AMD Previews New Processor Extensions

An anonymous reader writes "It has been all over the news today: AMD announced the first of its Extensions for Software Parallelism, a series of x86 extensions to make parallel programming easier. The first are the so-called 'lightweight profiling extensions.' They would give software access to information about cache misses and retired instructions so data structures can be optimized for better performance. The specification is here (PDF). These extensions have a much wider applicability than just parallel programming — they could be used to accelerate Java, .Net, and dynamic optimizers." AMD gave no timeframe for when these proposed extensions would show up in silicon.

I wish AMD and Intel teamed up for once

[rolfwind]

and did away with the aging x86 instruction set and came up with something new.

Yeah, I know, Intel tried with Itanium.

I think this is great

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

I for one
think this
is good
news.

Re:Silicon Problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

94.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Re:Hardware Accelleration == Bad Trend

[kiddygrinder]

Java never made anything easier for anyone and you know it.

Re:Is it really that hard?

[Short Circuit]

I see all fuss about programming. easy. don't what the is parallel It's
I see all fuss about programming. easy. don't what the is parallel It's

I hereby propose that execution is in order for out of order speech.

Re:Jombeewoof, get off the Internet.

[jombeewoof]

It looks like I have a fan.
good times. I guess I'll have to start wearing pants now though.