Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles R who wrote (83679)	12/20/1999 3:02:00 PM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1572099

Charles, Re:"spitfires - coming soon" You may get your wish: from JC's news from C'T. Looks like spitfires will have 64KB of L2 cache on chip. I guess a small die with modest performance: 900-MHz-Athlon aus Dresden Nach Informationen der EETimes hat AMD zwei Versionen eines Athlon-Prozessors mit einer Taktrate von 900 MHz demonstriert. Beide CPUs wurden im AMDs aktuellem 0,18-æ-Prozess gefertigt, wobei ein Exemplar bereits aus der neuen Fertigungsst„tte in Dresden stammen soll und mit Kupfer statt des sonst blichen Aluminiums als Metall-Layer ausgestattet ist. Wie bereits gemeldet plant AMD im ersten Quartal n„chsten Jahres eine 800-MHz-Version des Athlon auf den Markt zu bringen. Die Hrde von 1 GHz will man im 2. Quartal 2000 berspringen. Bis dahin drften auch die ersten Muster des Thunderbird auftauchen. Hierbei handelt es sich um eine Athlon-CPU, die wie Intels Coppermine ber einen integrierten Full-Speed-L2-Cache von 256 KByte verfgt. Als "Spitfire" mit nur 64 KByte L2-Cache soll der Athlon dann auch den Consumer-Markt erobern. Fr Server hat AMD den "Mustang" vorgesehen, der mit bis zu 2 MByte integriertem Full-Speed-L2-Cache aufwarten soll. (gs/c't)

To: Charles R who wrote (83679)	12/20/1999 4:17:00 PM
From: Scot	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1572099

Chuck and Thread, Abit interview: 3dwars.com a snip: -------------------- Many people think Abit should spend more of their R&D on creating a nice Athlon Motherboard instead of entering the video card market. How do you feel about that? What a truly excellent question. This is not an issue of us diverting resources from the development of a Slot A motherboard. In terms of pure R&D expertise, for us to make an Athlon board is not beyond our capabilities or resources. The question is rather the cooperation we can expect to receive. Many of the Athlon board designs (like most board designs, including Intel's) are based on what are known as "reference" designs. AMD provides these basic designs to mainboard companies and gives them assistance in coming up with the final product. When we approached AMD in Taiwan, they decided to work with other manufacturers first, and we were unable to get the assistance that we required to come out with a timely Athlon board. The other option is that the manufacturer can start from scratch, which takes far more time and resources. And even then, it is not just a simple matter of transferring all of the graphics cards guys to another project and telling them to make an Athlon board instead of graphics cards. You have to build up a team with the right people with the expertise and skill that you need. We have been building our graphics card team now for a year. So to answer your question, the graphics card guys are working on great graphics cards, which will be available soon. As for Athlon, well, we'll just have to wait and see.

To: Charles R who wrote (83679)	12/20/1999 7:47:00 PM
From: Petz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1572099

Chuck, re:<As I have said a few times before, the faster the K6 falls by the way, the better it is for AMD.> We have to agree to disagree here, I think. If AMD did not have the K6x, Intel would run a marketing campaign saying that Athlons are like the Celeron, and they would run the Celeron MHz up to 700 MHz. Remember that the Celeron with Coppermine core can run the same MHz as the regular Coppermine, and I believe Intel would sell the 700 MHz 128K L2 part for $125 at the same time they sell the PIII 700 MHz 256K L2 part for $500. The business market would probably be stupid enough to buy enough PIII's to keep Intel's ASP at $200, while AMD Athlon 700 would be forced to a price of $100. The above scenario means that until the Spitfire ramps, we have to keep K6x. After Spitfire ramps, we can get phase out K6x if all of the following are true: 1. Production cost for Spitfire are close to Coppermine 128K -- this would likekly be satified if its die size is close to Cu128K 2. 75% of Coppermine 128K's average price, which is what Spitfire will sell for, is at least $60 3. Super7 board makers spontaneously embrace Socket A, or are given financial incentives to do so. However, even if all of the above are satified, if K6-2P die size is half that of Spitfire on 0.18 and frequencies can reach 700 MHz on 0.18, it makes sense to keep manufacturing them as the "low end" chip for both desktops and notebooks. Petz