Replies to post #16838 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[KeithDust2000]

I_banker, In light of the new roadmap which shows a 90nm Athlon, I ask those in the design know what is incrementally involved in adding 64 bit extensions to the Athlon?

AthlonXP is just the brand name, not the core it is based on. I think you´ve been told that before, if not, you know now.

[CombJelly]

"what is incrementally involved in adding 64 bit extensions to the Athlon?"

I would be very surprised if you don't have it backwards, i.e. Paris is actually a Hammer. It would be a lot of work to port Barton to SOI (although they may have already done a lot of this) and put the memory controller, crossbar and HTT port(s) on the die, given that Paris is supposed to be Socket754. And the work would be pretty pointless, the die wouldn't be very much smaller than a Hammer core. Unless, of course, they have already done much of the work back in the days when Barton was supposed to be SOI...

The thing that I don't understand is why this would exist at all. It makes no sense (to me, at least) why they would continue with 32 bit processors. The more 64 bit capable processors out there, the better. Otherwise they risk giving software companies a reason not to port software to 64 bits.

[gollem]

I_banker, amd has been having a hard time differentiating between their XP cpu's and Intels celerons, the 64 bit angle might be what it takes to get AND keep high asp's.