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Intel Quietly Adopts AMD's x86-64
HishamMuhammad writes "The rumors reported earlier at /. are confirmed. The latest offerings in the Pentium 4 family now support AMD's x86-64 architecture, even though Intel is not willing to admit it very openly, by using cryptic names like EM64T and (gasp) IA-32e.
(The naming issue was discussed on lkml, and the consensus there was to use 'x86-64,' even though sometimes AMD refers to it as 'AMD64'). Intel's FAQ admits their implementation is basically compatible with x86-64, except for the minor differences that have always set Athlons and P4s apart. It's about time Intel jumped on AMD's bandwagon, since its homegrown 64-bit architecture seems not to be doing
very well."
Sure, AMD is ahead right now. There is incompatibility between the two 64 bit architectures, and developers may choose to design for one or the other. But the Intel FAQ is right in that Intel processors support SSE3 and HyperThreading, for which AMD has no counterpart. This is in addition to Intel performance-enhancing compilers. If developers choose to develop around Intel's 64 Bit processor, then AMD may soon find itself behind again.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
The question is not if it perform better for the same clock speed. The real question is to compare performance/price or performance/power consumption.
The complete architecture reference manual was available for free, including shipping, by requesting it from AMD's website. I doubt they needed to do much reverse engineering.
Which does make one wonder how Intel is squandering all that R&D money. The one good investment appears to be the Israeli design team, which did the Pentium-M (essentially a slightly reworked PIII design). Otherwise, every one of Intel's major efforts (with the possible exception of wireless chipsets) has been subpar for the last couple of years.
AMD64 is simply better at the present time, especially when you look at the SMP and multicore story.
The stock performance of the two companies (as opposed to the market cap) certainly reflects those facts! :-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
"How will it perform compared to AMD's chips? AFAIK AMD usually performs better clock to clock?"
Comparing processors "clock for clock" has never meant a lot, and is meaning less and less all the time. Different designs do things so differently that clock rate has about as much to do with actual performance as the color of the chip package.
The best measure of CPU performance remains the price/performance ratio. That is, for a given amount of money, how fast will a CPU perform a given task? In other words, how much bang for the buck. AMD has consistantly been beating Intel in that department for years. Sure, you might find a chip from Intel that is 10% faster, but it will cost you 80% more.
Even comparing price/performance on just CPUs has become difficult to impossible. Core logic (especially the memory subsystem and periperal bus) have become so important, and so differentiated, that establishing an apples-to-apples CPU comparison is hard. So instead of comparing just CPUs, you have to compare CPU/chipset/memory combinations.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
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