This is the new announcement from AMD. It fails to mention higher speed memory bus. Is that just to be assumed, or does Intel have an edge here?
Regards,
Mark
AMD Unveils Second-Generation K6 Processor
<Picture>****AMD Unveils Second-Generation K6 Processor 05/28/98 ATLANTA, GEORGIA, U.S.A., 1998 MAY 28 (NB) -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Advanced Micro Devices [NYSE:AMD] is introducing its second- generation K6 processor, the K6-2, today at the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) in Atlanta. The multimedia-enhanced chip features more than 20 new instructions, a collection dubbed "3DNow" by AMD.
The 333 megahertz (MHz) version will debut for $369 in 1000 unit quantities to PC makers, a very good price point for a chip that AMD claims performs cycle-for-cycle like an Intel Pentium II. AMD spokesperson Dale Weisman says consumers will find 333 MHz K6-2 machines on retail shelves for under $1,000 by Christmas.
The chip is available now in 333, 300 and 266 megahertz (MHz) clock rates, with a 400 MHz chip planned in the second half of 1998, according to Weisman, who spoke with Newsbytes Wednesday night from his hotel room in Atlanta.
Like all AMD central processing units (CPUs) now current, the K6-2 processor uses 0.25-micron features on a Socket 7-based design, Weisman said. The shrink to 0.25 microns let the Sunnyvale, Calif. firm cram 9.3 million transistors onto an 81 millimeter (mm) square K6- 2 die. Weisman said another shrink, to 0.18 micron features, is now in the works and will further increase chip speed and feature densities by the end of 1999, around the time a third generation AMD-K7 processor is planned.
By comparison, the original AMD-K6 CPU, made with 0.35-micron features, held only 8.8 million transistors on a wafer which, at 162 mm, was twice as large.
The K6-2 comes out of the gate with considerable support from the industry, starting with Microsoft, which will build K6-2 instructions into its DirectX application programming interface (API). Such APIs are the interface between hardware and software applications on Windows machines, and so are crucial to bringing the new chip's capabilities from the hardware to the user.
The 3DNow instructions have not been included in the initial release of Windows 98, but Weisman said they will be downloadable from Microsoft on the Internet as DirectX 6.0, planned for release in July.
The K6-2 chip's new capabilities are based on more than 20 new 3DNow instructions that eliminate what Weisman called "a crucial bottleneck" in the graphics pipeline between floating point calculations and the integer-intensive setup and rendering done by graphics accelerator cards. The result, Weisman told Newsbytes, is that K6-2 systems "just crank out the graphics" and "now can keep pace with most advanced rendering cards, and won't keep the fastest accelerator cards waiting."
Analysts said Intel probably won't deliver comparable speeds until next year, in a chip now code-named Katmai. As one result, PC makers including IBM, Fujistu, and CTX will use the new chip in machines planned to go on sale shortly.
Other firms that have announced support at the E3 show include sound chip maker Aureal Semiconductor, PC core logic vendor Via Technologies and 3D digital content publisher Viewpoint DataLabs International. NTT Soft, a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, will support the K6-2 through its InterSpace virtual reality platform.
"This part will deliver performance on mainstream business applications, as measured by the Winstone 98 benchmark that are clock-for-clock equal to the P-II," said Weisman. "It's well positioned against (Intel) P-II, and it's at least 25% less in unit cost. It will enable system price points significantly less than the P-II."
He added, "The end users are going to see more lifelike graphics, you'll have big-screen sounds and video effects, and also an enhanced Internet experience."
Weisman said E3 was a "natural choice" for introducing the chip, since the games vendors have traditionally been first to make use of new graphics and, increasingly, new sound capabilities.
However, he added, "There'll be other applications soon that are non-gaming and will have a real impact on productivity. For example, LiveArt 98 by ViewPoint Data Labs is already available. When you look at it, anything based on Open GL will benefit from this processor."
Reported by Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com . |
