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July 26 2003: As the dust settles from last months hysteria, an uneasy quiet has descended as the 3 Tribes take a breather and prepare for the oncoming battle which no doubt will erupt over the next few months. But there's still a bit on.... Chipzilla gained some extra mileage in the Workstation
/ Server Market by releasing the New 3.06Ghz Xeon DP with a 1 Mb L3
Cache , much to the dismay of the AMD community, and also found time
to put a few noses out of joint with reports that they maybe "up
to their old tricks again" with the Prescott possibly not being
compatible with current i865/875 Motherboards as previously believed.
AMD remained consistent at least by reporting yet another loss for the
past quarter, but overall kept their heads low, and Apple continued
on their blind monkey marketing approach, ignoring the fallout from
last months G5 Benchmark debacle to arrogantly maintain the line of
having the first (64 Bit ) and fastest box on the block. Sigh :-) Intel raised the stakes in the Workstation and Server
Markets on July 14 by releasing the 3.06 Ghz Xeon DP processor that
I had reported on a few months back. Intel have also pushed forward the release of the 90 nanometer version of the Pentium M chip code named Dothan to late Q3 or early Q4. The chip is expected to ship at 1.8Ghz, will have 2MB of L2 cache and use a 400MHz system bus. Now if we could only get Intel to release some viable chipset solutions to allow these units to also be used on the desktop, we could really be talkin turkey. There has been some initial development for the OEM Blade server market using the existing i7505 chipset, but no real attempt at offering the chips to the mainstream desktop or workstation market. It hasn't been all smooth sailing for Chipzilla though, with reports here that the current crop of i865/875 motherboards may in fact not be compatible with the coming Prescott CPU's despite the assurances from both Intel and the Motherboard manufacturers. Seems Intel maybe up to their old tricks, and have decided to play "Change the Socket" ( as apposed to hide the sausage..) bringing back memories of the debacle with first the Tualatin 370 CPU's , which had a slight pin layout change, and also the shift from 423 to 478 Pin sockets on the PIV. In both cases end users were forced to also upgrade their motherboards when wanting to upgrade their processors, which left a lot of end users less than impressed with the wisdom of the Chipzilla brain trust. It is still not entirely clear on what the actual situation is due to the Brain Trust not " officially " commenting on unreleased Product, so we have no choice but to wait it out, and hope that Chipzilla don't leave the current crop of i865/875 Motherboards with a shelf life of less than 6 Months. Mind you , the 478 Prescott CPU was always going to be a transitional phase any way, with the 775 Pin layout being adopted at the end of Q1 2004 with the Grantsdale chipset , but there was an understanding that the current crop of Motherboards would at least see us thru to then. Ah, looks like we may have been stitched again !! Cheapzilla have been very quiet on the official announcements ( apart from again posting another loss for the quarter ), but there has been a bit of action on the AMD64 front with the release of some Motherboards with the Nvidea Nforce 3 Chipset, which has opened the market up for the Opteron to be utilized for Single Processor Workstation Applications. All Good I hear you say ... well maybe not so good for the AMD64 Hype Wagon I'm afraid with the Opteron Solutions being walloped by both the PIV and even the Athlon XP in a whole bunch of Real World 32 Bit scenarios. Ooouuuchhhh.. Read More Here Seems like in the short term at least, the whole 64 Bit bubble could burst for AMD with the lack of not only an AMD64 optimized O.S but also any tangible real world 64 bit applications on the immediate horizon. All of the Hot Air and Hyperbole surrounding their 64/32 bit capabilities is proving to be little more than a fart in the wind when the Opteron is being outperformed by their own Athlon XP in most 32 Bit App's. The Athlon 64 is still being touted for a September release, so hopefully AMD can find some much needed Clock Cycles as well as some more 3rd Party support , and turn it around. As it stands now, they are having enough trouble keeping up with the current PIV-C , let alone trying to contend with the Prescott. Next ..
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Apple have been a little quieter this month, ( no doubt they are preparing to whip the disciples into a frenzy when the time is nigh) but that hasn't stemmed the fallout from the G5 Paper Launch. The debate over the Benchmarks has raged unabated with both sides of the fence, as expected, finding their own truth's ? in the vast variety of techno babble, to prove their respective arguments for or against. There have been some amusing moments
when some VP's from Apple and IBM were quizzed on the claims of being
the First {adv:Before or above all others in time,
order, rank, or importance:} and Fastest {Self
Explanatory}. Why the PowerPC 970 (G5) is considered
a 64-bit CPU, while Opteron is not, especially in the light of the
AMD and IBM cooperation ( Hyper Transport ) is beyond me. The Apple One Eyed fraternity as expected
have also come out guns blazing to defend the almighty Jobs, and strike
down anyone and everyone who dare question the validity of the independent
? VariTest results. While some rational and reasonable debate has
been conducted , the vast majority has descended into nothing short
of blind fanaticism, and at times has been quite comical with accusations
of :quote: " if the straight facts tend to be inconvenient to
your position, then bury the opposition under a mountain of meaningless
techno-babble." Even a leading Mac Audio orientated site
Here
has questioned the merit and validity of Apples attempts at "Preaching
to the Choir ", and has posted a scathing attack on the so called
" Comparitive Benchmark" ! Interesting Times Ahead.. Switch :-)
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