AMD Celebrates Shipping its 500 Millionth x86 Processor

[btarunr]

AMD recently announced its 40th Anniversary celebrations. Coincidence has it that the company reached another milestone at around the same time. It celebrates shipping its 500 millionth x86 processor, what the company specializes in. As the company, like most other companies is facing turbulent economic weather, the celebrations are largely low-profile. To reward its loyal customers, the company announced a contest that involves following AMD on Twitter, answering the question(s), and standing a chance to win one of four HP Pavilion dV2z ultrathin notebooks powered by AMD's Athlon Neo processors. Details of the contest can be read here.

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[Sir Alex Ice]

WoW, only US and Canada. Good for them, shows how much other countries where they have sold loads of CPUs matter.
I think they deserve to be 2nd to Intel in terms of market share. At least Intel makes good CPUs, and not re-use the faulty quad core versions to make triple core CPUs out of them.

 

[Mussels]

Eligibility: Residents of United States and Canada (excluding Quebec), age 18 or over


These contests are never outside the states

 

[btarunr]

At least Intel makes good CPUs, and not re-use the faulty quad core versions to make triple core CPUs out of them.

It doesn't matter how you make it. The 3 or 2 cores you get as advertised are not faulty and are backed by warranties.

And for the record Intel uses "faulty" dies by disabling portions of their caches to roll out Wolfdale-2M and Yorkfield-4M. The practice is pretty institutionalized.

 

[Millenia]

WoW, only US and Canada. Good for them, shows how much other countries where they have sold loads of CPUs matter.
I think they deserve to be 2nd to Intel in terms of market share. At least Intel makes good CPUs, and not re-use the faulty quad core versions to make triple core CPUs out of them.

Yeah because what they SHOULD be doing is throw away all faulty CPUs, now that is a solid business plan!

 

[AltecV1]

WoW, only US and Canada. Good for them, shows how much other countries where they have sold loads of CPUs matter.
I think they deserve to be 2nd to Intel in terms of market share. At least Intel makes good CPUs, and not re-use the faulty quad core versions to make triple core CPUs out of them.

Your ignorance amases me

 

[ShinyG]

Yeah because what they SHOULD be doing is throw away all faulty CPUs, now that is a solid business plan!

That might look good at first glance from the consumer's point of view, but actually throwing away all CPUs with defects would mean higher retail prices. Simple economics really!

 

[crazy pyro]

Has no-one noticed he's being sarcastic?
As for the news post saying X86 processors are their main business, what the heck? All of their desktop processors since Athlon 64 have been 64 bit haven't they?

 

[Mussels]

All of their desktop processors since Athlon 64 have been 64 bit haven't they?

Technically no. They're x86 processors with 64 bit instruction sets. "x86-64"

A true 64 bit processor would be like Itanium, with no x86 at all.

 

[laszlo]

shame on you AMD!

i thought the rest of us outside US&Canada has bought more than 50% from all your CPU-s

 

[crazy pyro]

Oh right, cheers for that mussels. I was confused as to how they were X86 processors.

 

[Mussels]

Oh right, cheers for that mussels. I was confused as to how they were X86 processors.

you could call modern processors x86 and/or x64. its just that AMD has chosen this as "our 5 millionth processor which is x86 compatible"

 

[OnBoard]

Well done AMD, nice pile of processors

 

[Meecrob]

Technically no. They're x86 processors with 64 bit instruction sets. "x86-64"

A true 64 bit processor would be like Itanium, with no x86 at all.

Not quite true, when running in 64bit mode the a64 is truely 64bit, BUT unlike proc's like the intium it can revert to an x86-32 mode to run x86-32 apps.

Its hard to explain without the charts and such that one site use to have up(site went under) it showed how the amd chips where truely a 64bit x86 design where the intel chips just had the 64bit extentions tacked on to give what intel at the time considered "good enought" support.(like the athlon xp's sse support, it wasnt a native part of the chips design)

Oh and x86 can be 64+bit it just started as a 16bit then 32bit, hell my first system (given to me) was a wang 8088 with 640k memory!!!(dos3 baby!!!)

I have owned pretty much every revision of the x86 core design, its come a long way since its early days, the current designs really dont have any similarities to the early chips, they support the same code to a point, but dont do it the same way.

Really I would like to see them work to move to x86-64(amd64) without the x86-32 OS support(apps could still run tho, as its gonna take a while for companies to port over 32bit apps)

 

[Meecrob]

WoW, only US and Canada. Good for them, shows how much other countries where they have sold loads of CPUs matter.
I think they deserve to be 2nd to Intel in terms of market share. At least Intel makes good CPUs, and not re-use the faulty quad core versions to make triple core CPUs out of them.

alot of the reason that they dont do it world wide is due to laws in different countries/regions, Its just to much work to make sure that you comply with every countries laws and aren't gonna get sued by the EU or another such organization, If you want to see more non-US events or events EVERYBODY has access to, then work to get the world to adopt a world wide set of laws(haha, yeah thats gonna happen....)

 

[zithe]

you could call modern processors x86 and/or x64. its just that AMD has chosen this as "our 500 millionth processor which is x86 compatible"

Fixed.

 

[btarunr]

you could call modern processors x86 and/or x64. its just that AMD has chosen this as "our 5 millionth processor which is x86 compatible"

It is an x86 processor, not "x86 compatible". There's no other architecture AMD's processor uses apart from x86, with its own AMD64 extension that is a subset of the x86 architecture, and not an architecture in itself.

 

[suraswami]

WoW, only US and Canada. Good for them, shows how much other countries where they have sold loads of CPUs matter.
I think they deserve to be 2nd to Intel in terms of market share. At least Intel makes good CPUs, and not re-use the faulty quad core versions to make triple core CPUs out of them.

WOW, u start your first few posts here with a blabber

It doesn't matter how you make it. The 3 or 2 cores you get as advertised are not faulty and are backed by warranties.

And for the record Intel uses "faulty" dies by disabling portions of their caches to roll out Wolfdale-2M and Yorkfield-4M. The practice is pretty institutionalized.

thanks for clearing that up.

if ain't AMD there isn't innovation.

Go AMD GO

 

[Easo]

Gratz to the greens!

 

[Velvet Wafer]

very impressive... but if they hadnt trashed the phenom I they surely would have reached that goal earlier..

 

[DrPepper]

Well done AMD

How long did this take intel just out of curiosity ?

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

There's no other architecture AMD's processor uses apart from x86, with its own AMD64 extension that is a subset of the x86 architecture, and not an architecture in itself.

They do also make chipsets and GPU's, yaknow

 

[btarunr]

They do also make chipsets and GPU's, yaknow

I know, and that has nothing to do with the architecture AMD uses with its processors.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

I know, and that has nothing to do with the architecture AMD uses with its processors.

A GPU(Graphics PROCESSING unit) is a processor is it not? Or a memory controller? It 'processes' information. AMD has made chipsets, just not all are defined as "CPU". GPU's are not "x86".

They are defining it the way they want

AMD also has many side projects, I have found AMD labeled chips inside of macs I have torn apart, used in conjunction with Power PC's.

 

[btarunr]

A GPU(Graphics PROCESSING unit) is a processor is it not? Or a memory controller? It 'processes' information. AMD has made chipsets, just not all are defined as "CPU". GPU's are not "x86".

They are defining it the way they want

AMD also has many side projects, I have found AMD labeled chips inside of macs I have torn apart, used in conjunction with Power PC's.

Obviously we're talking about processor as in central processing unit. Something GPU isn't. And by me saying that AMD's CPUs not being based on any other architecture than x86, I'm referring to PowerPC, ARM, etc.