Tom Pabst heeft een zeer groot en techie artikel geschreven onder de titel "AMD Is Finally Overtaking Intel". Afgezien van de vele pagina's met technische specificaties en uitleg over de Athlon heeft ie hem ook gebenchmarked met office applications en de bekende 3D games. Hier heb je een klein stukkie van het in totaal 28 pagina's artikel. Lees hier meer.

Back in October 1998 at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California, the PC-world watched and listened in amazement to Dirk Meyer's first presentation of K7's or now Athlon's architecture. It was quite obvious to experts as well to most other listeners, including Intel employees, that this new AMD processor would mark a new era in the processor world, if AMD could make its promises come true. Now finally, the waiting is over and we can look at a new processor that is indeed living up to all the positive expectations that arose at the end of last year.

Later on in this article you will find that the AMD Athlon beats the Intel Pentium III in virtually any benchmark we've ran, but before we get into those benchmark numbers, I'd like to take the time and explain why the concept of Athlon is indeed more than 'just another new CPU', but a milestone in the whole processor scene.

De officiële press-release:

AMD today introduced the 650MHz AMD Athlon processor, the world's fastest microprocessor for x86 computer systems. The company claims the Athlon significantly outperforms previous-generation processors, such as Intel's Pentium III products, and delivers the highest floating point, integer and 3D multimedia performance for x86 system platforms. More information is available on the Athlon’s official website, also launched today. The AMD Athlon processor is an x86-compatible, seventh-generation design featuring a superpipelined, nine-issue superscalar microarchitecture; the industry's first fully pipelined, superscalar floating point unit for x86 platforms; 128KB of on-chip level-one cache and a programmable L2 cache interface; enhanced 3DNow! technology with 24 new instructions designed to improve integer math calculations, data movement for Internet streaming and DSP communications; and the AMD Athlon system bus -- a 200MHz system interface based on the Alpha EV6 bus protocol with support for scalable multiprocessing. The initial versions of the AMD Athlon processor are manufactured on AMD's 0.25-micron process technology. Shipments of AMD Athlon processors to system manufacturers began late last quarter, as previously announced. AMD Athlon processor-based systems are expected to be available for sale this month. Dozens of system manufacturers, including such top-10 original equipment manufacturers as Compaq and IBM, plan to use the AMD Athlon processor in systems designed for business users and computing enthusiasts.

Hebbe!

Iets wat ik 3 weken geleden al had geroepen is nu bevestigd door FullOn3D.

Shutter glasses for all TNT/TNT2 boards | armin | 18:48 ELSA will be selling their 3D Revelator glasses for all brands of TNT/TNT-2 video cards soon after completing an appropriate stand-alone driver. The press release can tell you more. We're currently testing both the cable and IR version of the glasses, a review will be forthcoming soon.

Een interview met Drew Prairie van AMD, die zowaar eens niet alleen maar 'No Comment' achtig antwoord. Een van de meest interessante dingen die ik tegen kwam was over de K6 familie:

FullOn3D: Do you have plans to make an SMP-capable low cost processor (i.e. other than Athlon) since SMP systems have been viewed by many gaming enthusiasts as a future gaming technology that improves performance considerably? AMD: My understanding is that there is nothing stopping the K6 family from being used in a multiprocessor configuration --- except that no chipsets support it. There are no limitations in our CPUs on multiprocessor implementations, so it is just a matter of the market being identified for this sort of thing and then someone (either AMD or one of our chipset partners) developing chipset support that addresses this need. We are always evaluating market requirements across multiple user segments to ensure that we offer a broad range of solutions. If the need is there, we will look at ways of addressing it. That said, the K6 family is at a point in its life cycle where additional chipset developments like SMP capabilities probably do not represent a compelling business situation. [BREAK]Lijkt me echt extreem leuk, een dual K6-III 500 systeempje... Verder ook dit nog over de K6:[/BREAK] FullOn3D: Will the K6-X be upgraded to use a 133 Mhz FSB? Will there been any new and exciting advances in the K6-X series (apart from clockspeed increases)? AMD: Can't get into specifics, but we plan to continue to provide enhancements to the K6 processor family. FullOn3D: What is the maximum frequency the K6 core will be able to achieve (in a 0.25um process and 0.18um process)? AMD: All I can say is we plan to continue offering future speed grades on the K6 family, as well as other enhancements, to remain competitive in the mainstream PC market. We also plan to migrate the K6 family to .18 micron.

En over de K7 moet je zelf maar verder hier lezen.

Ook wordt nog eens het verschil uitgelegd tussen de verschillende K7-Athlon versies.

FullOn3D heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid waarin het de performance van een aantal videokaarten in een 600Mhz Athlon systeem onderzoekt. Van de geteste videochips hebben de TNT2 en G400 de hoogste fillrate en niet geheel onverwacht blijken deze dan ook als snelsten uit de test naar voren te komen:

So, in conclusion, if you are looking to buy an Athlon system - and from the performance we see you can't consider yourself a power gamer if that is not on your mind - make sure that it comes with the highest performing 3D accelerators you can afford.

High clock TNT2s and G400 are good. Voodoo3 is a so-so case as 16-bit-only acceleration is nothing I care to carry over to the 7th generation computers and the upcoming chips might be even better if, and only if, they don't waste everyone's time with memory bandwith problems that were becoming obvious even when the TNT was new.

Under these considerations the PowerVR 250 may prove to be the dark horse of the fall season if VideoLogic finally gets it on the shelves.

Overclocker's Workbench heeft plaatjes van de nieuwe GlobalWin FDP32 socket370 heatsink, die beter zou moeten zijn dan de Alpha coolers. Het ding is riesengroß, way te groot om op een BP6 te passen:

Overclocker's Workbench heeft info over een OEM C366 SL36C die op 2,2 volt 605Mhz haalt:

"Saw these oem 366 cpus available in xxxxxx today; went down $500+ to get 2 pcs of the cpus with an Abit BP6....

Both cpus will easily do 550mhz at default 2.0v .... no stability problems in Prime95 or Unreal flyby... went on all the way to 605mhz (5.5x110mhz)... needed 2.2v and alpha cooler to be rock stable under Prime95 and Unreal flyby....

Finally, the big test for dual processing.. in a dual setup, both cpus will booted into Windows 2000 rc1 at 605mhz each at 2.2v .... will try to test the stability of this dual setup using some SMP-enabled programs.... will post again...."

Verder zeggen ze ook nog een PIII-500 tot 993MHz overgeklokt te hebben, op een busspeed van 124MHz (vraag me niet waar ze die 8x multiplier vandaan gefriemeld hebben).

Zoals we gisteren ook al in dit nieuwsbericht postten lijkt het erop dat VIA Cyrix uitsluitend heeft overgenomen ivm haar patenten, niet om de (veelbelovende) processor designs die het in ontwikkeling had. Hier heb je wat info van Ace's Hardware, afkomstig van deze site:

He(note VIA's CEO Wen Chi Chen) then negotiated a deal that has NSM laying off most of the people (already included in the Q4 write-down by NSM in case they needed to shut down in the event of no buyer), at a lower price than originally reported (because he's just buying IP/licensing), and some unknown portion contingent of Cyrix product sales (rumored 50% to 67%). Why? Because the risk/cost was cheaper to buy the IP from NSM, dump the people, and buy Centaur. The M3/Mojave team slit their own throats. They were asking for huge retention packages. Gobi is far behind schedule, and currently limited by a design screw-up to 207MHz in 0.18u (M2 currently at 300MHz) -- talking real frequency. The Gobi customer samples didn't go out in July. Stan Swearingin (sp?), who was widely quoted in many articles at the time of the initial sale, quietly quit a couple weeks ago. The whole Mojave team was let go today. Any Via x86 designs will come from Austin/Winchip. you're probably curious about what happened here. National (who knows who actually made the decision) laid off 168 people throughout all of the Cyrix sites: Richardson, Arlington, Mesa, and Santa Clara. The bulk of the layoffs came from technical marketing, marketing, sales, and M3. That's right, M3 has been delayed indefinitely. I don't care if you let that info fly. I really don't give a !@#$ anymore. I hung in there believing they would do the right thing, and now they pull the rug out from under us. The only sense I can make out of all this is that they wanted Cyrix for the GTL cross-license. I don't think I'll have a job here after the end of this month. [break]En de reaktie van Idiot / Ace's Hardware:[/break] OK, so this basically means that VIA IS KILLING CYRIX and throw away the Jalapeno/Mojave design. Here are what I feel about on this issue. I mean Taiwan's media was all over Chen for his ambition to enter the X86 CPU market. Chanting that this will bring Taiwan's electronic industry from the low end to the high and glorious CPU making top. VIA even said that it wanted to be the Intel of Asia, and with that I thought they want the multiple development team model like Intel and AMD, When they brought Centaur. And now they are killing CYRIX which do have a future design in progress and a good team. I mean that if VIA wants any part of the high end they need at least a design like Jalapeno. Although Glenn Henry will be talking Centaur's next generation core at MPF and its said to be really advanced, its questionable how fast can his team can bring the design to the market given an advanced core's complexity and the size of Centaur's design team. This also leaks the real talents at Cyrix to other companies and made even the ones that stay with very little motivation. Why waste so much money on just IP when you can bring experience and talents with it? Anyway I feel sorry about the death of a new CPU design.

Behoorlijk huftiger gedrag van VIA, als je het mij (ex-Cyrix gebruiker) vraagt. Wat mij betreft mag VIA doodvallen.

Ace's Hardware heeft een zooitje Athlon vs PIII vs Xeon benchmarks gepost, afkomstig van c't. De Athlon blijkt niet geheel onverwacht als de grote winnaar naar voren te komen. Zie bijv. deze Bapco resultaten:

Bapco 98 multimedia Bapco basic Bapco Sysmark Athlon 600 232 254 238 Penitum III 600 214 227 218 XEON 500 (1MB) 190 196 192

AVault heeft 15 screenshots van het intense kewle Driver online gezet. Hier heb je er alvast 3:

Verder bij AVault een interview met Martin Edmondson van Reflections (de developers van het spel):

AVault: Judging from what I saw at E3, the missions give the game a strong sense of momentum. Provide some examples of the missions and the variables contained within them.

Edmondson: There are 44 missions in the game. Some of these are simple jobs in which you must show up at a specific location on time, get the robbers and deliver them to the drop off point. Of course, once you have the robbers, the cops will be on your tail. Another mission involves chasing after an armored cop car. You have to ram the car repeatedly and bust out the convict inside. Not all missions involve other cars. In one mission, a guy has not been paying protection money to the mob, and they solicit you to locate all the restaurants in town and smash through the front of them, with tables, chairs and customers flying everywhere. Other missions are very simple, such as the taxi ride. You have to steal a taxi and get your target. The sole aim in this mission is to scare your target passenger, who, again, has angered the mob. It is completely up to you, but performing 180s on the wrong side of the freeway usually does the job!

Hardware One heeft een review gepost van de nieuwe MSI 6363 Pro moederplank, opvolger van de 6163, een bord dat destijds als enige niet-Abit bord van voltage tweaking features voorzien was. De 6163 Pro is voorzien van de klassieke 5/2/1 PCI/ISA/AGP layout met 3 DIMM slots. Voor de overklokkers heeft-ie een jumperless setup, een enorme kudde busspeeds (66/75/78/81/83/90/95 / 100/105/110/112/115/117 / 120/122/124(41) / 124(31)/126/133/135/138/140 / 142/144/150/155MHz) en de mogelijkheid om de Vi/o spanning te tweaken:

So those of you looking for a single processor BX board for overclocking purposes, look no further.

Check Hardware One voor meer info over deze nieuwe slot1 wonderplank.

3D Alpha heeft een review van een 50-speed Asus CD-ROM drive in elkaar geknutseld. Uiteraard is zo'n drive errug snel, maar de hoge rotatiesnelheid kent ook nadelen (het geluid van een jet engine...):

However, there are always low points, as well as high points in computer equipment. When testing this drive out and swapping CDs during install sessions for testing, I had to ask myself if I was near a nuclear testing site. With a top spindle speed of 10,400 rpms, you're bound to hear a good lot of noise when you put in a CD, but when it's not loading data for a game, or copying a file, it's generally pretty quiet. It's just those times when it's in use that you'd swear that your lawnmower is quieter. The noise level gets especially horrid for me when the spindle speed gets so fast that it emits a high pitched noise that seems to pierce my eardrum. Once you hear that, then you know the CD-ROM has peaked on it's spindle speed. If you're willing to sacrifice speed for less noise, I'd suggest ASUSTeK's 40x CD-ROM drive. Since they're both variable speed drives, the speed difference isn't a whole lot between the two.

De procureur van het Los Angeles district heeft z'n zaak tegen Kevin Mitnick (beroemdste hacker op deze aardkloot) gedropt. Hier heb een hap uit een nieuwsbericht van MSNBC:

The Los Angeles district attorney gave Kevin Mitnick a birthday present Friday, dropping its six-year-old computer hacking case against the convicted hacker. That development could speed the release of the 35-year-old hacker, removing an obstacle that could have prevented Mitnick from going free from federal prison soon after he is formally sentenced Monday in an unrelated federal case.

Harris’ action clears the way for Mitnick’s freedom. He is due to be sentenced in federal court for several hacking charges he pleaded guilty to in March. His attorney in the federal case, Donald Randolph of L.A.’s Randolph & Levanas, said he will ask Central District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer to order Mitnick into a halfway house after formally sentencing him to 68 months in prison.

Randolph said he is optimistic Pfaelzer will grant the request, but if she doesn’t Mitnick is set to go free sometime in January.

Misschien niet zo'n hele belangrijke feature, maar zeker tof:

>>I was reading about Shiny's upcoming "Messiah", & how the game engine allows for avi's to be displayed within the game-for video screens & such. Will Duke have any similar feature incorporated into the Unreal engine? It may not be conducive to gameplay, but it would be a cool piece of eye candy. [break]Reaktie van 3DRealms boss George Broussard:[/break] Heh...we've had that in for months

Review Zone misbruikt 4 Savage4 videokaarten op een testplank: de Creative 3D Blaster Savage4, Diamond Stealth III S540, Gainward Cardexpert SG4 en Elsa Winner II. Wie wint?

As an entire package, the Diamond Stealth III S540 wins the contest hands down, owing to the sheer brilliance of the InControl 99 toolset, its stable drivers, and the fact that you get an unbeatable option to buy games with their program. I also noticed that out of the cards that use their own drivers, the Diamond was a lot more stable with the reference drivers in comparison to the others. Diamond's support too is very good and problems that do appear can be solved quite quickly.

Wie trek heeft in zo'n relatief goedkoop Savage4 kaartje checkt hier de reviews.

Fahrenheit, de nieuwe über 3D API waarvan het de bedoeling is dat deze OpenGL en Direct3D versmelt, is in goede Microsoft-traditie inmiddels al met een jaar vertraagd...

Meanwhile, Microsoft is working on two other APIs, targeted at different markets. Both, once they are available, will hold out the promise of new applications and features in the graphics market.

Windows 2000 is slated to incorporate GDI+, an API that will merge the existing 2-D GDI and Direct3D formats and is expected to enhance 3-D capabilities on desktop PCs. Separately, DirectX version 7 is expected imminently and will let PC graphics chips use hardware-based transformation and lighting technology for the first time. "The reality is that if these features are not supported by [the API], they don't get used," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst for Mercury Research, in Scottsdale, Ariz. He said graphics-chip vendors are anxiously awaiting DirectX7 because implementing the transformation and lighting features will off-load much of the geometry computing tasks from the microprocessor and could dramatically improve desktop graphics performance.

[...] The Fahrenheit delay demonstrates the increasingly complex nature of advanced graphics. The project was unveiled in December 1997 as part of a broad cooperative effort between SGI and Microsoft. The duo was expected to deliver a range of low- and high-level software architectures that would merge the best of SGI's Unix-based professional-class graphics capabilities with Microsoft's growing 3-D presence for Windows-based PC games.

[...] But Microsoft and SGI are finding it more difficult than they expected to unify the Direct3D environment of Windows with the OpenGL API from the graphics giant. The two sides now believe they will not be able to deliver a single low-level API that embraces both environments until at least some time in 2001, and the first high-level tools created for use over both worlds will not be ready for use until some time next year.