I always write the title last...
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 23, 2003 11:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Anand
So, I used to do this all the time during the "early days" of AnandTech. Many of you will remember the old "Site News" section which featured everything from insider industry information to movie recommendations. I got mixed responses from my old, more personal posts; some of you liked em and enjoyed them, while others felt they had no business being on the website.
Life got busier, the site has grown tremendously as did the number of praises and complaints for the updates - so I was put in a situation I put myself in everytime I write anything, trying to please everyone :)
The idea of a weblog came up a few months ago in an internal meeting and I liked the idea, but I wouldn't commit to it until I felt that all the new editors I'd been working towards bringing onboard were ready. That time has come and today, the evening of the launch of AMD's Athlon 64 - I bring you my first blog update.
The blog section has been purposefully kept off of the frontpage, so if you don't want to read them you won't have to be bothered by them. The link will remain on the left nav and I plan on posting to them regularly, bringing you everything from little tidbits of information from the industry to a quick note before I head out to see a movie. Agree, disagree, love them or hate them, they're here because I got enough requests for them and because I always enjoyed sharing more with you all. All too often writers will talk down to their audience, but with you all I want to make it clear that we're all on the same level - just a bunch of folks talking shop online.
With all of that said, let's get to the topic of the day - AMD's Athlon 64. I'm hoping that by now you've read my review and interestingly enough I've seen mixed responses to AMD's launch. Whereas the Athlon XP was an overwhelmingly positive launch for AMD, the Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64 FX are more of a mixed bag. While I think the Athlon 64 is definitely a promising solution, I'm more cautious about recommending the FX. The issues I have with the Athlon 64 FX are mainly related to AMD's insistance that the chip is an "enthusiast's chip" while very few "enthusiasts" would be too happy about tossing their 512MB - 1GB of DDR400 to upgrade to AMD's "enthusiast" processor. Interestingly enough, AMD may have put a bit more enthusiast flair in the Athlon FX than is apparent at first glance.
It seems as if the Athlon 64 is shipping with its multiplier locked (how difficult/possible it is to unlock, we will have to wait and see), while the Athlon 64 FX ships with an unlocked multiplier. This unlocked multiplier is actually the number one request I received when I posted about the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, so it's interesting that AMD would actually have the foresight to include such a feature without first being asked - AMD may not have lost touch with the community after all.
Currently an unlocked Athlon 64 FX multiplier doesn't mean much as the chips that we have don't overclock all that well, but things may change in the coming weeks as process improvements begin to trickle down. Socket-940 motherboards will begin shipping with multiplier adjustment support in the very near future, so stay tuned to see if the FX does end up being a true enthusiast chip.
There's much more to talk about, but I'll leave it at this for now. I hope you all enjoy this section, if not, I'm sure we've got much more interesting pages for you to read :)
Take care,
Anand
(yes I still do sign everything like that)
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UlricT - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
"Most manufacturers are expected to run into problems moving to 90nm, we'll see if that holds true."Hmmm... Intel has a more mature 90nm process. They have been designing their strained silicon process with this in mind. AMD meanwhile, has to go through the whole process of working with SOI on both 130 and 90nm sizes. Wouldn't this be expensive? Both these processes are new, and problems will come up for sure...
Anonymous - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Anand,Thank you for not responding to #22. None of his business.
Mike
Curt Oien - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Anand,It's nice to see the personal touch again. I was worried that as you aged and life got even busier, you would move on to other things and the AnandTech I love would be no more.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
#231) Intel used to cache-bin their Pentium IIIs and Pentium 4s in producing Celerons, while AMD had a physically different die for the Duron. AMD could very well mark some Athlon 64s down to the 256KB versions, but I would think it would make more sense to simply produce wafers full of 256KB chips (maybe in addition to?) simply because you'll get more chips per wafer this way. And if we're talking a mass market CPU, that would make sense. Who knows, they may do both.
2) We're hearing 1H of 2004 for 90nm, honestly I can see it being closer to the end of the first half but we haven't heard or seen anything from AMD in terms of how their 90nm process is coming along. Most manufacturers are expected to run into problems moving to 90nm, we'll see if that holds true.
#24
Two different writers :) I don't think our opinion of the Athlon 64 has changed at all, the part performs very well (remember, Wesley didn't touch on the FX in his preview) - but we have to face reality and if AMD is to succeed there are a few things that must happen. Those requirements were what I tried to focus on in the review.
#25
I've spent the past several months looking for and training new folks to make sure we have more content for everyone to read. I don't plan on stepping down anytime soon :)
Take care,
Anand
Anonymous - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Nice.. I had been concerned this site was going downhill like many of the other sites that did when their founders stepped down (ie. Sharky, Tom's, FiringSquad etc.) but I see there's alot more going on behind the scenes than the updates would tell and I'm glad.Anonymous - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
What really struck me was the change in "mood" between the Athlon 64 preview and the actual review. The preview was very upbeat and if I remember correctly it also contained more benchmarks (at least for games) than the actual review did. It just seems you went from excited to morose with regards to the launch.UlricT - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
"what will be interesting is the 256KB L2 version as that will shrink the die size significantly - it could become the next Celeron, although we're not given a die shrink along with it which will once again limit overclocking potential."I had two questions on this.
1. Do Intel and AMD have seperate production runs from Celeron/Duron chips? I was under the impression that they simply tested chips, and the one in which all the cache was not functional was rebadged. If AMD weas having yield problems (meaning more chips from their production runs will have <1024KB functional cache), wouldn't they be better of selling these as "bargain" 64-bit chips?
2. When exactly is AMD thinking of heading to the 90nm process? Will SOI create problems while heading this way? Is IBM support for manufacturing chips going to boost production capacity, or is current production capacity inclusive of whatever help IBm is willing to give?
Thank you for the reply! :)
Anonymous - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
hey anand, how much u make per year with a site this big?Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
#1Haven't had time to see anything since Once Upon a Time in Mexico - and I'm sorry, I disagree with all the reviews, that was not a worthy successor to Desperado. The bar scene from Desperado was not followed up in the least.
#3
They have, but remember they haven't been producing it at 2.2GHz. But with a 193mm^2 die it will be difficult to get huge overclocks out of this thing, what will be interesting is the 256KB L2 version as that will shrink the die size significantly - it could become the next Celeron, although we're not given a die shrink along with it which will once again limit overclocking potential.
#6
I look at the forums every day, I saw the bimmerchick on bimmer.org way before it made it into your sig ;) Nice car but could care less about the gal, I've only got eyes for one.
#15
Give me a few weeks, we're going to see a renewed push for the Newsletter which will give you access to stories well ahead of their publication on the main site.
#17
Rip away :)
Credibility is quite important simply because it will determine how much support you get from your partners. AMD has lost credibility because they promised an Athlon 64 before the end of the year back in February of 2002 and it is now the end of 2003. If you ask any of AMD's partners they will tell you that they are not very confident in AMD's abilities, which is something you want from your partners. It will determine how much in the way of engineering resources they dedicate towards supporting your product, among other things.
If you buy products based on stability, performance and platform longevitiy (which I agree with btw), I think we provided a good an indication of how AMD will do in all of those categories with the 64 (except stability, we're going to have to spend more time with the platforms for that). The conclusion was more of a direction on what needs to happen if AMD is to stick around and if the Athlon 64 is going to become this mainstream part that it originally was intended to be. I remember looking at "Hammer" roadmaps, showing the ClawHammer quickly taking marketshare away from the Athlon XP - but things have changed. AMD was forced to move to a larger L2 cache, which ballooned their die size and changed the gameplan significantly.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Athlon 64, I like it a lot actually and I think there's a good deal of potential with 64-bit (just look at the Linux benchmarks) but AMD has a long road ahead of them. And I don't agree with the thinking behind releasing the 940-pin Athlon 64 FX and following it up with a 939-pin version so soon.
I'm more excited about the Athlon 64 3400+ due out in the next 2 months, although I don't think that will drop the price of the Athlon 64 3200+ when it launches (at least that's not what I've seen from pricing roadmaps).
Take care,
Anand
Alex - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link
Nice to see you back as well Anand. I always enjoyed your "off-topic" type news posts. I look forward to the new blog.