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To: NightOwl who wrote (72008)5/5/2001 6:51:02 AM
From: SBHX  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 93625
 
NightOwl,

I kind of liked the principle of an open standard over a closed proprietary one.

In this case, having seen INTC's positions on licensing of their bus technologies as a tool to increase their mkt share. I would hope that the industry chooses to adopt an open standard instead.

There is a sharp contrast in how INTC were pushing AGP then and how 3GIO is being presented today. The lawyers have taken over the control tower and they're seeing 3GIO as yet another attempt to extend their dominance on cpu sales and to lock out competitors.

All reports of 3GIO indicates it is a serial point to point connection that also has the same design point of large streams over random access. Even the PCI BusMastering protocol compatibility appears to be at risk. It is another disruptive change (affecting everyone down to connector manufacturers) in the same way Slot1 was over socketed cpus. Many actually believed there was a technical reason to switch to slots (hey they are intel, they must know what they're talking about right?).

Will the entire industry believe that there is also a technical reason to accept this disruptive change and give up over arguably fuzzy data? I hope the open standard wins out.

If HyperTransport is even half as implementable or solid as it appears on surface, it should be a more natural transition. Having backwards compatibility to PCI alone has to be worth something to the designers who do not have to throw out their bus IP now and redesign their bus interface (if intc will license them out at the right time).



To: NightOwl who wrote (72008)5/5/2001 7:30:23 AM
From: Scumbria  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 93625
 
Owl,

This isn't the first time for this story. In 1991, Compaq developed a very similar connectivity technology to "HyperTransport" called "A-net". Intel had a far inferior technology they were pushing, called "PCI".

Guess who won that battle? ;^)

wrt to RDRAM. Intel has no choice for the present. Their DDR chipsets will likely be 6-12 months late, and I don't expect to see the resolution of the DDR vs. RDRAM argument for quite some time.

2) When is AMD's 64 bit CPU coming and what's it called?

Late next year- "Hammer".

Scumbria



To: NightOwl who wrote (72008)5/5/2001 11:25:59 AM
From: Win Smith  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 93625
 
And most importantly of all, how can a company which is so "brand" and advertising conscious allow itself to be bound, for 7 more months, to a highly visible "partner" which is hated by so many elements in this industry and is in danger of being convicted of Fraud within the next week?

NightOwl, if you're talking about the Intel/Rambus contract, where Intel is allegedly bound to support only Rambus on the desktop, I think it actually runs through the end of 2002. Of course, Intel has lots of money, even now, and given the rather puny millions that Rambus makes, I'm sure Intel could buy a transfer off of the Bus to hell.



To: NightOwl who wrote (72008)5/5/2001 4:01:56 PM
From: Ali Chen  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 93625
 
0|0, "well deserved ridicule of INTC",
I think those analysts have no clue.

"3GIO was a reaction," McComas said. "The industry was really
dominantly moving toward HyperTransport, and Intel had to do
something to run interference. But AMD's in the lead with this one.

Lead with what? The other publication said AMD has a board with
two chips communicating with each other, no speed was mentioned,
no link width, nothing. Does not it remind you the Rambus demo
of 1991 with Intel-made pilot silicon, when they were "impressed"
with bus "performance"? On paper the HT/LDT could be fine, but you
know that the difference between reality and theory is much bigger
in reality than in theory. And I am very skeptical about AMD's
ability to materialize the HT at any competitive frequency:
remember, they even could not bring the EV6 Athlon bus to 266MHz
while in original Alpha systems it was running at 300++ from
the day one, three years for now.

The Industry might be moving towards an open standard, true,
especially when it is transparent to PCI. I know little about
3GIO, but Intel has already implemented a point-to-point
narrow link with twice as much bandwidth as regular PCI - it is
called HubLink, and the link is working for two (?) years in millions
of boards - in all i810, i815, i820, i840, and i850 series.
So I believe it would be more accurate to say that the HT
is a reaction to HubLink success, and the 3GIO is just next
leap. I guess Intel must be spitting down from high-rised top
on all that ridicule from "industry analysts".