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Intel Hardware

Is Prescott 64-bit? 487

Posted by timothy from the bits-o-plenty dept.
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..."
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Is Prescott 64-bit? More

Is Prescott 64-bit?

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  • Hrmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by acehole ( 174372 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:44PM (#7014870) Homepage
    I haven't even run out and bought a 32bit. Contiki and c64 1mhz 8bit power keep me warm at night.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:07PM (#7014980)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Funny)

        by stilwebm ( 129567 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:27PM (#7015057)
        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 (Score:3, Informative)

          by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 )
          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
        • Now I know what my next case mod will look like. Thanks!

    • 16bit? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Lispy ( 136512 )
      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.

  • FUD (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:48PM (#7014890)
    Intel, those typical insensitve clods, are spreading FUD around to kill AMD.

    • Re:FUD (Score:5, Interesting)

      by javiercero ( 518708 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:27PM (#7015058)
      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 (Score:3, Funny)

        by MarcoAtWork ( 28889 )
        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 :)

  • It would almost have to follow AMD's conventions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phosphor3k ( 542747 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:49PM (#7014891)
    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.
    • 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).

  • The tide is turning for AMD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dankdirk77 ( 690855 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:49PM (#7014896)
    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!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Daath ( 225404 ) <lp@NoSPAm.coder.dk> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:50PM (#7014899) Homepage Journal
    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 ;)

  • Let me see if i can understand this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Disevidence ( 576586 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:52PM (#7014908) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • IInntteerreessttiinng (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eponymous Cowboy ( 706996 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:53PM (#7014915)
    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..

  • Wow! Not. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:53PM (#7014916)

    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dzym ( 544085 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:54PM (#7014920) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Plus, I don't see Microsoft supporting not one but TWO Intel-specific 64-bit platforms.

      If the platforms both become popular they will. Having .Net out there actually makes supporting two 64bit platforms pretty easy. Most of the work is creating two separate JIT compilers...

    • No, it isn't (Score:5, Informative)

      by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <charlie&semiaccurate,com> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:56PM (#7015172) Homepage
      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

    • The Inq (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zealot ( 14660 )
      The guy who started The Register (Mike Magee) left and started The Inquirer. So, it's not really a wanna-be...
    • 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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RichiP ( 18379 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:54PM (#7014923) Homepage
    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).
    • A long time ago, there was a reasonable argument that one should buy Intel to avoid compatibility problems (although those were mostly due to Cyrix issues.) I also run four AMD systems at home (my server is a 1.4 Ghz. Athlon that has never crashed, not once) and have no problems. My only Intel is an old Toshiba laptop that I use for playing MP3s. At work they gave me a 2.8 Ghz. Pentium IV Compaq and its a pain in the neck. Slow and flaky, although that's more Compaq's fault than Intel's.

  • Finally caught on? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by freidog ( 706941 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:55PM (#7014925)
    Chip Architect [chip-architect.com] 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 is a second article on Chip-Architect that goes into the 64-bitness in greater detail. I also linked to a few other sources. People keep talking about the exec bit that I had to make vague so the person who told me wouldn't get nailed. Take it as you will, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind.

      -Charlie

  • There's more to it than 64-bit instructions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StandardCell ( 589682 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:56PM (#7014927)
    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.

  • Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits (Score:5, Informative)

    by vlad_petric ( 94134 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @08:59PM (#7014944) Homepage
    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.

    • you forget: x86 works. There are already of compilers used to x86. I have no idea why amd didn't add more registeres, but otherwise their move makes as much sense as intel's.

      • Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits (Score:5, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @10:15PM (#7015244) Homepage Journal
        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.

    • 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).

    • The real question is how many times the computer industry can recycle the acronym "ISA".
    • Funny on this - I was in a Mac store the other day, drooling over the G5. I love the G5 design but I could never afford it, no matter how slick. Nevertheless, when the sales droid came over I let him give me the speil and I was astounded - he was explaining how 64 bits was better because you could load all your programs into memory and not use the hard drive anymore. I was totally blown away.

    • Look to the G5 (Score:3, Informative)

      by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 )
      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 differe

    • Re:Performance doesn't come directly from 64 bits (Score:5, Informative)

      by scheme ( 19778 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @11:08PM (#7015469)
      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.

      • Compiler (Score:3, Informative)

        by vlad_petric ( 94134 )
        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 agre

  • You know you're in trouble... (Score:2, Funny)

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

  • FUD! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tremblay99 ( 534187 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:06PM (#7014972)
    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! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:22PM (#7015041)
      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.
      • ... someone with points mod the PARENT up. Although if you'd like to share with me, that's cool too.

      • Re:FUD! (Score:2)

        by hbo ( 62590 ) *
        If Intel ACTUALLY had a 64-bitter coming out soon, they'd be trumpeting it like it was the Second Coming.

        There's that multi-billion dollar investment in Itanium to think about not to mention the partneships Intel has tried to build around the chip.

        This is all about the server market. Itanium is expensive because it requires all new software. It's performance has been disappointing too. That has recently improved, they actually beat Opteron in the tests I've seen on 64-bit code. But Opteron's value propos
      • Right.. like a General going into battle that's a little short on troops, but has some killer special forces that will hopefully, with surprise, defeat your foes, Intel should just blow their chances away by "trumpeting" their approach and giving away any and all measure of surprise.

        I'm not going to debate whether or not Prescott has 64-bit extensions, but assuming it does, and knowing that AMD thinks they have a sure thing, would YOU galavant about like a some idiot who arrived late at a party saying "lo

    • Good point, one little problem. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <charlie&semiaccurate,com> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @10:19PM (#7015263) Homepage
      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

  • Is Prescott 64-bit? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:06PM (#7014974)
    No. It's just a really bad rounding error in the FPU.

  • I've Heard This Before (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:08PM (#7014986) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:47PM (#7015133) Homepage
      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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:10PM (#7014998)
    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.

  • Isn't this what Intel wants? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kevinv ( 21462 ) <kevin.vanhaaren@net> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:18PM (#7015027) Homepage
    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?

  • WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sinserve ( 455889 )
    The article doesn't mention "64-bit" anywhere. Where did this sensationalist
    "reporter" pull his news from?

  • In honor of my first computer... (Score:4, Funny)

    by TimeForGuinness ( 701731 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:43PM (#7015117) Journal
    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? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:44PM (#7015123) Homepage Journal
    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. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:45PM (#7015128)
    Can you say "astroturfing to ruin the release of Athlon64 coming up next week"?

    I knew you could!

  • PreSCOtt (Score:5, Funny)

    by KoolDude ( 614134 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:47PM (#7015135)

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

    Ouch, that hurt!

  • this scares me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nuckin futs ( 574289 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:53PM (#7015159)
    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 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by eagl ( 86459 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @09:55PM (#7015170) Journal
    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.

  • Comparison with Apple's G5 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr. Ophidian Jones ( 653797 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @10:15PM (#7015243)
    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 (Score:3, Informative)

    by droleary ( 47999 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @10:15PM (#7015247) Homepage

    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 [com.com] 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.

  • "Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet..." (Score:4, Insightful)

    by colins ( 432 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @10:36PM (#7015347) Homepage

    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:"Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gerardrj ( 207690 ) * on Sunday September 21, 2003 @01:45AM (#7016078) Journal
      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?
      • 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.

        • Re:"Don't run out and buy an Athlon 64 just yet... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by gerardrj ( 207690 ) * on Sunday September 21, 2003 @04:05AM (#7016466) Journal
          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.

  • this is a (supposed) underdog competition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mbreitba ( 662883 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @11:08PM (#7015468)
    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.

  • x86 has been 48-bit for years (Score:3, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @11:23PM (#7015514) Homepage
    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... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by perlchild ( 582235 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @11:34PM (#7015554)
    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...

  • Fud, FUD FUD!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by haggar ( 72771 ) on Sunday September 21, 2003 @02:22AM (#7016209) Homepage Journal
    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!

  • Old Labour... (Score:3, Funny)

    by slipgun ( 316092 ) on Sunday September 21, 2003 @05:18AM (#7016624)
    Is Prescott 64-bit?

    Is Prescott 64 yet?

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