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700 MHz Athlon
News.com is reporting that AMD will release a 700 MHz Athlon this week, pushing them even further ahead in the MHz race against Intel. I hope it works well, because the article also points out that AMD is still not doing well financially...
I'd would have moderated you up, but I'm afraid the M2 Karma Police might come after me.
I agree with you about the long windy +4 comments. If you have a point to make, you should be able make it in three paragraphs or less. This is slashdot, not dissertation dot.
I like the "bad-attitude" idea. Maybe soon we can all set our "maximium threshold" to 1 or 2. It might be actually be useful for moderators too.
that AMD needs really badly at this point which would probably turn the company around.
1. A better relationship with Microsoft- Microsoft you say? How can he really think anyone needs to be friends with Microsoft? Well you need to take into account something Intel realized a long time ago. Microsoft will not go away, kinda like gum stuck to the bottom of a pair of Airwalks. Linux is great yada yada, but the linux geeks of the world don't have the mass buying power that PHB's have. 3D Now extensions in M$ products like office and maybe some special support in NT and 98 for it also.
2. An intelligent marketing director- AMD is missing something that Intel has and it's not money. According to Intel's commercials if you buy their processors you can actually move into the internet and cute bears will walk around your screen all because of the P3. All AMD has to do is get people to believe they can do some extraordinary stuff with the Athlon and when it comes down to buying a P3 system or an Athlon system Jonny and Suzy Nontechsavvy will buy the Athlon.
3. Some kind of relationship with any computer manufacturer that has TV commercials- People watch alot of TV so when they see a Dell or Gateway commercial with the AMD logo they'll think the processors are damn cool, like they do now with the P3. Intel makes a majority of their megabucks selling though computer manufacturers, learn the lesson AMD.
4. Really snazzy SMP- This fits in with all of the other suggestions. Make the SMP run really snappy with up to alot of processors, companies like Dell and Compaq will put them in their servers and then sell NT on them and put them in commercials. If AMD can keep prices low we might even see consumer SMP boxes for under 2000$ with any distro of linux or Windows NT or 2K from a said computer company. SMP is sorta like RAID in that it would work wonders in a consumer environment but never panned out and has for the most part been relagated to enterprise class machines. SMP just leaves so much room for expansion on a system, if you really need more power you can buy a second processor and you're set, no worrying if you can find a slightly faster chip to work in your system or if you just need awhile new system. Thats why I got a dual motherboard, when I need more speed I want to pay 200$ for a second processor, not have to upgrade to a while new motherboard AND faster processor. When I need a faster system still I can replace both processors and up the bus speed by 133mhz giving me a much longer life span out of my investment. This is good for Joe COnsumer. Slap the motherboard companies to get their SMP boards out AMD, you need it.
Ok that's all.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The point of the K7 is to penetrate some of the markets traditionally held by Intel. It has great FPU performance, having one more than the pIII's and 2 more than the k6's. The reviews I have read say it is quite good with the graphics. As for gamers, it is cheap for the $$. Sure, the 700 Mhz is way expensive, but it will be reduced in cost by the time Intel releases a 700, and thus be more appropriate for cheap gamers. Servers? I don't know..tough call...As for the lower end boxes, a lot of k6's end up here because they are cheap and compete very well with more expensive pentiums on office apps. I hope AMD makes the penetration. I really do, but as echo'd by some earlier, I want to see more improvements to internals like bus lines, memory speed, and the like. Bottleneck elimination....
AMD owes Motorola BIG TIME this is going to happen. Motorola is also looking for any excuse to close all it's old high labor cost U.S. fabs soon, and outsource production entirely. This is probably one reason it formed a partnership with AMD awhile back and shared its highly valuable copper technology with AMD.
AMD could not put out a 2GHz processor by Christmas of this year. At best, they could perhaps clear a little over 1GHz.
No KIDDING. exaggeration is a literary technique used to show absurdity, and to emphasize points, it's clear that I did not in any way predict that AMD would release a 2GHz CPU this year.
In no way would AMD be screwed if the KX133 never appeared. There's no palpable benefit with it. With their current chipset, future Athlons would still be faster (in some cases significantly) than competing P6 (the processor family which includes the Pentium III) offerings.
Faster yes, but there is virtually no marketing, and most OEMs are not selling or advertising Athlon systems. Gateway is not going to make any more AMD systems for instance. Here's a revolutionary idea: people buy things they know about. A lot of people don't know about the Athlon because it's not highly visible in consumer markets now. When the KX 133 comes out it will sell well be because of all the features that will be offered with this chipset. However, the CPU will become less and less important to 3D gamers as the majority of CPU intensive rendering will be done by geometric co-processors on the new generation of graphics cards coming out this month. For the non-gaming educated "build it yourself" market, the best & cheapest solution is a dual-celeron SMP set up for Linux. I personally plan on buying a Athlon because I have no need for SMP and win 9x doesn't even support SMP.
Transmeta? You're joking! The Transmeta cpu will only have its details announced in November!
If you had read the patents on this (as I have) you too would be impressed. I MUCH prefer RISC processors (such as my G3) to CISC x86 processors. If I weren't into gaming I would buy a G4 and load Red Hat Linux 6.0 on it, but since there aren't that many games for Linux & Apples I have to buy an x86. However, Transmeta looks like it might be a 64-bit CPU capable of dynamic reprogramming of the microcode, which would enable the CPU to switch back and forth between x86 and 64-bit RISC in REAL TIME.
And that sure as hell is worth waiting around for, ESPECIALLY since I already have to wait till November for the KX 133.
VIA is going nowhere fast with Cyrix and Centaur. VIA "let go" almost half of Cyrix's team, and a lot of the rest left on their own.
Duh. Everyone knows cyrix chips can't compete (*although the MSN free computer deal sold a hell of a lot of them). However, what VIA did acquire was Cyrix's modern fabrication infrastructure. This they can use to produce a high quality, cheaply made, competitive chip, that they could dump on the U.S. markets for half the price of what current CPUs are selling for. If they don't follow this strategy, I'd be quite amazed.
A fast CPU should help a lot with compilation, too. But you want a big, fast cache to take maximal advantage of that CPU.
The path to overall system performance (for me) was to buy a 22GB 7200 RPM Deskstar, one of the fastest on the market at the time I bought it, and plenty of RAM (256MB). My K6-2/350 system doesn't have the peak performance of a Xeon/Athlon monster, but it is very responsive, which I like; and it is much cheaper, which I really like.
Posted by Nr9:
Because we already have nice and fast backside l2 caches for our processors, a faster/wider system bus won't give as much a performance boost as before.
A 25% improvement in bus bandwidth will only yield about 2% improvement in performance in modern processors with a 512k backside cache
Intel has a lot more marketing going on, and the average uniformed consumer sees commercials saying that they need a PIII to properly get on the Internet. Since the Average Joe home user is basically ignorant, Average Joe home user goes and pays hundreds of dollars extra to get the PIII instead of the K6-2, and doesn't consider the K-7. Until the average joe figures out that the chip isn't as important as the Intel commercials make it out, AMD will not sell as well as Intel, and they will have trouble turning a profit.
Posted by Nr9:
uh
athlon dies are larger than PIII dies.
i find it strange that intel or AMD are not shipping multiple processor SECC packages. maybe its because of space constraints for the cache but then each processor can have only 256k and it'll fit.
coppermine is very interesting. It does not have any external L2 backside cache like the PIII and athlon. I see this as a very good opportunity for intel to put two coppermine dies on a single Slot 1 package. I do not believe it is very hard to cool as the coppermine dies are the same height unline the cache and PIII dies. Also, an athlon like heatsink can help cool it. i think AMD should do the same with an integrated cache athlon die.
Better yet, both companies can make a double sided Slot 1/A package with their chips on the PCB on both sides, requiring a sandwich cooler. They might be able to fit 8 chips on the package. it'll make a nice SMP system. this is the advantage for slot. then maybe with a new chipset, single slot athlon/PIII boards can ahve 8 processors and dual slot can have 16 processors bwhahahaha.
... I'm not so excited about faster clock speeds of the processor either, especially when the rest of the system generally lags behind, if not far behind. I want more improvements like the Alpha bus. Also RAM, hard drive, motherboards could all stand improvements. These just don't have the "sexiness" of the higher clockspeed numbers that so enrapture society and the media.
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"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
So what does it mean to AMD if VIA can't deliver on the Apollo KX133 chipset? It means that you give Intel a chance to get back in the market with 700 MHz Coppermines in November. It also means that you reaffirm the general sense that AMD can't deliver it's products in a timely manner. Although waiting for the KX133 rewards consumers with lower CPU prices as the OEM market has demonstrated drastic drops in Athlon CPU prices this month, it prevents AMD from signing lucrative OEM contracts at a critical time.
In the consumer markets, people a waiting for AGP 4x, and will settle for an Apollo Pro chipset and a Pentium 3 rather than wait 2 months for VIA to release the same product for the Athlon. Personally, I don't plan on buying any more Intel products due to their shameless attempts to strong arm Taiwanese manufacturers into not making Athlon motherboard, the bogus Rambus fiasco and Intel's bribery of Gateway to stop making machines with AMD CPUs.
Essentially, AMD is making mistakes that they _Could_Have_Learned_from Intel. For instance, Intel makes its own chipsets, and charges people royalties to use them. AMD has virtually out-sourced its chipset design and fabrication to VIA who recently acquired Cyrix. Now, you've got to ask yourself, how dumb can the execs at AMD be? And you have to be pretty suspicious about how long it's taking VIA (pre-earthquake estimate for the KX133 release was November) to get out a decent motherboard for the Athlon CPUs, as the changes they'll have to make are hardly drastic. Current Athlon boards already have the Alpha 200 MHz bus, already support PC133 SDRAM, all that VIA needs to do is slap on the AGP 4x components and onboard UDMA/66 which is technology they_already_have. You have to wonder if the aquisition of Cyrix has made them a little less eager to see AMD survive, after all should AMD go bankrupt, that would leave the entire low end PC market at their disposal.
AMD's moving of their main Fab to Dresden was a smart play, as is the production of Motorola G4 chips (and indeed the partnership with Motorola whereby AMD has access to Motorola's copper CPU technology), However, why not shift the whole operation to Germany? Why put yourself at the mercy of VIA, and the Taiwanese?
To be blunt, AMD could put out a 2 GHz CPU by Christmas and still be screwed if VIA is significantly late with the KX133. I for one will not wait forever for this board, especially with all the information out now on the Transmeta CPU.
Athlon's current bus speed is 100Mhz.
It transfers data on the rise and fall of the clock cycle. Hence "200 Mhz".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
With the demise of Camino, Athlon looks to take center stage. Can't wait for an Asus board to drop mine in. :)
Man, I didn't think they were in this much trouble. From the article:
"Last quarter, AMD reported a walloping $173 million in operating losses and revealed that Atiq Raza, one of its most highly regarded executives, had made a deal with Beelzebub and was recalled to the astral plane for punishment.
There was no word on how Andy Groves, CEO of Intel corp had managed to maintain his working relationship with the lord of the underworld.
Some cite his strict open door policy, while others think he may actually be the devil."
Hotnutz.com
It sure didn't help when the next-in-line (forget the Indian name :) quits the company. The guy who came over w/ NexGen and headed the K6 team that basically has kept the company around.
Replace W.J. Sanders w/ someone who understands that if they achieve reliable production (contract IBM to pump chips if they must) and build partnerships, the chips they have will have no problem turning a profit.
How long has AMD had low yields?
beowolf sir, beowolf
Man, I really, really, really hope AMD doesn't go under. We really, really, really, need competition in the CPU sector. Competition is good, good, good. Intel has been gouging the public for long enough (not to say that k7 pricing so far isn't basically gouging).
I wonder why the gov't doesn't look into going after intel...what are the differences between m$ and intel that made the gov't go after m$ only? Technical reasons about the business? Or does the gov't just want to look like its getting something done by attacking the company everyone in the world knows of?
My understanding is that microwaves start at 1 Ghz and with CPU speed approaching those frequencies, does this mean that the CPU's will start emitting microwaves.
I'm assuming that I don't know my physics that well, because I guessing that microwave emitting CPU's would be a bad thing!
Then again, you could always cook the evening meal while you read /.
OK, does anybody else feel that joke is wearing a little thin?
No, this isn't a flame...
What holds my interest in the Athalons isn't the tit-for-tat clockrate match with Intel (I mean, who really cares who owns the fastest CPU this month?). What I'm far more interested in AMD producing is the SMP versions.
To me, the biggest pain-in-the-ass right now is the P3 / Xeon product split. The slot1 architecture limits me to 2 CPUs - if I want more, I have to get Xeons, which are a huge cost uplift. Here's a good example:
A Compaq 1850R and a 6400R are very similar machines in everything but the CPU architecture (yes, there are a couple of other important advantages in the 6400, but not that big). I pay about $4000 for a 1 CPU 1850R, and $1300 for an additional CPU. For a 1 CPU 6400R, it's $8000, plus $1800/CPU.
Now, if AMD can come out with a chipset/motherboard that has 4-8 slots, AND I can stick the "commodity" (ie non-Ultra) Athalons in it, well, then, GoodBye Intel! AMD needs to realize that there is a huge opportunity here at the P3 / Xeon split, a place that they can heavily exploit. All the better, since Intel will NOT be able to remedy the situation, other than lower the cost of Xeons, something they are loath to do.
Having an single architecture that will linearly scale up through at least 8 (and preferably to 12 or so) would be a real advantage to AMD. I would much prefer to see them press ahead with putting into production large SMP-capable chipsets and such than worry about getting the absolute highest megahertz CPU out.
Just in case I'm not totally clear here, what I want is to be able to use the SAME CPU from the low-end machines to the high end ones. Now, I know I'll get better performance by buying the Athalon Ultras (much more L2 cache), but I'd at least like the option of using the base Athalons, rather than be forced to use the more expensive chips, just because the manufacture want me to (that's the reason for the Slot1 vs Slot2 division - it's a pure Intel marketing decision).
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
...... traditionally yes I agree, however many if not most gamers in the know realize that teh K7 benches higher than intel right now. yes it needs a new motherboard, but so do most CPU upgrades, if you buy a motherboard and CPU new then you usually don't have settings available for the new CPUs available in a year and would need a mobo with higher clock settings etc. I agree there, right now graphics and video people are going mostly with the "multimedia systems" however intel does _NOT_ have better FPU performance than the K7, the recent benchmarks have shown that over and over again.. have you just been ignoring the computer news lately???? actually most die hard gamers don't believe in such a thing as too expensive. as for the history of bad FPU and incompatabilities and crashs etc... those are history, ever since the K6-2 AMD has been producing nothing but stable processors that are completely compatable with absolutely everything and the K6-2 FPU is comparable with the Pentium 2, K6-3 is comparable with the pentium III the K7 just kicks the crap out of everything by intel even on AMD's legendary weakness of old let history be history, if you stay in the past in the computer market you get left behind servers.... what kind of servers? file servers?? those are typically VAX or low end (read old) intel... file servers don't really have to worry about high powered processors. office workstations... well those will probably be OEM systems that they can get at the best price performance ratio or that the person who is in charge of ordering thought looked the neatest ;-p not much real thought is put into this unfortunately. consumer boxes? well maybe. some consumers bought the new Pentum 2 400's when they first came out. they may buy these now. and chances are they will just use them to do taxes and email on. never underestimate the stupidity of the average human finally yes AMD does have a supply problem history lets hope that remains history but its too recent to discount as of yet. there are some problems with buying the K7s (supply of motherboards and systems etc mostly) but these concerns are only minor if concerns at all.
those who doubt agnosticism are doubting doubting itself
I've been watching their stock rise and fall for the past year now...if their soon-to-be released report states that they've lost more money as investors have been predicting, it will be the eighth period out of the last nine where AMD's been reporting losses.
On a side note, for anyone looking at investing in AMD...when the K6-2 rolled out, AMD's stock rose 250% in a month's time...until they released their quarterly report reporting losses, and it dropped back down about 200%. Now, when the Athlon was released, the stock was upped about 150% until the rumors about another financial loss came running around, and it dropped yet again.
Moral of the story: AMD's got to get on the ball, and can the dude running this crazy scheme.
I have a K6-2 and while yes it's a good chip - it isn't as good as it's cracked up to be.
Win 95 had a timing issue that caused a general protection error 50% of the time. (fixed with a patch of the m$ site).
Seti@home took around 18 hours on BSD to do a workunit, my friend who has a p2 same clock speed does them in 8 hours (in BSD) - that seems indicative of a bad fpu to me. (or pentium only optimisation - either is bad)
I've bought plenty of games, and a sizeable proportion either need patching or fail completely because of incompatibilities with the AMD chip. A notable recent release, Homeworld has these problems on many systems (mine works flakily). And it's not uncommon.
When the time comes for me to upgrade i'll most likely go with whatever the dominant chip in the marketplace is, even if the performance / cost isn't quite so good.
Sure, the AMD is fast but I and many others have been burnt in the past.
btw, I consider myself a hardcore gamer - buy at least 1 game a month - but I see no reason to spend $$$'s to stay ahead of the power curve. The K6-2 350, A3D sound card & TNT 1 is absolutely fine for the majority of new games. Homeworld, Command & Conquer and System Shock 2 all work beatifully on that spec.
I'll upgrade when my system is the minimum spec, rather than the recommended spec it currently is - and save enough to buy plenty of games, go on a holiday & have some nice meals in a restaraunt.
stty erase ^H
What these companies need to realize is that Intel is no longer the pack leader. With AMD's Athlon being the fastest PC processor in the world, who cares about Intel?
128-bit CPUs...yes, of course...if there isn't such thing as a TRUE 64-bit (through and through) processor, how can Hitachi already have an 128-bit one? I don't think I said that. My point was that subsystems are already digesting bits and pieces of information in chunks much larger pieces than 64-bits...aren't most memory controllers 128-bit and aren't Maxtrox cards chewing at 256-bits within the localized world of on-board video memory?
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I remember the transformation from 16-bit to 32-bit happened literally overnight. The 386 came out, was completely backwared compatible and all you had to do was run Windows in standard or 386 enhanced modes. Now, we are losing backwards compatibilty and it's not like these Merced chips are out tomorrow...wasn't this supposed to come out sometime closer to 2001? To me, this leap to 64-bit processing is more about changing the instruction set than changing the amount of data you can crunch. That's what worries me since it means that everything is going to be emulated and will probably run as crappy as my Win16 applications run in NTVDM.
Unless Transmeta fixes that but that is another discussion thread entirely...
Regarding cost...of course. But costs come down eventually as the technology becomes adopted. It may take longer to trickle down from servers to consumers but eventually it gets there. Alpha is not an accurate example because that wasn't just about "better". NextStep was "better". Better gets you nothing...if "better" also means "different" and "not backward compatible".
Time and time again, companies prove that abandoning backwards compatibility is the WORST thing you can do. Commodore killed themselves overnight by sinking all their money into the Amiga 4000, which could not use any of the software or hardware from any previous Amiga line. And NeXT, too, learned that lesson. Microsoft, I dare say, is the success they are simply because they are still dragging along that old backward compatibility mentality, and will even be doing so in their Millenium product.
All I'm saying is that I see 128-bit everywhere in marketting hype (look at Apple's new G4 descriptions) and 64-bit seems to be 1998's big buzzword. If Intel finally comes out with 64-bit some time towards the end of 2000, it won't be backward compatible so all the existing Pentium customers aren't going to be interested, and it won't be "cool enough" that power users will want to invest in it...so...disaster in the making?
If there was a 64-bit x86 processor, I would buy it but...my understand is that there is not nor ever will be if the company that invented x86 is finally washing their hands of it...
As far as speeds go, I dare say they can be the same rate...like I said in my original post, we now have busses running at 133MHz, the same speeds that processors were running at just a few years ago. You may scoff at the idea of higher bus speeds but ten years from now when my kids are reading SlashDot archives on 500MHz holographic displays imbedded in their eyeballs, they'll have to give a knowing smirk...
And regarding single point of failure...I'm not talking hot swapping nor am I talking live switchovers...this isn't about 99.9% uptime for a server. I'm talking about spending $560 on a processor instead of $125 each on four of them. If that processor dies...I'm down until I can either returned it to the store (if it happened within 30 days), return it to the manufacturer (if it happened within a year) or return it to the ground from whence it came. If one of the cheap-o processors dies, I can reboot and come back with a working system, albeit with only 1 or 2 processors.
It's like RAM and hard drives...is there anyone out there that has only one single 256MB DIMM or 20GB drive in their possession? Or more likely...you have every spare DIMM slot and IDE/SCSI connector filled even if you had to pull out a crusty 16MB DIMM or 2.1GB to do it?
Processors, IMHO, should be no different. I don't need the same processor speeds in a BeowOOOOOlf cluster, do I? I don't need the same processors speeds for SETI@Home, do I? If the architeture had been designed for SMP years ago, I don't see why processors could be as board independant as RAM or hard drives.
Okay...enough from me...the issue just hits a nerve for me because I really, honestly, have not felt love for my PC system since the 486 that lasted me for six years. Everything else seemed literally like junk the second I booted it. I think that since the Pentium era begun, I haven't been able to keep a system for more than two years...sad...really sad...
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
This post is wrong on so many levels I'm not going to even bother writing 10 pages about it ...
I completely agree with Erik's comments. Having said that, where do I want the speed increase?
The vast majority of my computer use deals with the most banal and everyday things. Word processing, email, figures. When I do more complicated things like video editing or playing games, I'm almost willing to accept a performance hit. But I don't like waiting 30 seconds for the machine to boot up, and eight seconds for Word to load. That's where the improvements need to be made - and that's all about I/O and bus speed. There's certainly a case to be made for multiplying cheaper components and working in parallel, but we have to get the computer architecture right first.
That's why things like the EV1 bus are a good step forward; they impose little performance hit on parallelism. (Or, doubling the number of processors nearly doubles the CPU performance.)
Jack
OK ? Thanks
The government won their suit against Intel, my friend. Unlike M$, Intel was smart enough to realize that they would lose and that the bad publicity would turn the public against them the way it has with M$. Consequently, they settled out of court for an undisclosed punishment.
I reflect your pompous signature back upon you.
IMHO communications between die's are too slow: _accept it_, use it, consider it a problem to be solved. It is so fundamental dease days that silicon is reaching it top spead, that you shouldn't want to go around this problem. It should be dealt with. Mi2e-2
nosig today
> My microwave says 2450 GHz on it.
It either says 2450 MHz or 2.450 GHz.
That actually also implies that SMP is also of relatively little merit for the same situations, as SMP is also a solution to the CPU Bottleneck problem.
What has more merit is the notion of trying to let system components be increasingly independent of the CPU. Things like:
(Some may think I jest... Check out the buffering specs on a 16450 versus 16550...)
This would be useful in providing a way to make journalled filesystems (of which two have recently made beta releases for Linux, namely ext2 and Reiserfs) both faster and more reliable, as they could have the metadata journals written out initially to this "relatively reliable cache" rather than having it vulnerable in ordinary RAM.
1MB of battery-backed RAM would be enough for Stephen Tweedy's ext3 implementation; doubtless other uses could be imagined for larger quantities...
The increasing availability of video cards with 32MB and more of RAM implies that there's some work being pushed off to the video card.
Extra coprocessors on the video card can't be too horrible an idea, and is consistent with things like Monster 3D boards that provide coprocessors to the "main" video card...
On the other hand, there's one notable fallacy here, which is that there is merit to moving to a system working with 128 bit memory space sizes. This is silly from at least three perspectives:
This is why the only systems that presently support more than 4GB of RAM on Linux are UltraSPARCs,
There is apparently a way to support a 64 bit data bus through a longer connector slot, but that does not make for a 128 bit extension.
Based on the rates of growth in the past, it seems reasonable to expect that 64 bit addressing will be adequate for all but highly unusual applications for the next ten to fifteen years.
And even then, it is reasonably likely that by that time, technology may have progressed back to using some of the memory segmentation technologies of the '60s ala MULTICS to obviate the need for linear growth of adddress space.
2^63 is approximately 4 billion billion, which is a very large value. A move to 128 bits squares that again, which provides an even more atrociously large space.
By moving to 128 bit addressing, the complexity of the memory addressing circuitry increases, as do the minimum amounts of memory that are likely to get addressed for instructions. This means that programs get bigger even if they do no more than they would on a 32 bit architecture.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This is really a big shame, as every one of my experience of their CPUs has shown that they beat intel's equivalent chips on performance.
Can Slashdot do something to aid AMD?
If you have a fast enough video card (TNT2 Ultra) then the CPU *is* the bottleneck and the bus speed really doesn't matter too much. Most gamers prefer Celerons to Pentium II's and III's because the 100MHz bus doesn't help it out and the slower L2 cache hurts it a lot. On board transform and lighting w/ the GeForce 256 will change a lot of this but there *are* CPU bound apps out there and current computer hardware is not being pushed by Word, it's being pushed by 3D games.
>Graphics / Video people? Nope these people are >most likely to be looking at a G4 Mac or SGI >these days. Or at least an x86 with history of >good FPU performance (intel)
Maybe good performance but not bug free...
Are you suggesting that AMD just stop all R&D, and make nothing better than a K6-3?
The importance of the Athlon is that Intel now has competition in the high-end x86 market. For now, AMD still has the marketing and yield problems you say, but as word spreads about AMD being the "speed king", as C|Net calls it, the markets you list will begin to consider AMD.
The major obstacles to this are 1) motherboard shortages due to the recent Taiwan earthquake 2) Athlon shortages due to AMD's lower (than Intel) production capacity 3) AMD's lack of profits leading to a buyout by Motorola, IBM, or somebody with a vested interest in killing the competition.
Asus originally cancelled its k7 motherbaird after intel called them. THey decided to bite the bullet and and ship it
is this true? the part that i will hold out for on my K7 is an Asus mobo... can anyone confirm what he said?
-- My Sig is a P228.
WRONG!
:)
The name 'Beowulf' has nothing to do with Wolves - it is the name of a hero in an old English epic.
Trying checking out the facts before you post something dumb
The rest of the the bottlenecks are not really something that AMD can change... On a related note, VIA has been pushing the PC-133 SDRAM and 266 MHz DDR SDRAM as alternatives to the the expensive RDRAM than Intel favors. These memory types have lower latency but lower data rate than the RDRAM. According to some research reports latency is currently a bigger problem than bandwith when it comes to memory.
It uses a 200Mhz bus instead of Intel's yet-to-be-announced 133Mhz. It makes a lot of difference on machines of people who tend to use fast peripherals (read: gamers).
I don't care about Intel being fater or slower, 32-bit or 64-bit; I care about the bus speed.
Besides, dual EV6 (on which Athlon is based) is even better than dual Pentiums (point-to-point instead of shared bus).
but you're right; oems and mobo makers need to make a committment to support AMD K7 right now or resign themselves to sucking Intel's ass forever.
Are there STILL people out there that think their processor is the bottleneck of their system? It's everything else!!!
As always, it depends on what you're doing. If you're like me and you spend all your time doing processor-intensive rendering operations that you've carefully designed to fit entirely in cache (and that 3D cards are incapable of performing) then the processor is still very much the limitation. In fact, I find that in most of what I do, the processor is the biggest bottleneck. Your milieage may vary.
Just keep bumping that clock rate up, AMD - we love you!
And, oh yeah, we just love that 200 MHz bus, too
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I can't buy an Athlon at Best Buy or other local retail places; they are all sold out. If AMD has sold most of the Athlons that they have produced, they must have also greatly increased their spending because their revenue had to have gone up sharply with the large scale sale of 500 $ chips. Spending money on an Intel chip that is 30% slower doesn't strike me as particularly inviting. I'm not waiting for the KX133 chipset; I want a system now and I don't want to buy the slower Intel system.
My biggest problem is the memory speed and that's still 133Mhz for $400 a stick.
I think AMD is pretty aware of this. After all they went to great effort to get a good SMP bus from Digital (now Compaq). However they don't make motherboards. They don't even want to be in the motherbord chipset bisness. In some ways both of these things are good. In other ways it is bad, mostly in reducing their time to market.
Look to Hotrail (I think that is a new compony name, was Posidon, or some other sea related name) for SMP chipsets. I heard they were trying to do 4-way, 8-way and 16-way ones. 4-way and maybe 8-way to be out first half of next year. I think. Ah, wait they say late 1999 for 4 and 8 way K7's.
As far as I know all the K7's are SMP capable. However the Ultra's are not just bigger cached non-Ultras. They also run the point to point bus faster, which means more memory bandwidth. I think they are planning on running it twice as fast as the non-Ultra K7's. Which means the extra bus traffic won't hurt as much.
The faster bus speed requires a cleaner eletrical enviroment the the lower bus speed. That is provided by the "Slot B" systems (shorter strighter traces I guess). Acording to AMD one could make a Slot A system that clean, but it isn't part of the Slot A specs AND costs more, so it is unlikely to be done on the Slot A systems.
My guess is you will see 2-way K7 systems, and 4-way K7 ultra systems, and later some 4-way K7's, but no 8-way or 16-way non Ultra systems. Of corse if there is a market for 8 and 16 way non-Ultra systems it doesn't look like AMD will stand in the way. It's not like the non-ultras were designed not to work in the SMP world, and it's not like the SMP chipset, or motherboards are made by AMD!!
Lastly when Intel first designed the Slot 1 vs. Slot 2 systems I thought that the PII Slot 1 module was too small to both hold the larger cache, and have enough extra cooling, which makes a real reason to have had Slot 2 in the first place. I assume that has gone away as SRAM tech has advanced.
First, a quick summary. SMP, or Symmetric Multi-Processor systems are so called because each processor is effectively equal to the other processors. There are a number of different architectures, either using clustering of procs sharing the same bus, or clusters sharing the same memory, or even clusters expanded out.
As a breakdown:
AMD SMP-to-be: processors in a 'cluster' share the same memory, I/O arbitrated by a complex chipset.
Intel SMP: up to four processors in a 'cluster' share the same bus, arbitrated by a complex bus protocol.
Beowulf - Each cluster has its own bus, I/O, but communication is much slower.
Now, one would think that performance would increase linearly for each CPU? So if you have two CPUs, your performance is 2X? Four, for 4X? Don't bet on it.
In every case, you have to factor in:
(1) SMP programming requires different algorithms to take advantage of multiple CPUs. Some tasks require too much communication, or are too linear to benefit much from having another processor. Remember that adage that you can't have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant!
(2) SMP split by 'thread' has limitations as well. Operating system complexity rises dramatically.. As far as I have read, the fined grained SMP necessary to make this work is still under development in all free operating systems. And this code is so complex and the tools to debug this sort of code are so expensive that it is likely to be quite some time. Linux is blessed that some large companies are contributing to the codebase for SMP support -- Intel among them if I recall. Other than operating system issues, this requires many of your programs be re-written to benefit (depending on what you want to do).
(3) In every case, there is a shared resource or cost. If every processor wants to access the memory, who "wins"? Likewise for the bus on the P6 SMP.
I've read numbers at one pointed that showed the most drop-off at four. I suspect that Intel, going for 'profitability', made four the maximum for many reasons based on simulations and probably electrical limitations.
As a final point, look at the Errata listings for Intel processors, now that they are public. Given that Intel has the resources to extensively test their processors, look at how many of these relate to having more than one processor communicating?
Now, consider that with your AMD SMP system, you have a chipset that has to handle complexities of multiple processors sharing resources, with less resources to figure out what could go wrong.
In this light, AMDs decision to focus on a single processor environment makes a huge amount of sense. If you get a huge boost out of parallelism, buy the cheapest Mhz/$ and Beowulf it!
Now this chip is expensive & probably needs a new MB to take advantage of it. This is an expensive upgrade - so who will go for it?
Intel is trying to make everyone to upgrade to a i820 motherboard and trying to make everyone switch to RAMBUS ram. Plus the new coppermine cpus aren't cheap either, so what's the difference between an Intel and an AMD upgrade?
Graphics / Video people? Nope these people are most likely to be looking at a G4 Mac or SGI these days. Or at least an x86 with history of good FPU performance (intel)
True, a G4 can outperform a K7 at the same clock rate, but G4s are not going to reach 700 Mhz anytime soon, so a K7-700 will be faster than a G4-450 even though the G4 has a better fpu. Also, I admit AMD has a history of poor FPU performance. But the K7 changes all that. In case you haven't looked at the benchmarks, A K7 is generally 5%-15% faster at every FPU benchmark out there {expect maybe the intel benchmarks =) }
Gamers? Nope, this is probably too expensive - and after the history of bad fpu and wierd incompatibilities / crash bugs that AMD has, I cant see gamers going for it.
Weird incompatibilities: All Windows require is a few extra drivers / patches to get things going. Installing them is pretty much the same as installing windows, you just keep on clicking NEXT and YES. In Linux, I have yet to see any problems with my K6-2. and crashes and bugs - It's the Intel CPUs that can't add correctly and has that weird F00F bug. AMD cpus ARE NOT cheap, crappy pieces of technology that will fail you and fry your computer. For gamers, those who are on a budget would probably go fora celeron, but those who want the best they can get - a K7-700 is it. Nothing intel makes (right now) can pump out as many FPS as a K7, just look at the benchmarks, K7s pretty much make every quake lamer drool and
Servers? I really can't see it. Intel are firmly established in the server space, and cant see that ending.
Well, AMD cpus do not have SMP capabilities yet, but as soon as that's developed, AMD cpus will (hopefully) be better. Afterall, they have a faster (200 Mhz, 400 Mhz), more advanced bus (EV6 vs GTL+), along with better cpus (700 Mhz + 128k L1 + up to 8 Meg L2 vs 600 Mhz + 32k L1 + up to 2 Meg L2).
Office workstations? Nope, they will continue to be mid ranged intel cheaps supplied in bulk by Compaq / IBM. There is no need for this power.
Right, and they don't need the latest PIII to "make their internet go faster" either. That's where the K6-2 and K6-3 comes in. K6-2s go up from 350 to 500 mhz and they are dirt cheap. K6-3s are way faster than celerons at interger (aka office) applications and they offer a decent performance / price ratio.
Consumer boxes? Nope too expensive.
Same for intel, their cpus are just as expensive.
Sure it's a nice bit of kit, but who exactly would buy one? The big manufacturers won't use them considering AMD's history of supply problems.
Well, when the K7 first came out, people couldn't by one because Compaq was buying up all the supplies... Who knows, maybe if AMD starts pumping out K7s... we'll see...
_______________________________________________
There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.
Asus originally cancelled its k7 motherbaird after intel called them. THey decided to bite the bullet and and ship it
is this true? can anyone confirm what he said?
Tom's Hardware did a review of some Athlon motherboards when the chip first hit the market. He claimed that Asus had a nice Athlon motherboard design, but decided against production. Shortly afterwards, Asus announced they would produce it after all, citing "customer demand" or some such thing.
The conspiracy people claim that Intel was pressuring the motherboard makers to avoid the Athlon, and that Tom's Hardware caused enough complaining that Asus decided to risk it anyway. That is pure speculation, of course, but Intel has been caught in strong-arm tactics before...
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I'm waiting on the KX133 & the Athlon 800, however, you can get a good deal on an Athlon 500 right now, it's actually cheaper than a P3 500, and much better :)
SD-11's sell for around 150 now (+10 for shipping).
"Give someone a Hendrix tape and a joint and stick him in the corner and he's happy" - Gov. Ventura
Yes! Bus speed is an issue, but the solution is non-trivial. Those lines on your motherboard have electrical characteristics, based on length and frequency. Simply put, they become radio-transmitters! Even the layout rules for the 100Mhz/133Mhz buses are tight.
Inside the chip, it's a lot easier to push frequency because your lengths are *very* short. Thus, it's likely that there will be consumer-level 1Ghz CPUs next year or so. But the bus speed is still down near 100Mhz (even if you try tricks like double pumping it).
One solution to this problem is to put more on the same chip. These systems on a chip have been created less than happily before, as you lose most upgradeability, *but* you get to use whatever bus speeds you want internally. You also save a few bucks, and a few inches.
If I had to guess (and my crystal ball is down for the RH 6.1 Upgrade ;) ), I'd think that as cpus become a commodity item, that systems on a chip will be more and more prevalent. I'd expect alliances between nVidia and 3DFX with the AMDs, VIAs, and even Intel (despite their snapping up Cirrus Logic).
Remember, though, that if your code fits in cache and takes advance of new hints for caching present in the K7/P3, you might not even notice the faster bus speed.
My wish for improving computer performance would not be a faster bus, faster clock speeds - it would be software:
An excellent optimizing compiler!
(And, a Linux port of Intel's VTune would be fairly sweet too).
(I haven't checked lately, but last I looked there was nothing that would generate code that took advantage of P6 instructions, despite conditional moves that would eliminate many branches and give a noticeable speed boost). Here's a nice little advocacy experiment for those so inclined.. Compare the output of VC6.0 under NT (running console), versus latest Cygnus build of GCC with various algorithms, Sieve of E, etc.
The application front is interesting right now. Win2K is going to break a lot of apps. How many? nobody knows except MS and they're not saying. But it's certainly going to open the door at a lot of IT shops who haven't had to recode their apps for years. This is an opportunity for PPC and Sun (java).
Right when MS is breaking apps with Win2K and giving less reason to go with Intel/x86, Apple is going to be coming out with Mac OS X which will be running *more* apps than previous because most apps from the previous OS 8 or 9 are going to run fine, BSD applications will work fine, and Linux apps should be available as well. Since this is a BSD variant, the stability should be rock solid. The currently shipping server version seems to be working quite well. This should fit in for applications that can't use the universal (but slower) performance of java.
Where does AMD fit into this? Not very well. It's going to get hit as much as Intel, perhaps more with the Win2K software breakage problems and they don't have the cash to ride out any rough periods if x86 loses market share. Taking this into account, their teaming up with Motorola to sub out their fab for G4 production is a stroke of genius. Now, no matter what direction the market goes vis a vis these two chip families, they survive.
The speculative issue is whether they are looking to joing the AIM alliance and improve the PPC. It would certainly make for interesting variations on the old religious war flames to have a player in both camps at the same time.
TML
Well, *I'm* not gonna buy it unless it makes my sound more realistic, too.
*sound of hand smacking forehead*
too bad the average joe (along with every system sold at Circuit Shitty and Best Try) uses windows 9x... which has no clue what to do with multiple cpus...
I think Win2K will fix that... but it's probably too little too late.
I'm sure that AMD would like to capture this market as well. The bottom line is that they might not be physically able to right now. AMD has never had a problem with demand for their processors it has always been yield. The supply has never reached the demand, it has always been limited by the amount they can manufacture (Or in the Athalon's case the number of M/B vendors and the amount of Motherboards they produce). Around 50% of the processors they make are junk, they don't work off of the assembly line. That makes for huge losses financially.
AMD has been kicking Intel in the teeth for several years now, they really do own the x86 marketplace. Intel is no longer a monopoly. AMD makes near half of x86 CPUs (At least for consumer systems). If their Dresden 0.18 micron plant comes online on-time and at full capacity they should be all right, they might even replace Intel as the big CPU manufacturer. If it doesn't, well then it could be curtains for AMD.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
QUICK NOTE: I am not a big gamer or 3D freak..
Given the absolutely HUGE amounts of whitespace that you used, are you a 2D freak? It looks quite rude. only one open line between paragraphs is needed, and you have two open lines PER SENTENCE.
www.tomshardware.com mentioned about (I believe Asus) cancelling the k7 product line and the story was referenced here on /. . Go into earlier news on AMD and you shall find it. I wouldn't worry about your motherboard Asus eventually gave it a go after reading positive reviews about the k7.
.003% of the market then AMD will go out of bussiness very shorty which would be ashame.
The only problem is whats going to happen if no OEM's hop on board. Right now the k7 looks like a failure. Just name 1 OEM who offers it besides cybermax. If the k7 only owns
IT doesn't matter if the Athlon is faster. All thge other vendoers are fleeing amd chips like the plague purely for political reasons and it would be foolish for them to offer anything else. Since all teh major OEMS have deals with motherboard makers who in turn have deals with intel, you can imagine how hopless the situation is. At work we only use HP computers for every situation for every desktop. The geeks no longer decide on software/hardware but the guys who know squat in suits do. This is the trend started by microsoft which is going to brin AMD down if no other computer makers come foward by offering other CPU's. TO them intel is like microsoft. ITs either all 100% intel or no chips at all. Unless hp makes k7 systems I will have to use p3's instead. See what the power of politics can do everyone.
What a shame.
The RAM is too slow. Also the biggest improvements aren't due to clockspeed but architecture improvements like branch prediction, speculative execution, parallelized arithmetic, faster instruction execution.
Question:
Will the AMD Athlon(TM) processor support multiprocessing?
Answer:
Yes. The AMD Athlon(TM) processor bus architecture
is designed to support scalable multiprocessing.
As the AMD Athlon processor evolves into a family
of processors, multiprocessor systems (workstations
and servers) based on forthcoming AMD Athlon
processor platforms are planned to become
available. The number of AMD Athlon processors
in a multiprocessor system is a function of
chipset implementation, and not the AMD Athlon
processor design. Forthcoming optimized chipsets
are planned to enable multiprocessor system
designs based on 2, 4, 8 or more AMD Athlon
processors.
I guess Seymour Cray was a moron because he didn't use cache in his computer designs.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Seymour Cray never designed any consumer-grade products. Cost was not nearly the issue for him as for systems designers today. His market dictated that a 10% increase in performance was worth a doubling the cost.
[rant]
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Are there STILL people out there that think their processor is the bottleneck of their system?
It's everything else!!!
Remember when the 486DX2 came out? You could have a 486DX2 running internally at 66Mhz on a bus of 33MHz...or choose the 486DX running at 50MHz on a bus of 50MHz? What did the benchmarks say? The all-50-MHz system was much faster.
But, instead of spending their time improving the speed and data width of the bus, chip makers tripled the internal speed...then quadrupled... now the minimum is quintuple the speed and AMD thinks we need septupal (notice I conveniently skip the dirty one).
I fail to see why the bus systems and processors can't make the speed transition at the same time. The extra time in the CPU cycle can be spent improving data pipes between components and increasing the number of processors. Imagine if the standard system today was four, 128-bit processors running at 133MHz on a bus of 133MHz?
I say end the madness...AMD and Intel need to spend their time working on cheap, stable 128-bit SMP instead of this overwhelmingly-fast single-point-of-failure! Why 128-bit? Because if I'm going to have to throw always all my existing technology and go through another period where everything I need to run is considered "legacy" then make it worth my while and jump right to 128-bits! 64-bit is obsolete,even for game consoles. Hell, there are Windows CE portables can have 128-bit Hitachi processors (although again, nothing else in the unit is 128-bit).
I want a nice fat data pipe running at a cool, stable 200-300 megahertz. Not some processor that is ready to go critical and burn a hole through my motherboard.
[/rant]
As always, my opinion...not yours. Remember that before when you post flamebait or troll replies.
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Damn...his post beat mine by ONE MINUTE. Which means mine is probably gonna be marked "0: Redundant"
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Oh well...GTMA...I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks this game of "anything you can do, I can do better" for processor speeds has gone far enough...
If AMD really wants to kill Intel, they need to fire their marketing guys and realize that while they make little or no profit on their economy line of processors...if they have SMP, they can sell two, four or eight times as many...and thus make a lot more money than if they sold just a single "high-end" processor.
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Actually, I'm right with you at that. It would be a GRAVE mistake for AMD to play the same games that Intel has in the past. We all know the reasoning behind this P3/Xeon split. Besides, it's these kinds of games that probably has Intel in the trouble it's in now with Merced (or whatever it's 64 bit chip is). Perhaps if Intel wasn't so busy about making sure nobody used their poor architecture (GTL+. And I say this in hindsight of course) and focused on developement of CPU's, then Merced would be out now and they would'nt be poised to get their buts kicked by
I read an article here not too long ago about intel making deals with vertiually every motherboard maker in Tiawan. Basically intel threatned to raise the price of its 820 chipset and chips to these makers if they ever planned on designing a k7 motherboard. Asus originally cancelled its k7 motherbaird after intel called them. THey decided to bite the bullet and and ship it. THanks to microsoft teaching intel on all these wonderfull bussiness tactics that we now can't buy suypperior technology. Kind of reminds me of buying OS/2 after windows95 was released.
Also remember that computer makers have deals execplicitly with mothernboard manufacturers so computer venders couldn't use k7 systems even if they wanted too. Remember if they do buy a motherboard from a competitor they will lose money off intel motherboards because of increased prices.
Intel was very smart by focusing on the motherboard makers and not the computer OEMS. It also looks better for the doj since Intel didnt bully the computer makers at all.
What a shame. This christmass season I plan to buy an intel system. I believe AMD will be out of bussiness or will be on life support by then. After investing billions in R&D in the k7 it will fail since no one can buy one or the few that are out wont make enough money to pay for the R&D bill. Once intel puts 133mhz memory out and puts 256k of cache on each cpu then the performance difference will be negligable.
I'm not sure making the athalon good for multiprocessor use is really going to help AMD much, right now anyway. Developing that costs money, and right now thats what they need, and don't have much of. Bad. Which means they have to sell what they can make now. The audience for multiprocessor boards consists mainly of people who run servers, and the type of person who reads slashdot. Definatly not a small audience, but not as big as, say, the consumer market, and the business PC market. Those are mostly single processor boxes. I think the average dumb ass consumer and purchaser for companies likes bigger numbers anyway. Something to brag about to your friends...just like the horsepower of your car's engine, the size of your house, the size of your girlfriend's breasts, whatever.
Here is a chance for two companies that are battling the evil Intel empire to have a change in fortunes :))
;)
The people who *really* need to be reading this are Digital/Compaq. After all, they designed the bus, they know how to produce large, scalable servers (8 -12 processors) *and* make them work.
If Digital can come out with a series of slightly
cheaper (compared to Alpha boards) that provide
4, 8, 12 way SMP using Slot A then AMD win through
more sales and hopefully a good reputation in the high end, Digital win through increasing their presence and, if they do stuff carefully, a nice upgrade path. People could start off with Athlons then move up to 21264's if they need the power....
Everybody wins !!
Chances are it'll never happen, but we can all hope
Iggy
C-Net didn't do a very good job with their "spot check" for Athlon boxes. AMD owns the *retail box* market, thus the first IBM/Compaq Athlons are going disproportionately to the retail stores, not the mail order shops C-Net checked (tho egghead.com had IBM Athlon 500MHz machines in stock the other day). I just got back from my local Best Buy and CompUSA. Best Buy had at least several IBM Athlon boxes in stock (couldn't see the labels on most of the boxes), including 650MHz machines (fat profit margins). CompUSA had a much smaller selection of Compaq boxes, but the salescritter I talked to said they'd already sold 3-4 of 'em, not bad for a recent arrival they're not advertising. http://www.thechipmerchant.com is advertising 500-600MHz Athlon CPUs and *four* different Athlon motherboards; CPU prices are already dropping in anticipation of this week's price cuts.
Anyhow, it looks like AMD is ramping up production on schedule, they have a *great* product, and at 1% of Intel's market cap, their stock looks like a screaming bargain. (Which is why I've dumped what little cash I have into it.) Only wildcards are how big a disruption the Taiwan quake will cause in motherboard production and if the Dresden 0.18 micron fab will ramp OK. AMD reports earnings on Wednesday. If they shoved enough CPUs out the door in time to meet the quarter's cutoff, things should get interesting, especially given Intel's recent 820/Xeon stumbles.
Yeah, I want the multiprocessor Athlon Ultras (ships next year) too. If they can come up with a reasonably inexpensive 4 CPU board... (drool). But until Dresden ramps up they don't have any reason to push multiprocessor systems anyhow.
It is rumored that AMD is cranking out 800MHz parts on the plant they're already using to make all their other Athlon chips. When these higher clocked chips come off the line, they have 3 choices, they can release a higher clocked product, stockpile them to release the faster product in the future, or to mark them as a slower part. I doubt AMD is putting much or any effort into making the higher clocked Athlons at this point, the chips running this fast are probably function of their K7 design efforts over the past few years.
.18um process will further increase clock rate, but will take some effort. However, they already have the plant, and it's almost ready. Even if they only want to produce 600-700MHz parts, it still makes sense to use their newer plant as it will reduce the manufacturing costs.
Switching to the
In short, with all the work AMD has done over the past few years, increasing clock rates now is cheap and easy, and there's no reason not to. If they can make a 1GHz chip while Intel is pedalling their 600MHz chips, by all means! Most people are open to buying a single processor machine in place of a dual processor machine if they can get the same performance out of it. Naturally, this solution doesn't scale nearly as well, to compete with 4 or 8 processor computers.
Switching to dual processors, however requires a new chipset and new motherboards. Currently AMD isn't making either. I believe, that a chipset manufacturer, could make a SMP chipset based on the specs that AMD has released thus far, if not, AMD could simply release more specs to permit it.
Since the chipset manufacturers aren't likely to make SMP chipsets until the Athlon is already sucessful, AMD will have to produce on themselves or wait a while. Designing the chipset would be expensive, and still won't sell until there are SMP boards.
Given that AMD is cash strapped as it is, and the vast majority of the market is for single processor systems, designing their own chipset would probably be a grave mistake. I personally think AMD is on the right track now, they just need motherboards for their current Athlons to proceed.
Asus Slot A boards for Athlon are being marketted under the name freeway or something like that. See amdzone or aceshardware.com for details. It's been out and referenced by AMD fan sites for a couple weeks now, meanwhile Asus said, wiping the gooey slobber of their chin, that they cannot extend any PR or advertising to the project. What's it taste like Asus?
If you're swapping, get more ram. A SCSI hard drive would be pretty nice, too.
For a single-user system, SMP does not make a whole lot of sense unless you are working with highly parallel algorithms, yes. If, however, you are deploying a multi-user machine, then SMP can give you a significant performance boost.
:-)
Say, for example, you are running a web server that does a lot of dynamic content generation. Assumming a decent webserver program, different user requests can be running on different CPUs simultaneously.
Another example would be a general-purpose multi-user workhorse, of the type commonly found in college machine rooms. You have 400 students logging in, reading mail, compiling, running, and debugging programs, running MatLab, whatever. That is where SMP really shines, as you have a lot of compute-intensive tasks happening at once.
Please note that your points are well-made and perfectly valid, but I wanted to make sure it was understood that SMP is not completely worthless, either.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
the register has an interesting article about a UK box builder called mesh that has advertised its 700MHz systems already...
I almost immediately realized the K8 is Marketing Manure.
RIP AMD. I'll just have to wait for Intel to get its act together, which is pulling its punches until MS gets its act together. Which means, we're stuck with Win2000 on 32 bit architecture until 2005.
Bleeeagh.
...to try to compete with intel. All the ram prices have skyrocketed recently, and the 256MB sticks all say "for use with intel chipsets only".
Even then, I don't usually upgrade until the mobo + cpu combo is below $300.00; the 500 athlon and FIC SD11 are holding pretty solid at $384.00
Like I say, I'm not buying till the ram prices drop again. Lousy time for the upgrade market, I think. Thus, a lousy time for AMD.
This site is slowly filling up with an elite of moderating spooks-n-spirits. Fill the chamber with odd hierarchies and mysterious things can happen. Our own little secret police, merits and demerits. What fun! Not always worthy of our attention, ov course.
I'd like to be able to set my "maximum threshold" to 1 or 2, to be certain. Filter out the people who start out at three or above, and hope for the twos whose pithy words the elite particularly fancy get moderated out of my face in a timely fashion.
You're right. Commonly misspelled trademarks are a marketing manager's worst nightmare.
I guess they should have thought of that before picking Athlon as the brand name.
I think it's all a whole lot of fun.
Especially seeing people go off on it like you have.
A quad-Athlon SMP machine @ 700MHz will be a lot more realizable than a similar Intel SMP machine just from the sheer power dissipation. Intel, in recent years, has produced some high speed processors -- from brute force -- sure the processors are fast, but they simply throw the book out the window on power consumption and design efficiency. They can get away with it because they have had little competition (until now), and the mindless masses simply accept Intel products without a technical critique.
AMD, on the otherhand, has produced some powerful chips that can now compete with Intel's best. They also consume less power and have smaller die. A PentiumIII has 9.5M transistors as opposed to the Athlon's 22M transistors! Can you imagine two PIII die in that SEC package? Do you know what China Syndrome means? You will if you try it!
Go AMD! Go Athlon! At the very least, this type of technical challenge will only help us, the consumers!
--DigitalAce
Since this article is a little less technical, I'd like to go ahead ad voice a couple thoughts. It is of my opinion that Intel is a much more friendlier company than had been in the past when it comes to the x86 market. Intel most definately has the dough to pour into R&D to stay ahead of the x86 market. It most definately has the cash to through out a chip similiar to the G4 in raw flops, but it hasn't. So Intel doesn't hold the top bang, the top bang for the buck,and most definately hasn't come out with anything incredably exciting in some time. Intel does hold the market share. Sure the their new Merced is building a lot of hype, but when it comes down to actual production, it sure isn't rushing things. Intel has one wonderful thing goinf for it,and that is stability. Now it isn't the most stable of platforms sure, but think about the peice of mind you get when you buy intel. Odd chip sets? Nah, its the VIA and the SiS that put out those "soon to have a patch" chipsets, and wird super socket 7 MBs. Cyrix failed misribly because it wasn't even win98 compatible till way to late. You think that SGI wouldn't have picked AMD hardware if it could have? You think that the G4 is really going to be the way to crunch numbers even though the support hardware is so undeveloped (as compared to that is). MHZ is great, terra-flops: go for it!, but if you can't run the apps and keep em running.. then whats the point. Now I amilling to bet that those pro admins out there.. that if you even remotely suggested to any of the big shoulders at your company to switch from anything Intel on the x86 side, the resistance would almost come like instinct. Intel is (in my opinion) not really the MS of the CPU world as it used to be, simply because its product is tried or true. I see it as a corvette vs. hummer deal.. the army doesn't ride around in vette's for a reason. Bortbox (there goes my karma for sure)
I do agree with your observations that system componets have NOT kept pace with CPU advances, and indeed, there seems to be wide concensus that the main bottlenecks these days (at least in the x86 world) are off-chip.
That said, I think you are making several confusing suggestions:
I would like to see people concentrate more on holistic system performance, but let's keep everything in perspective....
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
if ((post.score() != 1) && (post.score() 4)) { post.read() }
Nope, the beowulf and first post things aren't going away -- let's lighten up a bit. If you don't like stupid comments, you can filter out most of the stale ones, and that takes care of most of the "problem".
Frankly, the long winded "informative/interesting/insightful" posts make me weary eyed most of the time. In my book, flames and trolls are much more interesting, especially the grains of truth that they sometimes work from.
Besides, it's Rob's fault for not including a "bad-attitude" option in the recent moderation roundup anyway -- lots of the flames and trolls wouldn't be anonymous if there was room made for them to be disagreeable and contrary without shame.
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if ((post.score() != 1) && (post.score() 4)) { post.read() }
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if ((post.score() != 1) && (post.score() < 4)) { post.read() }
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Go to Tom's Hardware guide. You'll see there that the 600MHz P3 doesn't really handle 600MHz. The Athlon 650 clocked to 750 does not need aditional cooling, and it's rock solid. Intel has always produced shit, they have just convinced people that that is not the case, a shame.
Ok, right now at home I am running a AMD K6-2 350.
.. in reality.. in a lot of applications my AMD 350 seems to be a bit pepier...
:) to upgrade?
... BUT, for the average user.. and the average applications.. it seems that the bottleneck is NOT the CPU..
128meg ram, 16meg TNT, IDE.. yada yada..
At work I am running a PIII 500 with about the same setup.
this is my questions, why am I not seeing a near double in my performance? I would guess that it was ram.. BUT.. I took ram out of one of the other machines, and I am not seeing a GREAT performance increase..
Sure, my computer at work can crunch SETI@ blocks a bit quicker, but
QUICK NOTE: I am not a big gamer or 3D freak..
THIS IS THE POINT.. has anyone actually used a computer that goes that fast? (700 Mhz).. is it even worth it for the average LinuxNerd(TM)
It seems like these superfast CPU's are GREAT if you have VERY spacific needs.. (3D Rendering (ie. Games))
For someone out there that has a lot of experience with a lot of different CPU's, which CPU configuration is the price to performance ratio?
Will I see more performance increase by purchasing a UW/SCSI-Controller / HD????
More Ram?
More CPU?
:) For some reason I feel like if I dump my current motherboard and go purchase a AMD-700 w/new ram.. etc. I will be disapointed....
My microwave says 2450 GHz on it.
With CPU's, I think as emittance goes up (with freqency), power consumption may go quite a bit up. Also circuits and components on the CPU must be redesigned.
Now if your MOTHERBOARD were running at 1 GHz, it's be a different matter.
I can see where this chip is targeted:
At the resellers. It's the perfect upgrade to tout to those repeat customers who come in at every major CPU upgrade to buy yet another motherboard. Some people will buy whatever has the big numbers on it.
Unfortunatley that's not a sustainable market, nor will that sort of person be fooled more than a few times. So AMD is likely in deep trouble now with this.
The local shops here are already selling Athlons and motherboards, though I can't say I've heard how well they are selling. I bought my Pentium III a month ago so am not interested. And I regret ever buying a K6-2.
... than an unemployed bum. AMD is, I believe, publicly traded. Survival and maximizing shareholder value is the bottom line in a public company, bankruptcy is the ultimate failure.
If Athlon wins, great. It is smart for AMD to have a plan B though.
TML
and windoze will not bsod ever again
...would you brag about a girlfriend with only one breast? "My girlfriend has a giant F-cup breast and your girlfriend only has two, evenly-proportioned C-cup breasts?"
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Silly I know, but my point is that consumers can be trained to think anything is better if the advertising says it is. If they create some cute little "Puffy, the SMP doggy" all the JoeShmoes are gonna run out and ask for dual-processor systems at Circuit City and Best Buy.
Tell them they need two processors so one can access the Internet and the other can play games, or better yet...tell them they need a processor for every application they want to run. That outta put consumer demand for SMP on the laps of those boys in marketting...
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Traditionally AMD chips have gone into the low end consumer "multimedia" machine and into the boxes of gamers in the know / people who aren't ready to upgrade to intels proprietary chip hole.
Now this chip is expensive & probably needs a new MB to take advantage of it. This is an expensive upgrade - so who will go for it?
Graphics / Video people? Nope these people are most likely to be looking at a G4 Mac or SGI these days. Or at least an x86 with history of good FPU performance (intel)
Gamers? Nope, this is probably too expensive - and after the history of bad fpu and wierd incompatibilities / crash bugs that AMD has, I cant see gamers going for it.
Servers? I really can't see it. Intel are firmly established in the server space, and cant see that ending.
Office workstations? Nope, they will continue to be mid ranged intel cheaps supplied in bulk by Compaq / IBM. There is no need for this power.
Consumer boxes? Nope too expensive.
Sure it's a nice bit of kit, but who exactly would buy one? The big manufacturers won't use them considering AMD's history of supply problems.
stty erase ^H