The AVX extension adds a set of new instructions that can operate on 256 bits of data at once (in the form of 4 64-bit floats, 8 32-bit floats, or various other

The AVX extension adds a set of new instructions that can operate on 256 bits of data at once (in the form of 4 64-bit floats, 8 32-bit floats, or various other data types), and the new registers to fit them in. These new instructions promise to significantly increase throughput for a limited set of operations -- but to do that, the software has to be compiled to use them, and often entirely rewritten to use the wider vectors. Few will bother to do that until the new instructions have significant market penetration -- which will take years. I am not quite as optimistic as Symmetry is about the usefulness of these latest extensions to x86 -- while many fringe tasks will benefit a lot, most of what you do on a computer just isn't limited by the width of the vectors or the amount of SIMD operations you can do per clock. IMHO, the insanely fast caches are a much more significant improvement.