Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Haddock]

The ant-swarm scenario would only work if AMDx86-64 is implemented in Prescot, so that a quick decision by Intel to activate it (and make chipsets available for it) would send--in a matter of weeks--all Intel's might into the space that AMD was so nice to clear for them. If it's a matter of fabbing new chips--that takes too long. If they don't already have a chipset for it, it may also be too late.

Many on this board know the business alot better than I do. Is this feasible?

They don't need new chipsets, since Xeon is already capable of addressing more than 4Gbytes of RAM. PAE is an ugly solution, but the uglyness is all inside the CPU as far as I know, so externally it's just a simple 36-bit system (40 in Prescott?).

I think it's feasible to have a secret x86-64 mode in Prescott that can be just switched on, but I don't personally find it very likely.