20 years ago today....

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On the 20'th April 2003 AMD gave us 64Bit computing, AMD64, or later known as X86_64, i was there, i'm old, back then you had 2 versions of Windows XP, the standard 32Bit, it could only handle a maximum of 3.2GB of System RAM, even if you had 4GB installed it would only use 3.2GB.
And Windows XP 64. Which had no limits.

AMD did not invent 64Bit, at the time there was competition for 64Bit, including from Intel, AMD were they only ones who could get it to work and work efficiently, everyone else, including Intel eventually gave up, Intel now use AMD's 64Bit IP, to this very day.

Today its the default everywhere that matters, we can't do without it.

On your Intel system navigate to C:/Windows/WinSxS

 

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Some cool stuff and nice memories in here

 

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To contribute my first was an Athlon 3800+, then an Athlon X2 5200+, another AMD contribution to X86 as the first true X86 multicore CPU.

Then a Phenom II X6 1090T, (Thuban) back in the days when AMD called their unlocked CPU's "Black Edition" i adored that CPU, after that it all went a bit Pete Tong, those coming of age in the 1990's will have heard that before.

 

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Hardcore.

I had pleb spec cooling. A chest freezer with a 50/50 water cheap vodka loop. Cas1 DDR 550.

This is awesome Innovative, ingenious..

Kids today don't know what they are missing.

 

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I don't think we can blame Intel solely for AMD's Bulldozer era.

Like most things its a combination of things, Intel's shenanigans hit AMD hard financially but so did the 2008 crash, and Bulldozer was a mistake on AMD's part, one that they didn't have the cash to put right quickly, the low performance was exacerbated by Windows not knowing what to do with it.
Bulldozer was a programmable hybrid architecture, it had 8 physical cores but in four two core clusters via a switchable unified L2 cache.
That L2 cache for each two core cluster could run 2X 128Bit, one for each core or combine to a single 256Bit L2 to make those cores one big one.
What was supposed to happen was if you needed a lot of multitasking you would have up to 8 physical cores, if what you needed was single threaded performance the L2 cache would combine the two cores in the cluster to give a much fatter core.

This never happened, instead Windows would treat it like a normal 8 core CPU, so it would only ever use one half of the switchable L2 and with that you never got the fat double core.

I don't know why this was never resolved through the life of that architecture, this was also during a time when Microsoft had no interest in resolving the issues with their ancient Direct X, very much a "we don't have competition so lets spend 0$ and do nothing" That is something AMD had to resolve themselves as well, but that's another story.

Anyway, its good to see AMD back on form.

Edit: also, i don't think CPU's are expensive, entry level £200 CPU's these days are pretty good, from both AMD and Intel, you can get the latest and greatest monster CPU's for under £600.

The highest end Gen 1 Zen was $500, a 7950X is more than 4X as fast as that for $100 more, 6 years inflation included, that's not bad....

 

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Wendel made yet another amazing video..love l1techs

He's a dying breed of tech journalist, in that he actually understands the stuff that he talks about, others frequently get things wrong, with such confidence and authority yet never do us the courtesy of shooting themselves in the head because they don't even know they are being thick.

He has a passion for the subject, one that is surpassed only by his knowledge of it, this is an example, how many of the others are even aware of AMD64 let alone understand its significance?
Well how many others celebrated its 20th? Not one.

 

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Yeah, I get the impression they're more like presenter/streamer turned techie, rather than a tech turned presenter/streamer, which is what he is

Some of them are front of shop assistants turned tech youtubers, JayZ2cents is for sure, he's talked about it.

Explains a lot doesn't it?