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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD)
AMD 215.00+0.7%Dec 22 3:59 PM EST
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To: Charles Gryba who wrote (71797)2/18/2002 1:54:21 PM
From: pgerassiRead Replies (1) of 275872
 
Dear Charles:

I write applications that run on servers and I understand the mentality of customers who buy such hardware. Given the digusting status of the IA-64 compilers which must do much of the optimization work to get decent IA-64 performance from the hardware, IA-64 does not deliver even to the performance stated before much less the hyped amount. This means that there are many server CPUs that compete extremely well against it. Most of the 64 bit RISC CPUs it was supposed to replace are being extended and are still preferred. Hammer and any 64 bit addressing version of P4 raise the x86 market area to encompass almost all of this market and can take away all but the very high end. Thus IA-64 does not have any market now against 64 bit RISC on performance and will lose both price, volume and performance to the x86-64 CPUs once they come out. With no target market willing to accept poorly performing overpriced IA-64 CPUs, it is simply dead in the water as 99.9% of customers choose something else.

Face it, EPIC has failed in the server arena! And it failed due to bad hardware but, mostly due to thinking that compilers could do all of the optimization work. And that has been the achilles heel of EPIC all along.

As to 64 bit P4, Intel's typical modus operandi requires longer to design a new core as they do not use automated layout and such like AMD. They take about 50-100% longer than AMD. If you believe that Hammer is simply Athlon reworked, it still took AMD 2 years from initial design to prduction status. It will take Intel as long, if not longer. This is why P4-64 will take more than one year from Hammer release.

I on the other hand believe that Athlon uses a 32 bit RISC back end and Hammer uses a 64 bit RISC back end and has Alpha as a pattern for both. Intel used a new 32 bit RISC back end for P4 and thus will have more problems extending it to 64 bits. And they must keep up in performance with the Hammer else, having incompatible code would be far less desirable and thus, relegated to the dust bin. The break between ok and really bad is between having 10 instead of 40% less performance on typical workloads. And an emulated 64 bit on a true 32 bit RISC back end will be 1/2 the speed or less and that is a receipe for utter disaster. Thus they must do it right and they must do it fast, niether of which Intel has shown the ability to do.

Pete
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