AMD`s latest chip on the block, the Athlon XP, has received praise from the foremost hardware sites for its benchmark performance, but it still has a way to go to threaten market-dominant Intel with its current marketing campaign.
The Athlon XP (whose name was merely a coincidence, according to AMD - sure, guys) is all about performance, not megahertz, says AMD`s marketing machine. True performance is about cycles per second times instructions per cycle, and not merely about cps (otherwise known as MHz) alone. AMD has attacked Intel`s new Netburst architecture, saying that the P6 architecture does 20% less work per cycle than Intel`s PIII. The XP, of course, does a lot more per clock cycle, claims AMD.
AMD has attacked Intel`s new Netburst architecture, saying that the P6 architecture does 20% less work per cycle than Intel`s PIII.
Jason Norwood-Young, technology editor, ITWeb
Backtrack to IDF Fall 2000, when the Netburst architecture was announced to the general public. Intel engineers proudly described the processor`s steps, claiming to have dropped a bit here, to have taken a leap there, and to generally have squeezed more out of the CPU per cycle.
AMD does nod its head in Intel`s direction, quoting John Shen, Intel`s director of its microarchitecture lab, as saying: "The trade-off between instructions per cycle and the increasing emphasis on microprocessor clock frequency needs a thorough re-examination. My point is that it is not so much one against the other. We need both [instructions per cycle and frequency], and it is a real delicate balancing act. The question I am raising is: in what new and clever ways can we combine the two?"
Esoteric arguments
So it`s agreed that Intel does respect this formula for speed, yet AMD still claims that Intel`s Netburst architecture sucks at doing more instructions in less cycles.
This is the strange thing about the AMD marketing monster. It could say: "Look! Our processors are faster than Intel`s and cost less!" Or it could say: "We do more instructions per cycle in the Palomino (XP`s core) than in previous-generation chips!"
Instead we get this garbled message decrying Intel`s latest architecture when compared to other Intel architectures, while at the same time quoting Intel engineers to support AMD`s latest marketing strategy (incidentally called the TPI, or True Performance Initiative).
Potential customers trying to follow this logic will only end up confused by esoteric arguments about pipe lengths or MHz x IPC, and confused customers always go with the stronger brand - undeniably Intel.
AMD is once again doing more for Intel`s marketing campaign than for itself. I doubt that Intel is particularly worried by the AMD threat, even if AMD`s chips are better, faster and cheaper.
Related Reuters stories:
AMD unveils XP chip
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