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Part 1: Comparative History Generally Intel has been the dominant producer of microprocessor chips AMD has proven to be a fierce competitor Competition stimulated the industry by producing new and innovative microprocessors In the mid nineties Intel begins to face true competition 2

Comparative History – chip 1980’s-Intel was the only true producer of marketable computer chips 1982-introduce was able to run software of its prior microprocessor 3

Comparative History – chip Within 6 years, 15 million 286’s are installed around the world Intel contracts third party companies to produce 286’s and variants AMD was one of these third party companies AMD became very efficient and capable of being its own producer of microprocessors 4

Comparative History – 386 chip 1985, Intel releases its 32-bit 386 microprocessor. Faster and capable of multitasking AMD, under licensed production, produces 386 chips allowing Intel to meet market demands 5

Comparative History – 386 chip During the reign of the 386, AMD decides to produce its own CPU AMD began legal arbitration over rights to produce their own chips. After 5 years of battle, the courts sided with AMD. 6

Comparative History -486 chip 1989-Intel releases its 486DX. Allowed point and clicking Initially twice as fast as its predecessor. Intel continued to upgrade to speeds reaching 66MHz. 7

Comparative History -Am386 chip 1991-AMD released Am386 Intel’s 486 released two years prior AMD believed there still existed a market By October, AMD sold one million units 8

Comparative History -Am486 chip 1993-AMD releases first competing chip: Am AMD improves chip with Am486DX Am486DX processes up to 100MHz 9

Comparative History - Pentium 1993, Intel realizes it cannot trademark numbers “x86.” This allows AMD the ability to essentially clone Intel’s chips Intel’s solution: dubs its new chip the Pentium instead of releasing it as the “586”

Comparative History - Pentium Handles and processes more media types such as speech, sound, and photographic images. It Offered multiple processing speeds up to 200MHz. It became well entrenched in the market During this time, Intel truly dominated

Comparative History - Am5x AMD’s first attempt to compete with the Pentium by introducing Am5x86 It was really for those who wanted to upgrade their 486 motherboards without making a jump to the Pentium motherboard AMD did not fare well with this chip

Comparative History - AMD K K5 introduced First chip comparable to the Pentium Could be placed in the same motherboard as the Pentium, making it compatible Because it was released 3 years after the Pentium, it was met with cool reception

Comparative History – Pentium Pro In the previous year, Intel released the Pentium Pro Able to handle more instructions per clock cycle Intel’s ability to get a new chip on the market before AMD has had the effect of overshadowing any of AMD’s microprocessors

Comparative History - AMD K AMD purchases the company NexGen who were making a microprocessor of their own AMD uses their core 686 processor to develop the AMD K6 Additionally, they slap on Intel’s MMX code making it compatible with Pentiums.

Comparative History - AMD K6 K6 was released in 1997 and reached speeds of 166Mhz to 200Mhz K6 was significantly cheaper than the Pentium K6 was able to move up to speeds as high as 300MHz, out performing the Pentiums Intel was ready for the challenge

Comparative History - Pentium II Later than year, Intel unveils the Pentium II It was equipped with MMX instructions, ready to handle video, audio, and graphics data Better capable of handling video editing, sending media via the Internet, and reprocessing music By 1998, the Pentium began to climb in processing speeds up to 450 MHz.

Comparative History - The Celeron K6 was doing well as a cost effective alternative to the Pentium II, although it was an inferior chip In response, in 1998, Intel introduced its own cheaper and inferiror microprocessor: the Celeron It was a stripped down version of the Pentium II

Comparative History - AMD’s K6-2 AMD fights back with an enhanced K6 to take on the Pentium II: the K6-2 Their K6 chip included what they called “3DNow” technology 3DNow is an additional twenty-two instructions to better handle audio, video, and graphic intensive programs AMD then releases K6-3 and proves to be a threat to Intel

Comparative History - Pentium III 1999-Intel responds by coming out with the Pentium III It had an additional 70 instructions, improving its ability to process advanced imaging, streaming audio, video, & speech recognition programs One goal of the Pentium III was to enhance the Internet experience

Comparative History - the Athlon The Athlon was a new chip from the ground up It was capable of doing everything the Pentium III could do, but was much cheaper The Athlon was beating out the Pentium III

Comparative History - Celeron II In 2000, Intel decides to launch a two pronged attack against AMD First, Intel fights for low-end market by introducing the Celeron II It ranges in speed between 500 and 1100MHz. It was a stripped down processor with enhanced speed It was fairly cheap, making it competitive

Comparative History -Pentium IV Intel also introduces the Pentium IV It uses four main new technologies: Hyper Pipelined Technology, Rapid Execution Engine, Execution Trace Cache and a 400 MHz system bus Its major improvement was increased speed, initially starting at 1.5Ghz with ability for expansion Today it’s reaching upwards to a remarkable 3GHz

Comparative History - Pentium IV The Pentium IV can now produce high quality video stream radio and TV quality information across the internet Render upscale graphics in real-time Perform several applications simultaneously while connected to the Internet

Comparative History - the Duron As result of Intel’s attack on AMD, Intel is once again dominating the market AMD’s response to the Celeron II was the Duron, released the same year (2000) It is a geared down version of the Athlon, but edges out the Celeron

Comparative History - Athlon XP The Athlon chip was destroying the Pentium III, but now is destined for the graveyard In response to the Pentium IV, AMD enhanced the Athlon by coming out with the XP series. Test show that an Athlon XP running 1.4GHz performs nearly as well as a Pentium of 2Ghz The Athlon XP is a quality chip, but is fading away under the onslaught of the heavy performance of the Pentium IV

Comparative History–the ClawHammer Intel now holds edge over AMD in chip technology Rumored that AMD is developing a powerhouse chip called the ClawHammer It is apparently in a testing stage

Chipsets Our goal has been to understand the history and details of the competition and their processors between Intel and AMD Also of importance are Chipsets Knowing some information on chipsets helps determine an appropriate opinion on Intel & AMD

Chipsets A chipset is a group of integrated circuits, sold as one unit, designed to perform one or more related functions We are focused on chipsets that provide functionality for the CPU We compared chipsets from both AMD and Intel as well as an outside manufacturer, who makes chipsets for both, VIA.

Most advanced chipset for the AMD CPU Consists of the VT8235 Southbridge and the VT8377 Northbridge.

Main Features of KT400 Front Side Bus (FSB) up to 333Mhz Support for PC 3200 DDR Ram 400 Mhz North-South Bridge 533 Mhz 5 available PCI slots

KT400 VT8377 Features Lightening fast memory access: 2.7 Gb/s 8X offers 2.1 Gb/s dedicated speed to 3D graphics Fast 333 Mhz FSB

KT400 VT8235 Features 533 Mhz 8X V-link interface between North and South bridge USB 2.0 ATA133 6 Channel Audio

Using Soyo’s KT400 Ultra Dragon Motherboard

Higher number better

Consists of the AMD-762 system controller (northbridge) and the AMD-768 peripheral bus controller (southbridge). AMD 760 MPX Chipset (Dual Processor)

Main features of AMD 760MPX Front Side Bus (FSB) up to 266 Mhz per processor (533Mhz) Support for PC 2100 DDR Ram 266 Mhz North-South Bridge 66 Mhz Up to 7 available PCI slots

Features of AMD 760MPX 762 System Controller Two 266 MHz point- to-point AMD system buses PC 2100 DDR Ram 266 Mhz AGP 4X video card support

Features of AMD 760MPX 768 Peripheral Bus Controller Host PCI bus utilizing a 66MHz/64-bit interface. Secondary 33MHz/32-bit PCI bus interface, including PCI bus arbiter with support for up to eight external devices UDMA 33/66/100 compatible EIDE bus master controller SMBus controller with one SMBus port

Advantages of the AIPC and the SMBus Bus Through the AIPC bus, the Processors have direct access to the south bridge Through the SMBus, the memory has the direct access to the south bridge Disadvantage of direct access can be potential data conflict

Structure Designed for Xeon Processor 2 Main Chips MCH Memory Controller Hub Controls the high speed bus ICH2 I/O controller Hub Controls the peripheral devices

Over view of 860 chipset

High Speed Bus Memory 64 Bit PCI connection Graphics Accelerators

Memory Configuration RDRAM Up to 64 devices supported by the Paired mode Single Channel-pair Mode Utilizes memory modules ( 4 Gigabytes) Multiple Channel- pair mode Utilizes MRH-R to control the expanded capabilities ( 16 Gigabytes of RAM)

Block Diagram

64 bit PCI Support 400 MHz connection to the P64H chip Allows for a fast connection to a high speed, PCI device High data transfer rate High Speed A pair are bundled in the chipset

Graphics Accelerator MCH connects to AGP 4X Connection speed of 1 GB/s High performance Accelerators supported Does not Support 8X Accelerators

ICH2 Peripherals Bus 32 Bit PCI Bus LAN Controller I/O module Keyboard, Mouse, Floppy disk drive, etc ATA / 100 (IDE standard for Hard Drive) 4 USB Ports

Features and Benefits

Overview 860 chipset Highly Structured Powered by up to 7 chips High performance

Apollo Chipset Designed for the Pentium 4 processor 3 Segments in the Bus North Bridge High speed bus South Bridge peripheral devices

Block Diagram

North Bridge System Bus 400 MHz Main memory Connection at 266 MHz Bottleneck Accelerated Graphics Controller AGP 4X AGP support

South Bridge Controls 32 bit PCI Bus (33 MHz) Supports up to 6 USB devices (2.0 Standard) Hard Drive IDE (ATA 33 / 66 / 100 ) LAN controller VT6103

South Bridge (cont’d) Several chips available VT8233 VT8233C VT8233A Each with a unique function Price drops

Features Supports Intel Pentium 4 Processor 400MHz (Quad 100) FSB setting AGP4X graphics Supports DDR200/266 SDRAM as well as PC100/133 SDRAM Ultra fast 266MB per second V-Link between North and South Bridge

Features (cont’d) AC'97 and MC'97 Audio/Modem Integrated 3Com 10/100Mb Ethernet Media Access Controller Support for 2 ATA 33/66/100 interfaces 6 USB ports, UHCI compliant Advanced power management capabilities Note Source: (Via P4X266)

Overview Highly structured Unique features LAN, sound, modem integrated 4 GB of Ram Promises to utilize Intel’s Quad bus pumping technology Price conscientious

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