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Subject: Re: I mean affordable SMP!

Author: Vincent Lejeune

Date: 06:01:19 03/11/00

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On March 10, 2000 at 22:49:44, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On March 09, 2000 at 17:42:48, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>
>>On March 09, 2000 at 14:16:30, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>>>On March 09, 2000 at 14:14:26, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>[snip]
>>>>I think SMP with Athlons will be extremely cool, because they are cheap. I also
>>>>think the bus design is better for SMP, but I might be wrong.
>>>
>>>IIRC, some of the early Athlon chips did not have SMP support (although I know
>>>it was planned).  Has it been added?  Have SMP Athlon machines been released?
>>
>>I don't know of any changes to the Athlon since its introduction.
>>
>>I remember reading that the Athlon has SMP support, but I can't remember where.
>>It makes sense, though, because many of the people who designed the Athlon also
>>worked on the PA8000 and the 21264, which have SMP support.
>>
>>I also think one of the main reasons AMD decided to go with the EV6 (?) bus is
>>because it has inherent advantages for SMP.
>>
>>-Tom
>
>
>EV6 is both good and bad.  Good for performance.  bad for price.  it is a 256
>bit bus.  Which is not cheap, from a memory point of view...
>
>Supposedly the athlon is pin-compatible with an alpha, at least that was the
>original promise, so the el-cheapo machine could be built based on the athlon,
>but when performance was needed, the athlon could be replaced with a real
>21264 (or higher) alpha chip to really go fast.

The athlon is pin-compatible as promised but it is "not electrically compatible"
with the alpha processors , as it was said since the biginning of the
developpement of the Athlon. According this, there's NO motherboard where could
plug an athlon or a alpha, and I bet there will be not one, because the 2
products don't target the same users : Ahtlon for home/office automation and
Alpha for workstations/research computers/university

Best regards,

Vincent Lejeune



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