“AMD showed off prototypes of its x86-64 Hammer technology yesterday even as Intel Corp failed to dampen speculation that it is developing a similar hybrid technology,Joe Fay writes. AMD’s Hammer technology is designed to support both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems and applications and yesterday the vendor for the first time publicly demonstrated Hammer chips running Windows XP and a 64 bit version of Linux. The demonstration was held just a few blocks away from the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.” Read the rest of the report at TheRegister.
AMD Shows Hammer Outside Intel Show
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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While the engineers at Intel were busy working on poor chip designs…
…AMD was busy making a chip that people might actually use and buy!
Hey Intel! You can blink now!
[SARCASM]<BR>
While the engineers at AMD were busy working on poor chip designs, Intel was publicly releasing new Xeons and showing off Pentium 4 at 3 GHz (not-overclocked) running 3 HDTV signals (twice the bandwidth of DVD needed x 3) on a roated 3D cube.
>…AMD was busy making a chip that people might actually use and buy!
Hammer is not going to be available till the end of the year.
Hey AMD! You can blink now!
<BR>
[/SARCASM]
<P>
You know guys… I am so fed up with your stuborness. MacOSX Vs Windows vs Linux. Vi Vs Emacs. Intel Vs AMD.
It’s all the same for Gods sake. Everyone has its good and its bad points. Learn to be more open minded than stupid single-minded football zealots. Grow up.
And yes, I am running this site, and I do talk harsh when I want to, no need to remind me that I need to be polite with my readers. Because I don’t. I always speak my mind. Freedom for me is more important than the stupid title of “editor in chief”. Get over that too.
Well sorta. Hammer is going to hammer Intel.
Of course MS will swoop in to save their old buddy Intel by not supporting Hammer, hey that would be interesting, Linux gets a free ride while the gorillas jockey for position.
Speaking of Intel, I find it very interesting that they went to all the trouble to develope Itanium from scratch.
I was reading the specs for the Intel Xscale Strong arm processor. It is able to run at 1 Ghz while only consuming 1.5 watts of power. It provides pretty good number crunching power for a low power embedded design. I wondered why Intel did not start with Strong arm for their big 64 bit processor.
Intead of developing a completly new arch they could have extended strong arm to 64 bits, added all of the extra goodies needed. I would bet they would have had a very powerful processor that only used a few watts of power. There is a new dual core Mips processor out that runs at 1 Ghz while using only 5 watts of power.
I bet a 64 bit version of strong arm could beat that.
StrongARM was developped by Digital Semiconductor and Intel got it when Digital went under. In its turn StrongARM was probably licensed from ARM by Digital – I don’t know details.
So Intel may not even have rights to expand ARM architecture to 64 bits.
And Itanium development was started before StrongARM got into Intel’s hands.
Itanium is a combined child of HP and Intel and supposed to compete with Alpha (DEC) and PowerPC(IBM+Motorola).
The worst part of the story is that software vendors are pushing even harder on hardware manufacturers now. If Intel cannot break out of Microsoft hegemony then we are all doomed – just take the worst you know about Apple and multiply it by MS market share.
Eugenia,
You said,
“While the engineers at AMD were busy working on poor chip designs, Intel was publicly releasing new Xeons and showing off Pentium 4 at 3 GHz (not-overclocked) running 3 HDTV signals (twice the bandwidth of DVD needed x 3) on a roated 3D cube.”
Where do you buy these chips? How many have they sold? I haven’t seen ANY of these chips at major retailers of computer products.
You said:
“Hammer is not going to be available till the end of the year.”
I didn’t say, “Buy today”. I said, “…people might actually use and buy!”
You said:
“You know guys… I am so fed up with your stuborness. MacOSX Vs Windows vs Linux. Vi Vs Emacs. Intel Vs AMD.
It’s all the same for Gods sake. Everyone has its good and its bad points. Learn to be more open minded than stupid single-minded football zealots. Grow up.”
My point was not an “AMD Vs Intel” issue.
My point was and I thought this was obvious, is that Intel is NOT listening to what the market wants. That is why they continue to see their market share eroded by AMD and others.
And that’s a “Fact”, not a “stubborness” or a “single minded” thought or a “zealot” position. Just the “facts” Ma’am!
Backwards compatibility has its uses, but isn’t it about time we’ve gotten rid of the ancient x86 architecture. How much further can they keep stretching it. (Hell, this is not a new argument.)
Maybe something like the Transmetta approach of code morphing could work. Set the chip to x86 emulation mode for the old software, etc.
Anyways, new technology is (almost) always a good thing, and competition is often the best thing for new technology. It seems that both the Itanium and Hammer have their strong points.
nvidia should include a hypertransport link on their geforce
to amd hammer and bypass the slow agp bus altogether.
it would be a sgi like oxygen design
nvidia should include a hypertransport link on their geforce
to amd hammer and bypass the slow agp bus altogether.
it would be a sgi like oxygen design
well as I undrestand it Intel got strong arm in a big legal battle. So Intel has all of the rights to strong arm. I understand that they license the arm isa from the company in england that developed the arm, but the core of the processor is their ip.
It is interesting how the best technology always seems to lose . Here we are still getting excited about yet another instalment of x86, woo hoo, I am shaking with anticipation. :/
Alpha gets killed, Mips is doomed to embedded work, Sparc is stuck in the mud, Itanium uses so much power that you can heat you house with one while puting out pathetic spec scores, Strong arm is stuck in handhelds that would be supercomputers in 1980, Power is for big boxes only.
Well maybe Motorola and Apple can do something with the G5.
Ahhhh is’nt it great that people refuse to give up their legacy systems?
Side bet;
How long till a DOS on Hammer user group puts up a web page?
Yeah……. a 16 bit os on a 64 bit processor running in 32 bit compatability mode.
> You know guys… I am so fed
> up with your stuborness.
Good for you! As you can see, a lot of folks are just not like you, they love this stubborness. Get over it and just let them be.
> MacOSX Vs Windows vs Linux.
> Vi Vs Emacs. Intel Vs AMD.
> It’s all the same for Gods sake.
> Everyone has its good and its bad points.
No, there are differences, as any VI fan will tell you. Fact is, these differences are very important. If people aren’t passionate about these issues, why should they care if they buy a mac or wintel? Imagine what we would be paying for processors if people only cared for Intel. Or for a mac if apple were the only computer shop in town. Or for servers if everybody only cared for Sun, or for dbs if we all cared for Oracle. Competition is based on these differences, so these differences are important, but only because, there are people who actually care one way or the other.
> Learn to be more open minded than
> stupid single-minded football
> zealots. Grow up.
Ha, football “zealots” are “stupid” just for having a different attitude? And this lecture is about being open-minded? What would you want, really? Football fans who are just as happy when their favourite teams loose games? Please!
> And yes, I am running this site, and
> I do talk harsh
Oops! I read that as “talk trash” the first time I saw it!!!!
> no need to remind me that I need to be
> polite with my readers. Because I don’t.
> I always speak my mind.
If it is about the issues, you can certainly speak your mind without being rude or calling people “stupid” or “dumb”. There’s a big difference there.
> Freedom for me is more important
> than the stupid title of “editor in
> chief”. Get over that too.
I agree, which is another reason why should learn not to bad-mouth the “zealots”. They are speaking their minds as well , and I assume they too have the same freedom. Just becos you disagree with somebody’s views or attitudes does not mean you should call them names.
Bravo! Well said!
The only thing I am sure of regarding the 64-bit x86 v. IA-64 question is this: technological superiority will play almost no part in choosing the winner in this battle. It never does.
You know, I can’t help but feel frustration and Microsoft and Intel. Just like IBM of the 70’s, these two giants are attempting to create a unified platform. To say “unified”, doesn’t imply bringing together a bunch of independant entities, but rather eliminating all other entities. In the end we will have one giant unregulated behemoth who will have carte blanche to do whatever they feel like. This is in regards to data mining, privacy issues and future trends in computing. I find this very troubling, and I do become a bit of a zealot against these large entities. You can throw such other companies as Verizon and AOL/Time Warner in the soup.
The end result of the late 20th and early 21st century will be the same situation we had with railroads at the beginning of the 20th century. There will be very large monolithic structures who will not succumb to market pressure because they maintain a monopoly on the market. This is more dangerous however, because these guys control things that are used regularly every day–phones, networks, computers and information technology. They will also hold the keys to the kingdom, and will be able to exploit them as they feel.
Unfortunately the current admininistration in Washington doesn’t see this as a problem, and is setting the stage for even more historic mergers and acquisitions, and reducing the restrictions placed on Microsoft and other such monopolitistic entities. Only time will tell what the end result of all that will be, but if history tells us anything, it tells us it won’t be good.
Good Lord what an histeric crisis the Editor in Chief just had.
In another news thread Dave Pourier referred to the http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252_875_4… available for online order.
However those manuals are only sent to USA/CANADA. Any one has a clue on how to order them in Europe?
Something that AMD still has to catch up a lot is in online documentation, Intel clearly rules there; AMD inside my box (oops, the football zealot in me).
Well spoken Hank. While the climate in washington could be much better, I do not think that politicians and lawyers can stop these monopolies. Whether government should is even arguable to begin with, and that they could is very doubtful in my opinion. Some of these big companies have the hearth of champions, don’t forget.
Take Microsoft for example. Who are their competitors? MacOS? Solaris? Palm? Star Office? Borland? Oracle? AOL? Yahoo? Nintendo? They are everywhere and growing! It is amazing that they can fight on so many fronts at the same time, and that’s putting it mildly.
So even without the unfair tactics, the big companies probably have enough muscle and determination to outsmart all week opponents. The competition must get their acts together if they want a fighting chance. Apple has to do whatever MS is doing to grab the market, and so must Oracle. Lawyers won’t help much. With more work and a little luck, a company like AMD should be able to keep Intel in check for a long time.
Eugenia if you want to abuse us can you at least have a better case? You took everything out of context. He obviously is not a zealot he was just making an opinionated statement and calling people stupid,dumb,ect is not nice no matter what you are or who you are. I thought this site was for intelligent conversations and it seems everyone can have one but you
I actually sent an email to AMD support about that a couple of days ago (the day I posted the url), but like everytime I wrote to them I still haven’t got an answer.
Maybe I’ll just have to do like usual, bypass their help-support emails and just reach one of the engineer to put pressure. At least that worked to get an answer about x86-64 a year ago.
AMD should really get in the game here and improve customer/developer support. Nice to write an optimization manual but at least REPLY to your emails.
with amd hammer as runner up with some “interesting” and “promising” technology.
that’s cause despite amd hammer’s superiority,
pc mag is a ziff davis press, and ZD is an intel whore.
While the climate in washington could be much better, I do not think that politicians and lawyers can stop these monopolies. Whether government should is even arguable to begin with, and that they could is very doubtful in my opinion. Some of these big companies have the hearth of champions, don’t forget.
Another problem is that the politicians and lawyers are too slow to react to many of the issues that come up, and the legal process takes even longer to get things done. For instance, the current anti-trust case against MS is mostly focused on Windows98 and IE4 (though it probably shouldn’t be focused on this so much), meanwhile MS has removed 9x from their current line of operating systems and IE is at v6 (and more integrated with WindowsXP then ever before).
Is OS/2 going to be ported over to AMD’S Hammer chip? Is OS/2 going to be able to run 64-bit applications?
Here is a golden opportunity for IBM to take command of it’s own destiny. They can use WINE to run 32-bit applications while the other software companies try to re-compile their old applications for Intanium.
I presume you have this already
<a href=”http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/64bit/pdf/x86-64_overview.pdf“>
http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/64bit/pdf/x86-64_overview.pdf
There a lot of other goodies at
<a href=”http://www.x86-64.org/documentation“>
http://www.x86-64.org/documentation
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