Replies to post #17024 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[dougSF30]

sgolds,

That sounds about right. And it gives 32-bit buyers an easy upgrade path to 64-bit.

Doug

[Petz]

If you think the only reason for a castrated K8 is to segment AMD's market and hopefully keep 64-bit chips more expensive then

1) Why not come out with the Paris chip sooner -- they are coming out with a 512K version of Athlon 64 in January, so a 256K would be no more difficult. Eliminating 64-bit can be done just by not connecting some pins on the die to the socket. A 256K Athlon 64 would certainly be faster than a 512K Barton at the same clock speed because of the on-die memory controller and it would have about the same die size.

1a) objection - some would say that Paris has additional changes to reduce the die size even further, to which I answer, yes, that would take time, but why waste resources shrinking a 130nm chip that will only have a lifetime of at most 6 months?

2) I think segmenting the market using clock speed and performance, rather than 32-bitness or 64-bitness is better for AMD in the long run because:

2a) It increases the number of computers that can run 64-bit OS's and therefore increases the pressure on software developers and Microsoft to release 64-bit capable software.

2b) It marginalizes all non-64-bit-capable chips, such as Celerons, Pentium 4s and Xeons, allowing AMD to gain more market share. Eventually this increases the pressure on all OEMs to favor AMD chips over Intel.

Note that AMD has consistently said that 100% 64-bit is their ultimate priority, so I think AMD will find a way to target a 64-bit-capable chip at the low-end 32-bit market.

3) One called Charles on the SI Mod thread has intimated that some future chip from Intel or an OEM is forcing AMD's hand in having to release a castrated K8. The only way I can figure this makes sense is that the K8s 64-bit resources are needed for compatibility with some non-AMD64 Intel instruction-set extensions.

4) No way is Prescott AMD64 compatible, but some future chip might be. That would certainly not be a reason to disable AMD64 on a chip that doesn't appear for 8 months yet. Au contraire, they should be broadening AMD64 to cover the entire product line once a cheap socket is available.

Petz