4 ms·
> AMD always just seems to be a little behind the next big thing. Not really. They were the first to vectorize - with 3DNow! They were the first x86 with the o
by microarchitect 16y ago
> AMD always just seems to be a little behind the next big thing.
Not really. They were the first to vectorize - with 3DNow! They were the first x86 with the on-chip memory controllers on the Opteron, which Intel were able to copy only 5 odd years later with Nehalem. They were the first to 1 GHz. They were the first (by a small margin, but still first) to build a CPU+GPU chip. They're also going to be first to build an x86 with an FMAC instruction with Bulldozer. These are just a few things off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I could come up with a few more given some time.
The real problems AMD has are (1) Intel has way too much money because of which they can afford to screw up royally like they did with the P4 and now Larrabee and still not suffer any serious consequences and (2) Intel has always been ahead of them in the technology scaling game.
- wtallis 16y agoMMX came before 3dNow!, so you would have to qualify that as shipping the first vector floating-point extension to x86.
- microarchitect 16y agoYou're right. The other good thing about 3dNow was that it was the first attempt at cleaning up Intel's x87 mess.
- mrb 16y agoGood list of "firsts", even though you forgot some: first to implement x86-64/AMD64 which Intel copied 2-3 years later, first to implement inter-processor links (HyperTransport), first to ship 12+-core processors (Opteron 6100 series). As an underdog, a company has no choice but to be the first to implement many features in order to even remotely hope to stay alive. Even then, it's often not sufficient because there may be a lot of inertia, so a small technical advantage may not be enough to convince customers from switching from the market leader to the underdog.