WOW! SledgeHammer and ClawHammer

[WillysNut]

This may be old news to some but the AMD plan for 64 Bit processors is incredible to say the least when compared w/ Intel's new Itanium chip.

Intel has chosen to adopt a completely new design, as they have done w/ sockets, memory adoption, etc. The Itanium will not be fully backwards compatable with 32bit apps. ie. It will run 32bit applications but the code will have to be recompiled for the software to work with the register design of the Itanium.

AMD on the other hand has designed two different chips. The SledgeHammer for servers and high end workstations and the ClawHammer for desktops. Both chips are enhanced Athlon cores using the .18 micron process (Itanium is also .18).

However, wheras Itanium must run recompiled 32bit apps, the AMD processors are FULLY backwards compatable with 32 and 16bit apps. Amazing!! Even better..the new cores are said to be able to completely knock the socks off of an equally rated P4 in 32bit apps (what else is new!) and runs 32bit apps faster than than the current Athlon design.

AMD's early target market for the ClawHammer is "High End Gamers" People..like us..(not all gamers), who will spend a little more for cutting edge technology.

Some of the highlights of the new AMD CPUs:
-x86-64 Architecture
(Supports Legacy 16 and 32 bit apps w/o any modification)
-64bit Flat virtual memory addressing
-8 new general purpose registers (kind of like storage bins)
-8 new 128 bit registers (for 64bit data movement/storage)
-64bit Instruction pointer

I read all this in the November issue of PCUpgrade Magazine. All I can say is...I WANT ONE!!! :)

[CrackedSKull]

any idea when these will be on the market. 3, 6, 12 months more?

[WillysNut]

Originally posted by CrackedSKull
any idea when these will be on the market. 3, 6, 12 months more?

According to AMD, The Clawhamer will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001 and the Sledgehammer will be out in the first quarter of 2002

[n2]

any words on Compats?? sounds totally viable for use in any Socket A mobo... pending a possible BIOS flash eh'

definitely anticipating price droppage as a result of the release...
personally, i'll be going after Athlon 1gig + 1.4gig

get off these durons... and play with the faster bus
i'm not one to kick in all my clams on "hot new top dollar tech." i can wait for them to drop down.

[Random Nonsense]

clawhammer is aparantly designed as a multi-processor server CPU, sledgehammer is the gamers type one i think, although i dont know the actual difference... but sledgehammer is a better name so i get that one :p

[Alex99]

Originally posted by WillysNut


According to AMD, The Clawhamer will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001 and the Sledgehammer will be out in the first quarter of 2002

4th Qtr 2001 for the Clawhammer? Wow, that just sounds too good to be true. The Clawhammer or Sledgehammer wouldn't be the same as the Palomino is it?

Will the Clawhammer or Sledgehammer be compatible with Current Athlon mobos? Where can I learn more about these bad boys?

[WillysNut]

Originally posted by Random Nonsense
clawhammer is aparantly designed as a multi-processor server CPU, sledgehammer is the gamers type one i think, although i dont know the actual difference... but sledgehammer is a better name so i get that one :p

Other way around. the Clawhammer is for workstations and the SledgeHammer is the MP, server design.

[WillysNut]

Originally posted by Alex99


4th Qtr 2001 for the Clawhammer? Wow, that just sounds too good to be true. The Clawhammer or Sledgehammer wouldn't be the same as the Palomino is it?

Will the Clawhammer or Sledgehammer be compatible with Current Athlon mobos? Where can I learn more about these bad boys?

Not the same as Palamino. Palamino does not have any of the modifications to run 64bit apps.

[WillysNut]

Originally posted by n2 [hall mon.]
any words on Compats?? sounds totally viable for use in any Socket A mobo... pending a possible BIOS flash eh'


Very good question. I'd guess that the CPU's will work in current mobos w/ a BIOS upgrade. The socket format is the same and the CPU is really more of a modified 32 bit CPU than a brand new ground up 64bit design.

However, I'm guessing that some of the 64bit features would not be usable on a current mobo..just a guess though!

[killem1x1]

Was the question answered for sure about the release of these bad boyz? Does anyone have pricing NfO yet?

[OC-Master]

first off, the Clawhammer was pushed back several months along with the Throughbred cpu due to there new .13micron process that AMD has been readying for the last year. Indeed, Clawhammer will be the first home/server CPU that will be 64-bit and 32-bit compatible.

Unfortuneatly, the Clawhammer runs on a 533MHz bus which no AMD motherboard supports and I can garantee that AMD has a new socket design ready that is really small like the new 478 that Intel is using.

Sledgehammer is for servers only like the XEON series is from Intel and will be priced double if not triple of what Clawhammer is. To make it simple, Clawhammer is for Home, Sledgehammer is for Server. There is also Throughbred and Barton in there as well which are main stream.

I know Throughbred has a 333MHz FSB, and Barton has a 400MHz FSB.


PRICING:

Throughbred will countinue with Athlon prices,

Clawhammer will cost 25%~50% more than the newest Athlon avail in April next year, (2GHz, A big guess). Sledgehammer will cost almost twice as much as Clawhammer.

[Alex99]

Originally posted by AXIA
first off, the Clawhammer was pushed back several months along with the Throughbred cpu due to there new .13micron process that AMD has been readying for the last year. Indeed, Clawhammer will be the first home/server CPU that will be 64-bit and 32-bit compatible.

Unfortuneatly, the Clawhammer runs on a 533MHz bus which no AMD motherboard supports and I can garantee that AMD has a new socket design ready that is really small like the new 478 that Intel is using.

Sledgehammer is for servers only like the XEON series is from Intel and will be priced double if not triple of what Clawhammer is. To make it simple, Clawhammer is for Home, Sledgehammer is for Server. There is also Throughbred and Barton in there as well which are main stream.

I know Throughbred has a 333MHz FSB, and Barton has a 400MHz FSB.


PRICING:

Throughbred will countinue with Athlon prices,

Clawhammer will cost 25%~50% more than the newest Athlon avail in April next year, (2GHz, A big guess). Sledgehammer will cost almost twice as much as Clawhammer.

Not to doubt you, but where did you find all these info? Web page link that you can slap on or anything.

[OC-Master]

awhile back when I was browsing the [Hard] forums, some guy was talking with a marketing agent at AMD and he was talking about AMD's marketing and how they would enter the Super high end Server market with 64-bit.

But, behond from the marketing, the performance of the cpu can be found from the rumoring QDR support which all points to the 533bus thats floating around the net. Also, I know for a fact that AMD aint using SocketA with clawhammer because they said they already had a new socket being developed, and I'm guessing its gonna be like the Intel one.

[WillysNut]

I'm starting to hate pre-release information, rumors, speculation, whatver you call it. This (http://www.geek.com/procspec/amd/k8.htm) article has a lot of descrepancies from the print article I read in PCUpgrade (Available in the US and Canada)

The PC upgrade article says that Clawhammer is for Workstations while SledgeHammer is for Servers. The above article says exactly the opposite.

The PC upgrade article mentions that the first Hammer CPU's will be based on modified Athlon cores of the .18micron variety. The above article (Chipgeek.com) mentions the .13Micron process and new technology.

Both mention that the x86-64 instruction set. Ugh! Guess we'll just have to wait for the official release information or some hard evidence.

[CrackedSKull]

A little off topic, but since we're talking about new cpus, when will the next Palamino be out, and what speed? Also, will we ever see a new tb. I've heard 1.53ghz for the Palamino and hoping it would be out within the next 2 months.

[OC-Master]

1.53GHz (266) Palamino should be out this month, I just cant garantee the proper date. But, its rumored for the 17th so we'll see. And in the first or second week of october, the 1.6GHz chip should be avail.

[Max Payneguin]

Somewhere, AMD said something like the Clawhammer at 2GHz would be as fast as 3 Athlons at 1GHz. Now, does that mean that the CH will be as fast as a 3GHZ Athlon or 3 1GHz Athlons in SMP??? They never said if it was SMP, or just added GHz together. Either way, Intel better watch out. I mean, that's pretty fork'n fast, seeing that the current Athlon is as fast as it is clock-4-clock. I would guess that a 2GHz Hammer is easily comparable to a 3GHz Pentium 4, unless Intel overhauls the core.