AMD's Response
Intel has produced a winner with its Core Duo 2 design; and for the first time in years, the company holds a clear performance advantage over its longtime rival, AMD. But while the short-term performance picture may look bleak for AMD, don't count the company out.
AMD plans to introduce aggressive price cuts this month; and later this year, it will launch 4x4, an enthusiast platform that enables systems to use a pair of high-end dual-core chips. Though applications and games capable of taking full advantage of multiple CPU cores are rare as yet, we expect the performance--and price--of 4x4 systems to be quite high.
Looking further into the future, AMD will open up its HyperTransport bus, allowing other companies to design specialized coprocessors and accelerators and drop them onto the same superfast bus that AMD uses to shuttle data between the CPU, RAM, and other key components in a system. Such coprocessors could be built into a CPU package for multisocket systems or designed as add-in boards for a new slot type dubbed HTX.
This initiative, which AMD is calling Torrenza, will debut on the server side, where multisocket systems are already common and where specialized processors could accelerate Java code or database operations. Desktop and gaming applications are farther away; but if demand is high enough, Torrenza-based physics or graphics coprocessors could appear in the next few years.
Ultimately, however, while 4x4 and Torrenza are interesting technologies, neither is likely to have a large mainstream impact. AMD's true answer to Core 2 Duo will arrive in 2007, when it is scheduled to launch its next-generation CPU architecture, dubbed "K8L." K8L and single-chip quad-core processors will be compatible with 4x4 motherboards, according to AMD.
In the meantime, no matter what their budget, demanding PC users have a high-performance option in the Core 2 Duo line, which should keep their processor-intensive applications humming along.
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Torrenza -- AMD Plugs Coprocessors
If AMD gets its way, future computers might have a media or physics coprocessor sharing the same bus as the CPU. By opening up the speedy HyperTransport protocol that it uses to connect the CPU, memory, and chip set in its systems, AMD hopes to give vendors ways to configure superfast, customized PCs. AMD calls the technology Torrenza, and it's likely to show up first in servers to accelerate things like Java code and high-end physics simulations. But computer vendors are already planning PCs with multiple sockets for gamers, so don't rule out desktop applications' making use of this promising new technology in the next few years.