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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles R who wrote (103782)	10/27/2003 1:50:09 PM
From: xun	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Charles, What do you think of this piece from the DRBES link: linuxworld.com <quote> MidnightWriter commented on 26 October 2003: It takes a couple of years to bring a new hardware API (like Yamhill, AMD64, or Itanium) to market because system devices must be able to talk to the hardware. Details of the new hardware architecture must be made widely available so that the hundreds of companies that make things like Video cards, disk controllers, sound cards, chipsets, etc. can develop new drivers that let their products interface with the new hardware API. Yamhill either has to be Itanium compatible, AMD64 compatible, or is 2 years away, because if they'd begun distributing the reference data that is absolutely required for the development of device drives, it would have leaked far, wide, and in detail. For example, if you go here, ati.com to ATI's support site, you will find that despite 5 years of API promotion by Intel and 3 years of promotion by AMD, you cannot use their video cards with either Itanium or AMD64 systems in 64 bit mode, there are no drivers. Windows drivers for AMD64 are only now showing up in beta form for some NVidia products. If Intel starts working on a new hardware API next year, it will be irrelevant for several years. Several years during which drivers for AMD64 will be available. Even with nearly unlimited financial support for writing of new drivers, it will take a long time. These companies jealously protect the details of their designs that are needed to write drivers, there are a limited number of programmers who do such work, and none of them, anywhere, have begun to learn the idiosynchrocies of this hypothetical new architecture. Intel desktop 64 is a mid to late 2005 product, at the earliest, and the day it is announced is the day Intel has to bury its entire Itanium program. </quote> I think it makes some sense. I am not sure if INTC can turn Yamhill on AMD64 right out of the gate. My observation is MSFT is hedging on both AMD64 and INTC-whatever-64. MSFT will benefit the most if it can play one against the other in the 64-bit arena, JMHO. Obviously to AMD, never underestimate the weight of a 800lb gorrilla.