AMD Athalon 64 DUAL Core chips coming!!!

[ZWarrior]

Link: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60402975

AMD Demos Dual-Core Athlon 64
Feb. 23, 2005         
By Alexander Wolfe
VARBusiness

The latest shoe to drop in the race toward multicore technology came today from AMD, which says it has demonstrated a working dual-core version of its Athlon 64 desktop processor.

The dual-core Athlon 64 runs at a clock-speed of 2.4 GHz and has a maximum power dissipation of 100 W.

"We're in production," says Teresa deOnis, AMD's manager of branding. "We will have availability in the second half of 2005--that's when it will be in PCs on store shelves and in the hands of system builders."

The dual-core Athlon 64 is being fabricated in a 90 nm semiconductor process at AMD's new manufacturing facility in Dresden, Germany.

Today's announcement is the latest in a long-running battle of one-upmanship between AMD and Intel. The two companies have been vying for multicore mindshare since last year, when both firms pledged to release dual-core versions of their respective processors.

Multicore chips place two or more CPUs on a single piece of silicon. They are seen as the solution to power-consumption problems that have come to the fore as clock-speeds have increased beyond 3.0 GHz. At such speeds, single-CPU processors can often dissipate more than 150 W. In contrast, dual-core parts can reduce power consumption to more reasonable levels. For example, a processor with dual 2.0-GHz cores can deliver performance not all that different from a single-core 3.5-GHz part. More important, such a dual-core part will hold down power dissipation to a figure closer to that of a standalone 2.0-GHz CPU, allowing processing throughput to effectively double for not much more power.

Earlier this month, Intel said that it will ship its first dual-core Pentium processors in the second quarter of this year.

On the server front, AMD says a dual-core version of its 64-bit Opteron server processor is already in production and will be available in the middle of the year. Intel plans to ship dual-core implementations of its high-end Itanium processor sometime this year. Dual-core versions of its mainstream Xeon server processor are due in the first quarter of 2006.

[Edited on 2-24-2005 by ZWarrior]

[Boomslang]

So does Intel. Now all we need is all my software to be able to use it. Might work good with VM and others like it. What are your thoughts ZW?

[jharsh]

If amd is able to produce a dual-core chip running at 2.4ghz with a thermal dissipation of 100w intel will not stand a chance. From what I hear intel's chip will run around 2.8ghz and have a thermal dissipation of around 130w. Seeing how an amd chip at 2.2ghz can beat a p4 at 3.8 I don't see how intel will be able to compete. Perhaps they will see their error and release faster chips (likely at even higher wattages though).

I'd also like to see the pricing. last I read amd's 2.2ghz dual core would cost around the $400 mark and be compatible with existing 939 systems (via a bios update).

[ZWarrior]

At this point I don't believe that Intel has a dual core 64bit product demo'd.  But  don't think for a second that your software won't work with this chip or the 64 single core from AMD.  Remember, unlike Intel, the AMD chip is 32 AND 64 bit.  It thunks internally instead of externally.

Although, if you base your desires on benchmarking reports, you may not want an AMD chip yet.  the problem is that M$ is dragging their feet releasing the updated OS hooks for the AMD chips.

Hmm, I wonder if this is a "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine."  situation between M$ and Intel?

[ZWarrior]

Another thing to consider is the heat output.  AMD is actually running cooler than Intel now, and drawing less power as well.

[JollyRoger]

is Windows XP 64bit edition even stable yet or I should ask is it even out officially last I heard is the had a little past beta stage that only supported the itanium chips.

where's it at now....?

[ZWarrior]

Due to certain contractual restrictions I can only say that there is no official Windows XP-64 released as of this post, but it is due "sometime this year".

How's that M$??  Did I do that OK?!?