Joe, Re: "Just because it's there, we think people are going to use it," said Mark de Frere, AMD's Athlon brand manager.
As usual, AMD is relying on the hope that if they build it, the development community will come. This approach didn't work for 3DNow, nor has it ever worked for any type of architectural improvement out there (that I can recall, at least). You need exceptionally heavy lifting to get people to embrace a new technology. Just because 64-bits has a cool marketing prospect, it doesn't mean that real software developer engineers will see it that way. I am again losing faith in AMD's ability to provide a solid adaptation plan for x86-64.
Re: ClawHammer's 64-bit architecture--which gives the processor the ability to process twice as much data per clock cycle as current Athlon chips
And now, people are already starting to believe that 64-bits, being twice as wide as 32-bits, automatically means twice the performance. AMD isn't managing expectations at all. Quite the contrary, they actually seem to be letting the public make any sort of optimistic claims they can about Hammer's conceivable performance. That works just great as a Hype Engine, but sooner or later, people are going to face reality, and Hammer will be a disappointment. Not that it will be a bad chip, but it can't possibly meet the exceedingly raised expectations that AMD has let aspire around their design. This is a classic marketing blunder, and it has blown up in similar situations in the past. There's a good chance that it can blow up in this case, too, if AMD isn't careful.
wbmw |
