Replies to post #54992 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Tenchu]

Darbes, yeah...and intel took a pentium iii and made some nice circuit....

And AMD took a K7 and made some nice circuit and came out with a K8.

My, how processor architecture advanced over the years!

Tenchu

[wbmw]

Re: and intel took a pentium iii and made some nice circuit....

Are you talking about Banias? If so, then you are painfully misinformed.

First, Banias has very little to do with Pentium III. It started as a derivative of Pentium II, with an optimized layout for smaller die size and lower power, and it was called Timna. Of course, Timna also had integrated Rambus controllers that didn't belong with where the market was headed, so the project was cancelled.

The same team later resurrected the Timna design and used it as a basis for Banias. In addition to multiple circuit enhancements, Banias also had a substantial percentage of the micro-architecture revamped with power efficient features. These included micro-ops fusion, a brand new branch predictor, a dedicated stack engine, and various lower level power optimizations. You can read about the details here:

http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2003/volume07issue02/art03_pentiumm/p01_abstract.htm

Calling the Turion an Athlon 64 with circuit enhancements is completely accurate, but calling the Pentium M a Pentium III with circuit enhancements is just plain wrong.