HP insisted on having 32-bit Athlon 64

[Black Jack]

To have gotten this far with any number of sensitivities at stake
without having provoked a flame war is a relief. You will perhaps
forgive me if I decline to tickle the tongue of the dragon any
further. ;-).

Oh come on, I just saw this part of the thread, and joined in.
Remember I'm a dial-up Usenet user these days, I can't respond to
these threads as fast as I used to.

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

Could be, but I suspect that the chips will have 64-bit capabilities
disabled in hardware right from the factory. AMD can probably just
blow a fuse on the chips or some such thing to disable 64-bit mode.

Yeah sure but according to what we see they also reduced the L2 cache to
256KB... easy enough to do I suppose but still, to go to that extra trouble
to offer what looks like a bastard machine which makes their rating system
look even murkier (let's see, it runs at 1.6GHz/256KL2 but rates the same
as an Athlon64 at 1.8GHz/1MBL2 and an Athlon XP at 2.01GHz/512KL2 <gawp>)
and carry inventory and all the other packaging/distribution

Well the laptop comes equipped standard with an Athlon64-M chip, this
K8-core AthlonXP-M chip is available as a lower cost, 32-bit only
option (only $75 cheaper though for a slower chip with less cache,
probably not worth it even if it weren't for the lack of 64-bit
support). HP does make it reasonably obvious that if you want 64-bit
support you should stick to the Athlon64-M option, so really I don't
think any customers would have a reason to be pissed.

This is getting awfully confusing. The laptops the Register was talking
about were UK market HP branded business systems; the ones you seem to be
looking at are Compaq branded Home/Home Office systems for "next generation
gaming & graphics". I wonder if we'll actually see HPaq AMD business
systems in the U.S. or if they'll err, get cut off at the pass.

Anyway we'll see how many other vendors pick up this bastard child but HP's
take is ridiculous, where out of three systems in a sub-sub-section of
their product line, there is one of them with this CPU, where for a savings
of $75 you can lose 200MHz and 768KBL2 and come out with the same 3000+
rating... and then lose the $75. saved so as to upgrade to XP Pro.<boggle>

If AMD had this umm "product" on their roadmap all along would be one
thing; if, as has been suggested, they buckled to some HP marketroid's whim
to fill a dimly (double entendre intended) perceived niche, it's utter,
perverse (desperate?) madness.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Tony Hill]

Yeah sure but according to what we see they also reduced the L2 cache to
256KB... easy enough to do I suppose but still, to go to that extra trouble
to offer what looks like a bastard machine which makes their rating system
look even murkier (let's see, it runs at 1.6GHz/256KL2 but rates the same
as an Athlon64 at 1.8GHz/1MBL2 and an Athlon XP at 2.01GHz/512KL2 <gawp>)
and carry inventory and all the other packaging/distribution
clutter.<shrug> Seems like there needs to be some uhh, rationalization of
CPU "models" here.

CPU models have always been murky, regardless of whether they're using
model numbers of MHz. The Mobile Celeron vs. Celeron-M are probably
the murkiest here, where the 1.3GHz Celeron-M probably offers
comparable performance to the 2.5GHz Mobile Celeron. As long as AMD
continues to make their model numbers a sort of reflection of
frequency, they will continue to be murky. Hopefully now that Intel
is switching to a model number scheme, AMD will modify their models to
no longer be sorta-kinda like a frequency measurement. I much prefer
the way they market the Opteron and Athlon64 FX line.

This is getting awfully confusing. The laptops the Register was talking
about were UK market HP branded business systems;

Ahh, I see.. I hadn't realized they were talking about those funny UK
systems... Those Brits always were a bit odd :> Still I think most of
the above still holds, these are simply value notebooks that HP is
selling over there. They are going for the cheaper AthlonXP-M chip to
hit a lower price-point.

Anyway we'll see how many other vendors pick up this bastard child but HP's
take is ridiculous, where out of three systems in a sub-sub-section of
their product line, there is one of them with this CPU, where for a savings
of $75 you can lose 200MHz and 768KBL2 and come out with the same 3000+
rating... and then lose the $75. saved so as to upgrade to XP Pro.<boggle>

Hey, it's not like this sort of thing ever made any sense!

If AMD had this umm "product" on their roadmap all along would be one
thing; if, as has been suggested, they buckled to some HP marketroid's whim
to fill a dimly (double entendre intended) perceived niche, it's utter,
perverse (desperate?) madness.

AMD has had K8-core AthlonXP chips on their roadmap for quite some
time. They look like they've bumped up the release date of this chip
by a few months at least (it's still listed for a 2H04 release on
their latest roadmap), but the chip definitely didn't just appear out
of thin air.

 

[George Macdonald]

I much prefer
the way they market the Opteron and Athlon64 FX line.

Yeah well even so, potential buyers still want to know the MHz.

Ahh, I see.. I hadn't realized they were talking about those funny UK
systems... Those Brits always were a bit odd :> Still I think most of
the above still holds, these are simply value notebooks that HP is
selling over there. They are going for the cheaper AthlonXP-M chip to
hit a lower price-point.

To be fair, I don't think they are a Brit quirk - tracing back through some
of the original URL links gets to this:
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11900_div/11900_div.HTML so,
as the Register suggested it could appear in N.America too though it would
break the HP "rules" if offered as a business laptop. Actually they look
like a helluva lot of laptop for the money and with the nVidia chipset,
which gives some confidence. I hope they don't have all the funny blue
lights I've seen on the HP laptops in stores.

Hey, it's not like this sort of thing ever made any sense!

No but it seems like a huge drop in power for $75.... all other things
being equal... like battery life, heat etc. which is not exactly clear yet.
IOW we don't know how much of the CPU is just disabled or dead silicon.
Anyway for that price difference, I just don't see anybody going for that
CPU - $75. when buying a new laptop is nothing - unless there is a
significant power consumption issue.

AMD has had K8-core AthlonXP chips on their roadmap for quite some
time. They look like they've bumped up the release date of this chip
by a few months at least (it's still listed for a 2H04 release on
their latest roadmap), but the chip definitely didn't just appear out
of thin air.

I guess they have to drop the K7 core eventually... depending on fab space
and uptake of K8 cores. The 256K L2 would indicate this is more than a
simple disabling of 64-bitness but I can't find any tech docs on this chip
at www.amd.com.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Tony Hill]

Yeah well even so, potential buyers still want to know the MHz.

Some certainly do, and some potential buyers also want to know the
type of bus/bus speed used, the amount of cache and support for
features. Using model numbers does not mean that you're going out of
your way to hide this information from users, just that MHz isn't the
one and only scale used to market the things.

To be fair, I don't think they are a Brit quirk - tracing back through some
of the original URL links gets to this:
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11900_div/11900_div.HTML so,
as the Register suggested it could appear in N.America too though it would
break the HP "rules" if offered as a business laptop. Actually they look
like a helluva lot of laptop for the money and with the nVidia chipset,
which gives some confidence. I hope they don't have all the funny blue
lights I've seen on the HP laptops in stores.

But dontcha know, Blinky Lights are all the rage these days!
Definitely a hot selling item for computer equipment!

I still think that The Reg is grasping for a story here... maybe their
tin-foil hats are on a bit too tight again. It seems to me like HP
just found a particular product that they felt hit a good price point
and decent power consumption figures for their market.

No but it seems like a huge drop in power for $75.... all other things
being equal... like battery life, heat etc. which is not exactly clear yet.
IOW we don't know how much of the CPU is just disabled or dead silicon.

Probably not much disabled, not counting the obvious (ie half of the
memory controller, two of the three HT links and some of the cache).
Power consumption is going to be lower if for no other reason than the
lower clock speed (reduced cache probably doesn't change it much).

Anyway for that price difference, I just don't see anybody going for that
CPU - $75. when buying a new laptop is nothing - unless there is a
significant power consumption issue.

I don't think it's a very good buy either, but people like you and I
are not the ones likely to purchase many of these laptops. Just look
at how many laptops sell using the Mobile Celeron processor with it's
abysmal performance. HP sells another notebook with the option of
either a 2.4GHz Mobile P4 or a 2.8GHz Mobile Celeron. The Celeron
option is $75 cheaper but will be quite a bit slower, more than the
difference between the two AMD chips in question.

Does it make sense? No, not really. Will people buy it anyway?
Yeah, they probably will.

I guess they have to drop the K7 core eventually... depending on fab space
and uptake of K8 cores. The 256K L2 would indicate this is more than a
simple disabling of 64-bitness but I can't find any tech docs on this chip
at www.amd.com.

AMD's documentation for their mobile chips has been non-existent for a
couple years now, really quite disappointing. I doubt that there is
much more than simply disabling the cache and 64-bit capabilities
though. However this may be a slightly revised chip with different
capabilities. Not really any technical details yet, so it's tough to
tell for sure.