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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Tony Viola who wrote (35357)8/3/1998 2:03:00 AM
From: Adrian Wu  Read Replies (1) of 1573941
 
The K7 is an x86 code-compatible,but not electrically compatible CPU. It will use the slot-A design, which is mechanically interchangeable with slot-1, but it will use the Alpha EV-6 bus protocol. It has a RISC core, and an x86 translation unit. It retains the x87 FPU, although earlier speculation is that it may use the much more effective Alpha FPU. It will be SMP-capable, but different from the Pentium-Pro implementation. Each processor will require its own core logic, unlike the 450NX chipset which enables 4-way SMP configuration. However, the EV-6 allows for much larger scale multi-processor implementations. The NSA has put hundreds of Alpha 21164 CPUs together in parallel to create incredible super-computers. All this means is that you require extra chipsets and therefor extra motherboard real estate.
The future K7 motherboards and chipsets will be fully compatible with the Alpha 21164, and the Alpha will be packaged in a slot-A cartridge. This means unplugging the K7 and updating the bios if you want to upgrade to an Alpha processor. Since Compaq is fully committed to producing Alpha-based servers and workstations, it will make sense for them to produce K7 machines as entry-level products. The K7 is a totally new design from the K6 and PII, it should be interesting to see what level of performance it will offer. The EV-6 bus protocol will not be a bottleneck, that is for sure.

Adrian
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