Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits

[khuber]

P.S. Clearly 32 bits can only address 4GB of RAM

Intel has had more than 32 bit addressing since the Pentium Pro, which introduced 36 bit physical addresses (64 GB).

Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits

[vlad_petric]

Yeah, but support for in the 2 major x86 OSes (Win & Linux) is rather flaky. Furthermore, a "normal" app is still limited to 4G by the OS.

Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits

[addaon]

I Suspect Another Is Somewhat Appropriate...

Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits

[drinkypoo]

AMD did add more registers. In fact, they quadrupled the number of registers. Vlad asserts that x86 has eight GPRs, and that x86-64 just adds eight more, but he is wrong on both counts. x86 has four GPRs, [E]AX through [E]DX (The "E" means 32 bit) and it has four index registers - actually two index registers, and two index offset registers - which can be used with some instructions. Many x86 instructions specify that your result must be stored in a specific register or pair of registers (for 64 bit results of multiply operations for example) and none of those results go into the address index registers. Furthermore, many instructions require that you use the index registers for - gasp - addressing, and they look at those registers to determine where to get information, and/or where to store it. Hence, you have FOUR general purpose registers in x86. If you want to be really strict about it, you have zero general purpose registers on the x86, because each of the four so-called GPRs has a purpose to many instructions. CX, for example, must be used for your counter by many instructions, so when writing assembler you are forever having to take into account where each instruction is going to want to look for data. Modern x86-compatible processors actually have a whole shitload of temporary registers and do register renaming so that when you think you're moving data from register to register to avoid this problem, the CPU is actually leaving it in place and just renaming the registers. This is true of the processors from both Intel and AMD, and presumably even the VIA processors, though I have no information there.

Now, I admit I haven't spent a lot of time looking through my x86-64 manuals, because it's been vaporware until fairly recently, and furthermore they lied to us about how many HT buses would be on each flavor of processor right up until the very end, so I won't be buying anything until either they bring out an Athlon 64 MP which has the missing hypertransport bus re-added, or until the Athlon 64 brings down the price of Opteron processors. My Athlon XP is holding me for the time being, and besides, there's no 64 bit windows yet. Even after there IS a 64 bit windows, I expect to have to wait a little while for some of my drivers. So it hasn't really been a serious consideration for me. But I suspect that in many cases they have provided us with new instructions to replace the old instructions which require that the result go into specific registers.

So, x86-64 has 16 GPRs, plus 16 "XMM" registers for SSE/SSE2, not to mention it implements the SSE2 functions from the P4. I think it pretty effectively does all the things it needs to do. Meanwhile it still has hardware solutions for emulating all the deficiencies of the x86 so that it can maintain backwards compatibility without sloowowwwwwing dooowowwwnnnn like itanic. It's the perfect solution for those persons who are not ready to give up their backwards compatibility, and it does not have the flaws that you and vlad assert. If you don't believe me, go root around AMD's site for the PDFs. Hell, I even got them to send me the paper documentation for free, which I intended to read in the bathroom. Unfortunately, even my wholly irrelevant nintendo summer 2003 catalog has been water damaged in there, so I'm definitely not going to venture into the latrine with my AMD technical docs.

Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits

[scheme]

Itanium is a full fix to the problem. The horrendous x86 ISA is completely replaced by an explicitly-parallel (EPIC) instruction set that has all the nice properties of a RISC machine (easier to compile for, less stress on the memory system as you get 128 registers, easier for the machine to decode the instructions as they're fix format and don't require RISC conversion, etc.). The problems with it are:
1. You need a compiler that "knows" how to bundle instructions effectively (a VLIW-compiler). GCC clearly isn't there yet (it's not uncommon for the intel compiler to beat gcc by 30->50% when running computationally-intensive stuff)
2. Being completely different than x86, it can't be very efficient at emulating x86 programs.

The Itanium ISA is elegant an and clean in some places but in others is an ungodly mess of complicated things. Take the register save engine (RSE) for example. It's supposed to handle spilling registers to the stack and loading them to the stack. This includes handling page faults, exceptions, interrupts, and memory errors. Oh yeah, this is supposed to be automatic and handled invisibly by hardware without software intervention. Hasn't happened yet.

Also the EPIC ISA that the Itanium uses isn't easy to compile for. This is one of the biggest problems with the Itanium. It requires compilers to pull out a lot of parallelism in the code and present that to the hardware for execution. Intel sort of glossed over this when introducing the Itanium about 10 years ago and the compiler technology hasn't been able to really do this. So although the Intel compiler is better than gcc, it still isn't all that great.

Incidentally, the Itanium does a better job at emulating the x86 ISA in software than in hardware. It was a big deal a few months ago when Intel introduced a software x86 emulator that offered a dramatic improvement over using the built in hardware emulation.

You know you're in trouble...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when your 100w processor comes with heat sink and a complementary jiffy pop.

FUD!

[Tremblay99]

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.

Re:FUD!

[JayBlalock]

Someone with points mod this up. If Intel ACTUALLY had a 64-bitter coming out soon, they'd be trumpeting it like it was the Second Coming. With AMD's new chip about to hit, it would be the only sensible thing to do, even if it's months off. There's no reason they would sit on it (and let just-above-tabloid tech sites "break" the story) *unless* they didn't actually have a competing product envisioned anytime soon.

Is Prescott 64-bit?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's just a really bad rounding error in the FPU.

I've Heard This Before

[MBCook]

I've heard this one before, and I've got to say it's an interesting idea. The way I heard the speculation was that Intel would launch Presscot as planned and that while it would contain the 64bit stuff, it would be turned off. Then if AMD hit it off with the Athlon 64, then Intel would tell mobo makers the secret code or whatever that would allow them to turn on the 64 bit part with a simple BIOS upgrade. All of a sudden, Intel would have an instant installed base of 64 bit chips. This means that if Intel doesn't use AMD's instruction set (I doubt this, as the article says it would be eating crow, they'd never do it), they'd have a good chance of instantly having a huge install base on desktop PCs, and since they are Intel, they could get software companies to follow. In one fell swoop they could win the 64 bit war.

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.

Re:I've Heard This Before

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Then if AMD hit it off with the Athlon 64, then Intel would tell mobo makers the secret code or whatever that would allow them to turn on the 64 bit part with a simple BIOS upgrade. All of a sudden, Intel would have an instant installed base of 64 bit chips. This means that if Intel doesn't use AMD's instruction set (I doubt this, as the article says it would be eating crow, they'd never do it), they'd have a good chance of instantly having a huge install base on desktop PCs, and since they are Intel, they could get software companies to follow. In one fell swoop they could win the 64 bit war.

You've got to be kidding. It takes years to develop a compiler for a new instruction set. If Intel suddenly announced that a lot of their chips were 64-bit capable, it would be completely useless, because there would be no software at all that could take advantage of it.

Keep in mind that running 64-bit programs requires that the Operating System supports the instruction set completely (otherwise the registers wouldn't be saved properly, at a minimum), so they'd basically have to have Microsoft on board, in addition to probably a Linux port in order for it to be useful.

And in the meantime, all of those extra instruction decoders and extra registers would be there on the chip, wasting valuable silicon that could be used for a larger cache. No way - Intel wouldn't sacrifice potential speed now for the chance to surprise everyone with a 64-bit processor later.

Face it: Intel gambled with the Itanium, and so far their gamble hasn't been paying off. It's far too early to see who will win in the long term, but it's clear that the Itanium hasn't been an overwhelming success, while the Opteron is definitely equally popular already, if not already more popular.

64-bit

[be-fan]

I don't know if this "dual 32-bit" thing is very plausible. Being able to do 64-bit operations is perhaps the most useless feature of the upcoming 64-bit processors. The big things about AMD64 is the larger compiler-visible register file and the ability to address > 4GB of memory.

Re:BAH! 286 is all you need.

[carsont]

As far as I know, the UltraSPARC made its debut in 1995, while the first 64-bit Alpha from DEC was announced in 1992. 64-bit MIPS and PA-RISC chips were probably sometime between those two dates. See here.

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[Malor]

Athlon chipsets sucked rocks for a long time, and were really unstable. But VIA finally got their act together, I think with the KT133A.

AFAIK, other than stomping on occasional driver bugs, Athlon chips have been pretty excellent ever since. I have an Athlon 1900+ on an ASUS A7V333 that's rock solid, and a new Athlon 2500+ on an Nforce2 board that's not quite as solid, but which is still pretty good.

I'd like to see some improvements on the NForce2 chip stability. It's not all the way there yet, in my opinion. But the VIA chipsets are extremely solid.

Isn't this what Intel wants?

[Kevinv]

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?

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[yomegaman]

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.

WTF?

[sinserve]

The article doesn't mention "64-bit" anywhere. Where did this sensationalist
"reporter" pull his news from?

Re:gotta compete

[Waffle Iron]

But look at the PC architecture...the same outdated CISC architecture that was used in 1981 is still there in today's PC's.

You do realize that there has been no such thing as a "CISC processor" since the Pentium Pro came out. Underneath the X86 bytecode VM, Pentium IVs, Athlons, etc. are highly advanced RISC cores with multiple concurrent execution units.

The main reason that the huge expensive power sucking Itanium scrapes out a small lead in benchmarks over X86 CPUs is because of its expensive huge power sucking cache.

In honor of my first computer...

[TimeForGuinness]

I think AMD should change its chip's name from Athlon 64 to the Commodore 64 .

AMD should kick it Old School.

Has anyone Considered?

[Bruha]

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.

Pah.

[BJH]

Can you say "astroturfing to ruin the release of Athlon64 coming up next week"?

I knew you could!

PreSCOtt

[KoolDude]

In other news, SCO sues Intel for the use of their na... SLLLLLLLAAAAAAPPP!!!

Ouch, that hurt!

Re:gotta compete

[Anonymous Coward]

Underneath the X86 bytecode VM, Pentium IVs, Athlons, etc. are highly advanced RISC cores with multiple concurrent execution units

But the instruction set still hobbles the design in many ways. The logic to convert x86 instructions to micro-ops takes up space on the die and uses extra power. And any way you look at it, you have to read from memory a lot more often with 8 "general purpose" registers than 32 real GPRs, which is what most sane CPUs have. Itanium doesn't have to do this, PowerPC doesn't have to do this, no modern ISA requires this nonsense. Sure they may have figured out how to get it to run fast anyway, but this is wasted time: Intel should have been able to transition desktop PCs to the i960 in the early nineties, and we would probably be making a trivial upgrade to a 64-bit extension of it just about now. The processor would have all the fancy performance-enhancing features of a modern P4, but would not be held back by the need to emulate a 286.

The main reason that the huge expensive power sucking Itanium scrapes out a small lead in benchmarks over X86 CPUs is because of its expensive huge power sucking cache.

It doesn't just "scrape out a lead" in floating-point benchmarks, it absolutely destroys the x86 competition. And oh yeah, its running at what, half the clockspeed of the P4? If Itanium had the same economies of scale behind it at this point, there would be no competition.

this scares me

[nuckin futs]

MS has been long rumored to tell Intel what they can and can not do, and their record in confrontations like this are not one to bet against. Rumor has it that the vole has said that they will only support a single 64-bit extension to IA32, but then months ago they said they would be supporting 5 64-bit architectures in windows.

does this mean the chip will be tailored for the MS OS?
will it be totally worthless if you buy a system and load a different OS?

64 bit doesn't matter YET

[eagl]

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.

No, it isn't

[Groo Wanderer]

As the author of the article, I had to REALLY make things vague. The people involved would be hurt badly by Intel if their names got out. Some of the situations that were told to me make it quite apparent who was leaking. That was as specific as I could make it :(.

-Charlie

Re:gotta compete

[EastCoastSurfer]

gotta compete. Intel had to come with something better(cost effective) than Athalon64. If there was no competition, we would be still using 8088/6

LOL, Intel is actually their largest competitor. Every time they release a new chip guess who they are primarily up against? People who are running other Intel chips.

Without AMD though, I'm sure Intel would keep their new chips at higher price points for a bit longer and milk the power user crowd for a little more money.

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[malkavian]

I'll stick with Intel, thanks. Any of you guys actually have a *good* AMD processor?

Well, I've got the old K5PR133 sitting on a shelf now that did years of sterling service, first as my main desktop CPU, then moving back to the firewall CPU, until it got replaced by the K6 II 350 (which is still in the firewall machine, and has been there, running solidly, day in, day out since about 1999, and was my desktop CPU before that,replacing the K5).
Replaced the K6 II with an Athlon 700 (original slot A). That ran fine, until the board fritzed, due to the old capacitor problem that ran rampant in late 99, early 2000.. The board lasted until 2002. The only reason it's not in the firewall box now is that I can't get another board for less than it'd cost to put a faster athlon in a cheap board..
The 2002 set I bought was a nice Athlon 1700 in an Abit board. Ran stably and never a problem.. That's now in the girlfriend's machine (built one for her from the last generation of hardware I had lurking), and now I'm using an NForce2 board with an Athlon 2500 (Barton core).
No problems with any of them.

If the college computer broke, are you sure it's the CPU? Not memory, motherboard, power supply or any of a myriad of other issues?
For the laptop, is it a problem with the manufacturers not putting good cooling and airflow in the laptop (or, heaven forbid, a desktop CPU in a laptop case to save money/add a little extra speed)?

By all means, stick with Intel if it keeps you happy, but I've had a long history of using AMD chips, and I like 'em. If I saw a reason to use Intel's chips, I would.. I just never have to date...

The Inq

[zealot]

The guy who started The Register (Mike Magee) left and started The Inquirer. So, it's not really a wanna-be...

Look to the G5

[Groo Wanderer]

A really good example of what you are talking about is the G5. It simply extends an efficient architecture to 64 bits. Other than upping the memory limit, it does precious little to performance. The chip in 32 bit more is about as fast as 64 bit, and only starts to show a difference when memory useage gets large.

As for AMD, you can see the effect by running a program in 32 bit mode, then running a 32 bit program recompiled to take advantage of the registers in 'compatibility' mode. There is quite a difference.

-Charlie

Comparison with Apple's G5

[Mr. Ophidian Jones]

People just assume that G5 consumes this enormous amount of power because of all the fans in the G5 desktop. This isn't true. Even the 2G takes only about 40 watts or so. One P4 3G takes in the range of 80 watts of power. All of the extra G5 fans are to make the cooling quieter.

I'm glad to see someone finally point this out. The exact wattage number is 46.7 watts for the 2 GHz PowerPC 970 "G5" running at full speed (2GHz CPU and a 2:1 multipler for a 1 GHz FSB).

A 2.4 GHz P4 (400 MHz FSB) uses 62 watts, newer P4s use even more. Prescott is expected to use 100 - 105 watts. (And this is totally ignoring the even further power needs of the "extreme" edition with its added transistors for on-die L3 cache)

Apple has always seemed to overengineer the heatsinks and fans in their desktop model, for about as long as I can remember. Oddly, many of the PowerBooks use a much different "transfer the heat from the CPU, Chipset, and GPU right to the bottom of the case" cooling method.

Actually, do go get that AMD or IBM chip

[droleary]

Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet...

To anyone that 64 bits might make a difference for, they're steering clear of Intel, who has stated they're not going to focus on that desktop market for another 5 years. So all this article amounts to is Prescott FUD to support Intel's (misguided) roadmap.

Disclaimer: I own some AMD stock and I do my Unix development on Mac OS X.

Re:gotta compete

[Waffle Iron]

The logic to convert x86 instructions to micro-ops takes up space on the die and uses extra power.

However, the compact legacy CISC instruction set does conserve on instruction cache space. This offsets much of the cost of the conversion logic. Moreover, it allows custom optimizations for the exact architecture du jour without affecting binary compatibility.

And any way you look at it, you have to read from memory a lot more often with 8 "general purpose" registers than 32 real GPRs, which is what most sane CPUs have.

Many modern X86 CPUs have more than 32 real GPRs which are utilized by register renaming. Like quantum mechanics, the processor state for any given instruction is smeared out over time and space, and the CPU is operating on many instructions simultaneously. The number of visible registers just doesn't matter as much as it would seem on the surface.

Itanium doesn't have to do this, PowerPC doesn't have to do this, no modern ISA requires this nonsense.

They will when somebody figures out the next architecture trick that doesn't match the assumption of the designers of their ISAs. Take a look at history; remember when MIPS stood for "Microprocessor Without Interlocked Pipeline Stages"? What did the R4000 introduce? Could it be - interlocked pipeline stages? Exposing CPU implementation details to the software is not something that wears well over time.

It doesn't just "scrape out a lead" in floating-point benchmarks, it absolutely destroys the x86 competition.

That's because the FPU has not been very important in the X86 market up to this point. Business and multimedia apps just don't need it. If AMD or Intel put their efforts into an X86 with ultimate FPU performance, it could match or beat the Itanium.

I suspect that Intel took advantage of the huge schedule delays in the Itanium to throw in more FPU horsepower because it had to beat the consumer-grade chips on something.

And oh yeah, its running at what, half the clockspeed of the P4? If Itanium had the same economies of scale behind it at this point, there would be no competition.

As I said, the cache and memory architecture is the primary factor in the performance of CPUs today. Clockspeed, instruction set, registers ... who cares? Everything that's not cache is only a small fraction of the die size.

All of that hardware architecture stuff is a red herring. Worrying about those non-issues has caused the Itanium schedule to slip nearly a decade while they desperately tried to write a C compiler that could statically wring out performance from their brittle concurrent execution model without the benefits of the run-time statistics information available to the X86 code translators.

Good point, one little problem.

[Groo Wanderer]

I didn't consider timing when I wrote the story, or any of it's predecessors. Silly as I am going to the A64 launch tuesday. Anyway, I have been chasing this story since the chip-architect articles. The timing was unfortunate, but it wasn't an Intel plant, that much I can assure you.

For about 3 months, I have known there was 64 bit functionality there, but I didn't have enough to prove it to my own satisfaction. I chased leads, interviewed people, and got that info.

The fact that IDF brought me into close proximity with a ton of sources was the thing that got me so much info so quickly. There was only one thing from Intel directly, the rest were from third parties supporting the chip. If IDF had happened last January, I probably would have gotten the info then.

-Charlie

amd64 CPU's available _now_

[Brian Ristuccia]

You can order amd64 systems from places like appro and Penguin Computing right now, with decent sized collections of 64-bit applications provided by popular distributions such as SuSE. Let's not forget that the amd64 CPU's can run ia32 binaries at speeds faster than many ia32 CPU's and on a system with an amd64 kernel allow for more aggregate address space consumption across processes and the ability to install tremendous amounts of physical memory for buffers and cache even if individual processes can only take advantage of a few gigabytes.

With other groups like the Debian project well underway in their amd64 porting efforts, you can expect thousands of popular applications built for the amd64 platform. There's tons of software available for amd64 already, and you can bet by the time that AMD releases their "Athlon64" or whatever they're targeting the low-end market with, there will be even more.

Intel is an AMD64 licensee

[charnov]

Intel has access to the AMD64 ISA from AMD as part of their cross-licensing deal years ago. The big thing is that if Intel comes out with ANOTHER 64 bit ISA, then all of their Itanium customers (and co-developer HP) who have invested billions in the Itanium will be very angry.

My bet is that Intel won't go anywhere near 64bit on the desktop for a very long time (like never). We will see dual (or more) cores before that ever happens (which is slated for '05).

"Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet..."

[colins]

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

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[Sj0]

I'd like to inform you that any modern processor in a laptop will run hot. If you don't believe that to be the case, I invite you to run a p3 or p4 laptop on your lap for several hours.

Tell me, Amsterdam Vallon, what broke on your AMD college computer? Unless it was a defect with the construction of an AMD processor, your point will prove irrelevant. I'm using an AMD processor right now, and my Windows 2000 machine got a virus thanks to IE and broke. That's not AMDs fault. My old motherboard needed a flash upgrade to use an XP 1800+. That's not AMDs fault. My hard drive was an old 1Gb and after years of service, died. That's not AMDs fault. Furthermore, if you managed to crush your core, or if you installed inadequate cooling or did a substandard installation initially in any way, you cannot blame AMD. They make processors. Installing a P4 with some sub-par Aladin chipset motherboard by PC-CHIPS, a 100 watt power supply, an IBM DeathStar hard drive, cheap ram made in some communist country and a Socket 7 heatsink will result in your machine breaking as well.

For the record, I'm on my fourth Athlon. I've used the chips without problems, upgraded without a hitch, and run the new chip without problems until I decided to upgrade again. My next machine is undoubtedly going to be an Athlon 64 as a result of the quality I've witnessed.

16bit?

[Lispy]

Yes, that sounds sweet. But honestly I must admit that this Amiga 1200 on my desk looks sweet and it runs lunix just fine. I guess those 8bit days are over. Future IS now.

Re:gotta compete

[Waffle Iron]

Clock speed is the ONLY thing keeping current x86 CPUs in competition. If there was an Itanium 2 or Power4 CPU running at the same clockspeed as a P4, with the same amount of cache, the x86 chip would not be able to compete.

And why isn't there an Itanium 2 or Power4 running at the same clockspeed as the P4? It's because they can't. To do more work per clock, they use more logic, and that takes more time. Don't you think that Intel would have a 3.2 GHz Itanium on the market now if it were technically feasible?

All of these CPUs use similar fabrication technology. This technology is capable of a certain number of fundamental logic operations per second per square millimeter. The P4 uses high clockspeeds only because it is marketed to users who think that MHz==performance. If marketing requirements were different, the P4 would have been designed to get the same performance out of 1/10th the clock speed with the same die size and the same manufacturing cost.

this is a (supposed) underdog competition

[mbreitba]

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.

Compiler

[vlad_petric]

To be more specific, the compiler has to build traces (or hypertraces) from multiple basic blocks, as the level of paralellism in a basic block is just too small (this is also called "Flynn's bottleneck"). To do this properly you need profiling. JITs and software interpreters can do this on the fly (i.e. you don't need 2-steps compilation), and that's the reason software emulation does better than the hardware one (note: VLIW-scheduling in hardware is possible, but no processor does this AFAIK)

I also agree with you about RSE being a mess - but stackable registers (similar to register windows in Solaris) is a very effective mechanism for reducing memory accesses. It does make out-of-order execution a living hell, but in the end it all comes down to stressing the memory less, as RAM doesn't follow Moore's curve ...

x86 has been 48-bit for years

[Animats]

x86 machines have had 48-bit address spaces for years. Some of them even bring out a few more pins, so you can address more than 4GB of memory. It's even supported by both Linux and Windows. You can't have more than 4GB per process space, but you can have more than 4GB in the machine. Works fine.

64bit isn't a panacea...

[perlchild]

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...

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[GarfBond]

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

Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway

[CowBovNeal]

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.

Re:"Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet...

[gerardrj]

Then why, precisely, are you here chatting about Intel and AMD 64 bit chips when GNU/Linux has been running on 64bit DEC Alphas for over 5 years, And YellowDog Linux runs very nicely on the G5?

Itanium?

[TheLink]

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.

Re:Itanium?

[DarkEdgeX]

Itanium is a late-comer to the server 64-bit market. Itanium is NOT a late-comer to the 64-bit desktop 64-bit market. In the latter case, AMD is the late-comer.

Given the architectural advances inherent in the Itanium's design, I sincerely hope it wins out in the desktop arena when that battle is played out. With AMD releasing their x86-64 CPU's, I imagine this battle will become much more center stage, and maybe we'll see the Itanium (or a desktop variant) seeing some huge price drops sooner rather than later.

IIRC, Microsoft already has versions of Windows that will run on IA-64 hardware, so that just leaves the other killer apps mentioned before to target IA-64 natively to make it a more desirable platform.

Fud, FUD FUD!!!

[haggar]

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!

Re:"Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet...

[TheLink]

That's the thing. Those solutions (including the Itanium) aren't x86 compatible in a practical way.

It's not such a big deal with open source software, but check out the price/performance of x86 desktop hardware and peripherals some time.

Stuck in the past??

[TheLink]

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!".

Re:"Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet...

[gerardrj]

Ahhh. So there's another variable... you need x86 compatibility. that's a different animal than simply needing a 64bit Linux workstation as you initially stated. I will warn you: much open source software is written with x86 in mind and had things hard-wired to that platform. Even when things compile on a 64bit system, they tend to fail in interesting and unpredictable ways. I've found that ignorance and lazyness seem to prevail in the open source movement when it comes to truely portable software.

I don't know exactly what you mean by your last comment. I don't really know of any x86 specific hardware or peripherals except for the MBs and CPUs. Just about every other peripheral or piece of hardware will plug in to many Alphas and any recent Mac (drivers and firmware aside).
I've used many video and network cards off-the-shelf as well as standard RAM in my Alpha and use standard "PC" memory, drives and peripherals on my 5 year old Mac.

I have checked out x86 price/performance. It's not been enough to get me to purchase any of it. I get more real work done on my Mac per dollar than on x86 (no virus downtime, few system updates, etc), and my Alphas put out more heat per dollar than any x86 could in it's wet dreams.

Old Labour...

[slipgun]

Is Prescott 64-bit?

Is Prescott 64 yet?