Heres an article from PCWorld comparing AMD’s 64 bit Athlon processor with the G5 and through their (questionable) tests, AMD seems to have the edge. Take the findings with a grain of salt though. If anything, it shows that Apple has caught up. Still an interesting read otherwise - also gets into the current state of 64-bit technology, esp. for windows.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,pg,1,00.asp
Also, AMD has some interesting takes on whats to be expected in the future. How do multi-core processors sound?
[processors will] be capable of containing multiple chip cores–the “brain” of the chip–and of running one or more application threads. Putting more than one core inside the processor boosts performance in a relatively efficient way, Weber and others at the conference said. Opteron, in fact, is designed in a way that enables a second core to be added, Weber noted.
“We will have a multicore product,” Weber said.
AMD is also looking at adding threading to future chips. Simultaneous multithreading essentially enables a chip to run two applications, or two “threads” of the same application, at the same time–thereby reducing the time it requires to complete a task. Threading, however, does not provide as much of an improvement to overall performance as multicore technology does, according to Weber.
Sounds like some interesting advances are in store for processors.
Read more here:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5091845.html
AMD’s losses this quarter have been less than expected thanks to increased cpu sales. Though, sadly, PC super vendor Dell has confirmed that they still plan to be an intel-only company. Hopefully the future will look up to AMD.
