X-bit labs

AMD Claims Intel’s Nehalem Mimics AMD Technologies.

Category: CPU

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/19/2007 | 11:53 PM ]

After Intel Corp. at Intel Developer Forum unveiled details in regards its new platform featuring code-named Nehalem processors, Advanced Micro Devices has issued comments claiming that Intel actually copied approaches of its smaller rival to create more advanced personal computers.

“What’s amazing is that many of the ‘groundbreaking, innovative new technologies’ are close facsimiles of technologies AMD pioneered, is already shipping, and in some cases, has been shipping for years,” a press statement of AMD reads.

The world’s second largest maker of x86 central processing units (CPUs) says that AMD-developed HyperTransport was mimicked by Intel’s QuickPath bus, whereas built-in memory controller was the right thing to go already back in 2003.

“Products that are more than a year away, like Nehalem (compare to native quad-core AMD Opteron), and QuickPath (compare to AMD Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport) are simply Intel’s admission that AMD was right all along about an integrated memory controller being the key to a superior processor architecture,” AMD said.

Even though built-in memory controller and HyperTransport bus are two indisputable advantages of AMD’s Opteron, Athlon 64, Phenom and Sempron processors, Advanced Micro Devices did not touch upon their performance compared to current Intel Xeon or Intel Core 2 processors. The company also did not make any statements regarding relative performance of Nehalem and Bulldozer, however, it said that considering the fact that select Nehalem chips will include graphics cores, the acquisition of ATI Technologies and announcement of code-named Fusion project was the way to go.

“Later, Intel talked about its efforts to integrate graphics processors and CPUs with its Larrabee project, which should be seen as nothing more than proof positive that AMD had it right with its acquisition of ATI Technologies and continuing development of AMD Fusion processors, due in 2009. AMD is focused on delivering the ultimate visual experience to customers, and while Intel may talk about the visual experience, the mainstream PC platforms with Intel CPUs and chipsets leave something to be desired in that department,” the statement claims.