Ten,
You wanted a search of X-box posts. Here are some:
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Message 13326401
From: Scumbria
To: 5dave22
Dave,
Are you still concerned with 3DNow!?
If X-box uses SSE, AMD better support it as well for games.
Scumbria
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Message 13216057
From: Scumbria
To: milo_morai
Milo,
if Via's new Socket 370 chip Joshua with 3DNow! SIMD does well it will continue support for 3DNow!.
I don't see how game developers can continue to write 3DNow! programs when the X-box uses Intel processors. 3DNow! gained support because it was there first, but I don't see how it can keep momentum in the face of dirt cheap 1GHz Willy SSE2 computers next year.
Scumbria
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Message 13214922
From: Scumbria
To: 5dave22
Dave,
You say they can't copy SSE, and 3D-Now! is doomed. I think you're serious. But you say AMD must switch to SSE. Very confusing, you're making me worry about my rather large investment (in my little world). In your opinion, what is the answer? I'm hoping to hold AMD LONG term.
Switching to SSE will be very tricky, for the reasons I described in :
Message 13214909
AMD has never been a good long term investment, and I don't see any reason to believe that has changed. The early arrival of Willy, combined with the X-box disaster, gives me no reason to think otherwise.
Perhaps AMD has something great in the works. I certainly hope so, but I'm not counting on it at this point.
Scumbria
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Message 13231525
From: Scumbria
To: Dan3
Dan,
The company's 800MHz Athlon chip will soon cost up to 50 percent less than an equivalent Pentium III chip processor. Reductions on other Athlon processors are also expected, according to the sources.
I think that Intel may have pushed Jerry a little too far with the X-box. He seems to have taken off the kid gloves, and is ready to slam them with the full force of Dresden.
Scumbria
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Message 13334754
From: Scumbria
To: chic_hearne
chic,
There are occasionally worthwhile posts from Intel FUDsters on this thread. However, Athlon has been hitting them so hard, that the FUDsters have sunk into a repetitious, blabbering state.
Some of us go to great lengths to warn of the risks AMD is facing. I have been quite vocal about the threat of Willy, SSE, X-box, and Rambus' lawsuits. You can find balance on this thread if you read carefully.
Scumbria
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Message 13214899
From: Scumbria
To: Charles R
Chuck,
Pretty strong statement! Regardless, do you really think AMD would let X-box go if that is the case? Also, do you think there is much of a chance that AMD will not implement SSE by the time the year is over? What enhancements are you expecting for Mustang?
I am quite convinced that losing the X-box is the end of 3DNow! I doubt that AMD had the cash required to beat Intel's offer, so they really had no choice in the matter. After X-box, SSE will be a requirement for gamers, so AMD better implement it. I don't have any idea about Mustang, but AMD needs a very deep pipeline to keep up with Willy.
If AMD uses SSE, and if AMD implements a 15-20 stage pipeline, they may be able to keep parity with Intel's offerings. They have a tough row to hoe however.
Scumbria
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Message 13210785
From: Scumbria
To: kash johal
Kash,
The real issues of Dresden yields and Athlon volume ramps are shielded in mystery.
Every time that AMD has given any advance notice about products, Intel has taken advantage and punished them. K6 and X-box were prime examples of this. In contrast, the secrecy of 1GHz K7 threw Intel for a loop.
Scumbria
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Message 13014979
From: Scumbria
To: Tenchusatsu
Ten,
Will the X-Box have a hard drive?
According to the Register, it will.
Scumbria
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Message 13147004
From: Scumbria
To: Charles R
Chuck,
The interesting thing about X-box to me is that it uses off the shelf parts. PS2 uses custom hardware which has a much longer turnaround time.
Scumbria
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Message 13181203
From: Scumbria
To: Process Boy
PB,
What is the Spitfire core for, if not to compete for just the kind of lower end business that the X-box would be?
AMD had a wonderful experience competing against Intel at the low end with K6. I can see why they might have wanted to repeat that experience with x-box.
Intel has the cash on hand to undercut any AMD sale at the low end. They could pay Microsoft to use their CPUs. The only way that AMD can compete is to have a faster processor than Intel, which for the time being they do.
Scumbria
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Message 13186519
From: Scumbria
To: Bill Jackson
Bill,
X-box games will likely be optimized for SSE, making AMD clones impossible.
Scumbria
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Message 13186915
From: Scumbria
To: Gopher Broke
Gopher,
I think it is unlikely that MSFT will allow INTC to move into a position of sole supplier. INTC might start looking to make a profit on the processor sales or something equally preposterous.
In order to compete against PS2 graphics, X-box will have to use SIMD for the physics calculations and/or geometry. Perhaps they will make generic SIMD wrapper as part of the X-box API?
Scumbria
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Message 13232517
From: Scumbria
To: Y. Samuel Arai
Y.
Re: Is it time to buy Rambus puts?
The premiums are way too high.
Check this out:
techweb.com
"It's also likely that many X-Box features will find their way into next-generation consumer PCs, analysts said. For instance, the console will use an Nvidia graphics engine and a 200-MHz, 128-bit bus to connect directly to 64 Mbytes of double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM. This eliminates the core-logic chip set, AGP port, and separate dedicated graphics memory.
With no graphics frame buffer, the Nvidia chip interfaces to main memory but with data access as high as 6.2 Gbytes/s.
Microsoft's decision to use DDR SDRAM gives a boost to the emerging memory interface, and is a blow to proponents of the Direct Rambus DRAM architecture.
Scumbria
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Message 13175073
From: Scumbria
To: steve harris
Steve,
I wonder if eMachines is going to get cutoff now that Gates is taking over the responsibility of emptying the dumpster?
With five fabs cranking out PIII's full steam, Intel will have plenty of slow parts for e-machines, x-box, and 0-profit.
Scumbria
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Message 15286777
From: Scumbria
To: richard surckla
Richard,
Anybody who would think any different would be rather naive, don't you think?
Yea, some people even think that RDRAM is going to be used in X-Box. Pretty funny, ?que no?!
Scumbria
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Message 13173188
From: Tony Viola
To: Process Boy
PB, from the article> How did Intel snatch away the coveted role of primary chip vendor for MS' game system?
Reading the AMD thread this morning, you'd think Intel had a design win to sell ice cubes to eskimos. The droids were dancing in the streets on Thursday night when they thought X-Box was in the bag. Now they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, or two five foot Italians!
I like Elmer's scenario where Intel builds bazillions of these chips at a nice profit in a one level down, paid for, capitalized fab, while the new fabs go on to all the new stuff. AMD doesn't have that luxury. Andy Grove always said that Intel would take on new business, even if it might not have Mercedes Benz-like margins, to grow revenues.
X-Box Final Score
Intel 1
AMD 0
Tony
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Message 13184571
From: Scumbria
To: Haim Barad
Haim,
Can you be more explicit in your explanation? Do you think it's a matter of keeping the HW up with SW requirements?
I don't see how Toshiba can keep up with the likes of Intel and AMD for cranking out price/performance microprocessors. The Emotion engine in PS2 had a long development cycle, and was expensive to design. In contrast, X-box uses the leftovers of the PC industry, which makes the processor essentially free.
The key to doing impressive graphics is processing power. Each frame in Toy Story required several hours of processing time on a Sun supercomputer. Will Sony and Toshiba be able to keep up with the huge jump in performance we are going to see with Willamette? Ten billion FLOPS is pretty impressive!
Scumbria
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Message 15241849
From: Scumbria
To: Windsock
Windsock,
That 50 K Itanium processors shipped is many times more than the 2 K per month of DDR 266 units -- volume production say the AMDroids -- that AMD is shipping.
Just think at that rate, in 25 months, that is 2 plus years, AMD will match what Intel has already shipped.
How many DDR X-boxes have shipped to date? Are you going to project out 25 months x 0 units/month for X-box too? Or are you going to think about what you are posting?
Scumbria
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Message 14140050
From: Scumbria
To: Paul Engel
Paul,
Looks like AMD is still "ACE'd" out of another market.
It is a real loss for AMD to have missed out on the X-Box "free CPU" market.
Given that the vast majority of Athlon parts sort at speeds which are viable in the PC market, it would be kind of silly for them to allocate any to Microsoft.
Scumbria |
