AMD will be in a new seat when Intel launch Conroe,a new less comfortable seat, and rumors have already started to go around about its next processor architecture. Exactly what the next architecture will be called is still to be announced, K8L is the most popular name of today, but also K10 has been discussed. The French hardware site X86-Secret has now come across some very interesting information about K10, or simply the next generation AMD micro architecture. During a, according to them, drunken conversation with an AMD engineer they’ve found out that AMD is worried about Core’s performance and that it is working on a new technology for the K10 architecture that appears to be somewhat like a reversed HyperThreading technology.
HyperThreading is a technology that lets Intel’s processors simulate an extra processor core for handling two threads at the same time and increase the parallel efficiency. AMD’s idea is to turn it all upside-down and get a processor with dual cores simulate a single core processor. It would simply mean that the power of two cores could be utilized by single core programs, which in theory would lead to twice the performance with single-threaded applcations. The fact that AMD is hoping to offer the technology with systems with more than 1 processor means that dual systems with two dual-core processor in theory would be able to offer four times the single-thread performance of a single core system.
The thought sounds a bit more logical than first expected and if AMD really would be able to supply us with a similar technology it would be a revolution for multi-core processors.
Source: x86-Secret (French) (babelfish’d)
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