What Is It?

An article comes out saying that some Athlon 64s won’t support 64-bits.

I say that, and people tell me I can’t read.

The article flat out says the processors are Hammers (that’s what “based on Hammer architecture” means) with a smaller cache and no x86-64 circuitry. People are telling me, “No, you can’t read. It’s an AthlonXP because AMD is calling it that.”

This sounds like the geek version of “Designer Label Syndrome.” There are labels, and there are realities.

Calling a CPU something doesn’t make it something. AMD may call these things XPs, but it’s a Hammer core.

If someone takes a duck, cuts off its beak, and calls it a frog, what is it? I’m saying we still have a duck. The others are saying it’s a frog.

Let me put it another way. If Intel took a PIV, removed SSE and SSE2 support, but left everything else, and then called it a PIII, what is it? Is it a PIII, or a stripped down PIV?

I rest my case.

Ed