The 64-bit quandary

AMD'S TRAJECTORY toward the enterprise began in 1999 with the introduction of its Athlon Pentium III-compatible CPU. In the months that followed, AMD destroyed Intel's stranglehold on the PC industry, derailed the Intel-backed Rambus cartel, and sent PC prices into freefall. No one could have predicted that puny AMD would so reshape the PC market.

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But Intel retained its enterprise edge and strengthened its hand with new products announced earlier this year. Intel's latest 32-bit Xeon processors best Athlon MP with a larger cache, hyperthreading technology, and the ability to work in servers with more than two processors. Itanium 2 extends Intel's reach into the 64-bit space dominated by IBM, Sun, and Hewlett-Packard. The combination of Xeon and Itanium 2 relegate AMD to the bottom tier of the enterprise. But not for long.

AMD's new Hammer architecture, dubbed x86-64, enhances AMD's existing 32-bit x86 design with 64-bit registers and data paths. Software written for x86 runs on Hammer without recompiling. Applications and system software retooled for x86-64 experience faster data transfers and gain access to the CPU's greatly expanded set of on-chip resources.

It won't take long. We'll see a desktop Hammer -- retaining the Athlon name -- late in 2002, with Opteron, the enterprise x86-64 CPU, appearing in the first half of 2003. The eight-way Opteron servers scheduled to show up next year will put AMD solidly in the middle tier of the enterprise. AMD's unified architecture will compete head-on with 32-bit Pentium 4 (including mobile and desktop models) and Xeon processors as well as the 64-bit Itanium 2.

AMD's x86-64 platform has also lined up solid operating system support. Microsoft has demonstrated and committed to x86-64 editions of Windows. A snapshot Linux release is available now through www.x86-64.org , and the enhancements are expected to merge with the standard Linux kernel in Version 2.6. The FreeBSD project is working on a port and NetBSD is already running on an x86-64 simulator. Intel has licensed the Hammer architecture from AMD, but it's not clear what Intel plans to do with it.

I expect Intel and Sun will wage a concerted FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) campaign against x86-64. IBM is more pragmatic; its retreat from Itanium gives it room to cozy up to AMD if Opteron makes a good showing. AMD is usually low-key in its marketing, but vocal anti-Intel activists will counter the FUD flood with their own "hottest thing since the transistor" Hammer hype. Neither side is to be believed until Opteron ships.

Still, I'd be inclined to put a freeze on planned purchases of Xeon and Itanium systems scheduled for 2003 delivery. I expect Opteron will generate incredible downward price pressure, and not only on Intel's enterprise line. AMD could break free from Intel's gravity and upset the larger 64-bit market. I can't wait to see how this plays out.