On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 04:19:18 GMT, "Yousuf Khan" wrote:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20040726PR202.html

This interview with Tyan president Symon Chang provided the following
quotes:

"Around 2006, when the market moves to AMD's next generation of chips, you
will be able to go over 8-way. What I mean is that with eight sockets, and
dual cores, you then have sixteen processors, but with K9, you'll see it go
over that. I think we'll see a significant increase in the amount of
crossbar switches in the CPU. I'm not up on all the minute details, but you'
ll be able to go over 60 processors without adding any external crossbar
chips. We can do all that within the structure that is being currently
created. The crossbar bar chip is the standard in the mainframe business
whether it is for the Xeon, Opteron or other processors. There are a couple
of versions of the crossbar chip today, but I don't think that anyone is
currently using them for anything in the generic market; these solutions are
really only for the mainframe market. Today's mainframe market with
computers from IBM or Sparc will be using up to and over 128 processors,
with chips such as IBM's 390 microprocessor. These machines are starting
around US$1 million."

That's right over 60 processors without any kind of a special chipset
support!!!

Also he had some opinions about Windows XP64:

"Q: Do you think Microsoft's 64-bit OS will come out on time?

Chang: I hope so. There are delays, but I believe it will. Interestingly
enough, a couple of significant things have happened this year; for example,
Intel's Xeon processor with 64-bit extensions is a reaction to the
unexpected popularity of AMD's Opteron, which put Intel under pressure to
provide a similar solution for the OEM market. If Intel had not reacted, it
would have lost out. Their response was to come out with a 64-bit CPU that
is not optimal, but at least they have it, and I would compare that with
what Microsoft is doing now in the realm of the 64-bit operating system."

Hmmm, "not optimal"?? How much can we read into that on top of the
deafening EM64T silence on WWW? As for "unexpected popularity of AMD's
Opteron"... must be a riddle... too difficult for me.:-)

Doesn't sound like Chang believes that Microsoft is trying all that hard to
build a 64-bit OS. It's getting something out to show that it isn't behind
the times.

.... or that we'll get it when Intel is good and ready for us to have it.:-(

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??