There is a new magazine on the news stands
called "Gigahertz" and the Second Edition
(the one on the news stands now) reviews the
outstanding leaders of the pack. It's very
interesting to watch the AMD Athlon 64 FX-55
settle in among all the competitors. Here is
a native 64-bit processor that runs ALL existing
32-bit software; it is designed from scratch
with an on-chip memory controller; and, it not
only runs more efficiently at less GHz, it is
capable of responding to load dynamically by
consuming less power when the load is light.
Researchers like Tom's Hardware show that the
on-chip memory controller responds dramatically
to improvements that are occurring with high-end
DDR RAM, i.e. it takes better advantage of very
high-speed memory timings (CAS latency and such).
Now, in light of all these capabilities, not to
mention the flurry of sophisticated software which
Microsoft is upgrading to utilize 64-bit addressing,
why should anyone settle for a Prescott CPU that
uses more heat and requires more cooling, when the
long-term future for such 32-bit technologies appears
short (as things generally go in the computer industry,
Moore's Law being what it is)?
On this one point, when I mentioned to an OEM
dealer that Prescotts were consuming more power
and running slower than the Intel Northwood CPUs,
he said he hadn't heard that. It wasn't long after
that when I saw Prescott prices drop, and the
market prices for Northwoods with 533 MHz FSB
started to climb back up.
What does that tell you?
Answer: the market came to realize that Prescotts
were more expensive to operate, in the long run,
and required more cooling, in the short-run (assembly)
so the market reverted to the very efficient
Northwood cores with only 533 MHz FSB, not even
the 800 MHz FSB.
I know, both Intel lines were superseded by the
newer LGA series from Intel, and PCI-Express is
another ingenious bus standard from the volume
leader in such things. But, I look at what the
FX-55 can do with the best available Corsair
or Micron high-performance memory, and the rated
bus speeds when these are "tuned" to each other
are pushing 2,000 MHz, not 800 or 1,066 MHz,
with AMD's hyperchannel architecture.
And, we observe that Intel flipped the pin
grid and thereby shifted the cost of
pin grid manufacturing to the motherboard
manufacturers. That move looked a lot to me
like one that was motivated almost purely
by cost considerations, manufacturing in chief.
As of 18 months ago, I would have to say that
AMD pulled off something close to a major
miracle: coming from behind, they stole the
technological lead from Intel, and now Intel
must play "catch-up" or face the prospect of
gradually losing market share to a well
integrated 64-bit standard.
Adding just 1 bit to a 32-bit address space
results in DOUBLING that entire address space;
adding just 2 bits QUADRUPLES that address space.
What do we get if we take a gigantic leap from
32-bit addressing to 64-bit addressing?
Answer: a programmer's dream come true,
that's what.
What am I missing here?
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
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