Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Petz]

The french x86-secrets site says that Paris is based off the K8 core minus 64-bit. If 64-bit is really 100% eliminated with no possibility of changing it back to 64-bit by shorting a bridge or some such thing, then why wouldn't AMD just continue making Athlon XPs?

How small could a 256K L2 K8-based chip be? 110mm? OK, then it makes sense as a K7 replacement. It should outperform it because the integrated memory controller. But why disable 64-bit? Even if motherboards for Paris chips are incapable of having more than 2G or RAM, the AMD64 compatibility is still important so that the chip can run 64-bit windows and gain the additional processing speed for 64-bit games, video editing applications and the like. "Compatibile with Windows XP 64" should be a big selling point, even if no one ever plugs in more than 32-bits-worth of RAM.

OTOH, if a K8 256K L2 chip cannot be made that small, then why not just continue the Athlon XP?

Petz