23 Mar
2004
23 Mar
'04
5:44 a.m.
ALL microprocessors have a 'Front Side Bus'.
This is the physical
bus between the processor and the chipset. It has to exist unless
you get a processor built into the chipset itself.
According to the diagram I have from AMD, there is a DDR controller
built into the Opteron itself.
but ALL systems have a memory bottleneck, in the sense
that it's
not unlimited bandwidth. It just may be less of a problem than
other parts of the system.
Sure - if you remove one bottleneck, you discover another in the
chain. I suspect hard disc access will be the limiting factor on
these machines.
The entry level price on these AMD-64 machines is
phenominal - HP
has one at only a few dollars over $1K.
It's got to be the most accessible 64-bit chip, especially here since
the dollar is weak at the moment. A 200 series Opteron (the SMP
capable type) is no more expensive than a 32 bit P4, let alone a Xeon
or a G5. And of course Linux users have a head start since we can
compile native code or use an off the shelf AMD64 distribution.
Cheers
Daniel