While Advanced Micro Devices and Intel Corporation do not have a lot in common when it comes to central processing units’ micro-architecture these days, both firms engage some very close approaches to enhance their x86 processors with 64-bit capabilities. For a number of years Intel has been making tremendous efforts to penetrate high-end enterprise server market with its Itanium processor, a chip designed from the ground-up with no x86 in mind. The CPU may be considered as a pretty successful nowadays, but what Intel cannot address with it and its EPIC architecture is the volume market of web, small database servers and other applications of the same kind. The obvious problem Itanium-based servers have besides the cost is very low performance in x86 applications – the most wide-spread software in the world – what requires deploying new IA64-compatible programs making a transition to Itanium an extremely expensive task. If the transition is to costly foe large companies, there probably no ways for technology to be adopted by masses.
Advanced Micro Devices decided go another route. Historically the company could not compete with Intel for lucrative markets of high-end desktop and workstations machines, not talking about enterprise-class servers. It is pretty obvious that AMD could not afford to develop a processor incompatible with existing software infrastructure; consequently, AMD developed an x86 architecture that contained 64-bit extensions and numerous other performance tweaks. The results are AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors that form the only family of 64-bit processors able to serve various market segments from desktop to enterprise server.
News source: X-bit labs
Advanced Micro Devices decided go another route. Historically the company could not compete with Intel for lucrative markets of high-end desktop and workstations machines, not talking about enterprise-class servers. It is pretty obvious that AMD could not afford to develop a processor incompatible with existing software infrastructure; consequently, AMD developed an x86 architecture that contained 64-bit extensions and numerous other performance tweaks. The results are AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors that form the only family of 64-bit processors able to serve various market segments from desktop to enterprise server.
News source: X-bit labs
Here it is, the new version. Nothing major in this one, really. There are a couple of little bug fixes and some general polishing. It's getting almost impossible to release versions because there's just nothing to add to it. Although there are actually two things that could be done, but they would involve rewriting big chunks of the code and loads of testing. So consider this the final version until one of two things happen: 1) Someone finds a bug. 2) Adobe breaks the app so it doesn't work anymore and I end up having to fix it.
One final thing. If Adobe Acrobat/Reader gives you any errors after you run ARSU, then do a Restore Configuration, activate Plugin Help and make sure that you aren't disabling any plugins that depend on other plugins to work. This is not a bug of ARSU. It's simple common sense. Anyway, changelog..
- Added: More coach messages on potential error situations.
- Added: Plugin Info.pdf courtesy of Nat Taylor.
- Fixed: Plugin dependency information wasn't being loaded.
- Fixed: Occasional text flickering in Windows XP.
“Intel, just like AMD, added a special CPU mode called “64-bit sub-mode”, where 64-bit flat linear addressing, 8 new general-purpose registers (GPRs), 8 new registers for streaming SIMD extensions (SSE, SSE2 and SSE3) and 64-bit-wide GPRs are available along with instruction pointers. Similar to AMD’s 64-bit chips, Intel’s 64-bit extension technology can run in either legacy IA32 mode or IA32e mode. IA-32e mode is the mode a processor uses when running a 64-bit operating system. The IA32e mode consists of two sub-modes: 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, just like it is implemented in AMD64 architecture,” X-bit labs’ analyst explains.
The 64 bit version will be called Nacona, and will "use the same core as the Prescott" but it won't be exactly the same.
A3: On February 17th, 2004, Intel announced the company will add 64-bit extension technology to its IA-32 processors code named Nocona (future Intel® Xeon™ processor for dual processing servers and workstations), Potomac (future Intel Xeon processor MP for multi-processing servers) and Prescott (future product for uni-processor servers and workstations). This was an initial technology disclosure. Intel will provide additional details as the introductions of these various products approach.
It's been rumored for months, yesterday it became evident that they will be using AMD64, but no one has said that the extensions are in the current prescott processors.
I suppose it is possible... but it would be more likely that they would do what ev0l said. However, all indications are that Intel will not be implementing 64bit in the desktop in 2004.
A better (that is, less misleading) way to have written that article would be to say: "Intel, just like AMD, is Implementing AMD64 technology in their latest chips. AMD64 technology is:..." and continue with the technological features of AMD64 that the article provided. This isn't "Intel's 64-bit extension technology" It's "AMD's 64 bit technology licensed to Intel".
"Compatibility with AMD 64 does not matter. What matters is compatibility with Microsoft’s operating system." Uhh... A=B, B=C so A=C but B derived from A, C derived from A, does not mean C derived from B. Microsoft wrote their x86-64 aka AMD-64 OS around AMDs architecture, not the other way around. Last time I checked Microsoft wasn't designing cpu architectures.
What I think they mean is that Intel was pretty much forced to adopt AMD64 based on Microsoft's endorsement of the architecture. Microsoft wasn't going to make a separate operating system for Intel's x86 64bit technology, so Intel had to use the architecture that Microsoft was already designing for, which was AMD64.
And I wouldn't say Itanic is successful. If it was, Intel wouldn't be endorsing AMD64. The reason they couldn't penetrate a widespread market was people weren't willing to shell out thousands of dollars for the processors. Now they don't have to.
Finally, a role reversal of business proportion.
Not something you see many times in your life.
First I dont like living in a world where its 'Microsofts way or no way'. And this is a clear example of it.
However... this will be good because an Industry standard is critical. Probably the major reason why many dont migrate to Macs is because of the daunting compatibility issues.
Why would I want to invest in a PC that wasnt compatible with my older media or with new media being developed?
I think this ones a no-brainer. Still Ill wait till the prices drop to get the new AMD64.
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