Re: Apple, Jobs, and the irony of it

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Richard Kilpatrick <richard@dmc12.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> writes:
>
>>Also, the claim that the G5 is the first PC
>>64-bit processor is also wrong.  That title
>>belongs to AMD's Opteron chip which was
>>released in April, several months ahead of
>>the G5.
>
>With a 64-bit bus? And in fact, can you even use it in a desktop machine 
>yet?

Yes, the Opteron is a full 64-bit processor that can
also run 32-bit code and it can access the same
amount of memory the G5 can.  Not quite sure
what you mean by a 64-bit bus.  The Athlon K7
had a 64-bit bus when it was introduced in 2000
and that was a 32-bit chip.

You can get a nForce3 board for it right now
starting at about $220 for single processor
desktop setup or an AMD chipset board for
two way processor operation.

The nForce3 boards and some of the AMD ones
are standard ATX boards that fit right home in
desktop cases.

Benchmarks at AMDZone.com and Anandtech
put the 2Ghz Opteron well ahead of the 3.2Ghz
HyperThreading enabled P4.  Also, see the
bulletin board at AMDZone for user posts on
their Opteron machines.

Yes, it is expensive, but it is quite possible to
build an Opteron machine today.