Replies to post #1946 on AMD strictly moderated (AMD)

[rlweitz]

Microsoft never said this and Intel never asked them to.

Well, being that Intel showed up so late to the x86-64 game they really didn't have a choice. The initial iteration of Yamhill was disabled in Prescott due to it's x86-64 incompatibilities.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021226.html

Remember that PC pecking order? It placed only Microsoft above Intel. And Microsoft, it turns out, is extremely wary of Intel's current 64-bit product plan. Microsoft, too, doesn't want to commit completely to 64-bits, in part because they have a lot of software to upgrade and can't get it all done soon. So Microsoft likes a dual-mode chip. They liked Yamhill until it died. Microsoft likes Athlon-64 and Opteron A LOT — enough to have worked with AMD (and only AMD) to make a 64-bit version of Windows that works in 64-bit mode only with AMD processors.

To do this, Microsoft has written Windows to AMD's 64-bit extensions, which are new instructions added to the X86 instruction set to allow the chip to work either way.

Microsoft is not proposing that computer companies abandon Intel, because its Intel relationship is too important and AMD is too small to be relied upon as a sole supplier. So what is likely to happen (here comes my prediction) is that Intel will be forced by Microsoft to adopt AMD's 64-bit instructions. To do this they will build a processor by the end of 2003 that is a clone of an AMD processor that is a clone of an Intel processor. Say that four times quickly.