RE: speculation on K7 speeds and Paul's 700 MHz post
Many months ago, an AMD spokesman, Bob Silvano, said there would never be a 500 MHz K7. Company info has always used "above," "greater than," or "+" to indicate this. In this chat session, there was a strong intimation that the initial speed would be 600 MHz. Actually, when you examine his comments, 700 MHz cannot be ruled out.
The first 700 MHz rumors appeared about a month ago. I think it was JC who quoted a Japanese page. Shortly thereafter, the Register, Sharky Extreme and Anand started their rumors of 500 MHz again. I'm wondering if this is disinformation from AMD to squelch the 700 MHz 'leak.'
I don't think there's a chance in hell of getting a 600 MHz 0.25µ chip to run at 1GHz just by cooling alone, even "all integer" code. (In any event, most commerical applications use FLD, FST to move data around anyway.) Does anyone know what software was running at the annual meeting? Was it running under an operating system (Win 98 or NT)? If so, just getting one of these to boot is far more difficult than running most applications.
Having said this, AMD would be foolish to sell 700 MHz K7's until Intel "answers" a 600 MHz K7 with a 600 MHz Pentium III.
Petz
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