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By Ard on 3/17/2007 11:28:07 PM , Rating: 2
I don't get why Barcelona is being labeled K10. Barcelona is, fundamentally, a K8 with a number of IPC improvements. It is strictly evolutionary and it's certainly not a new architecture as the K10 moniker would seem to suggest, whereas K8 was largely a number of revolutionary and evolutionary changes over K7. This doesn't even take into account the missing K9, which I'm going to assume represents the X2s.

RE: K10?
By middlehead on 3/17/2007 11:32:17 PM , Rating: 4

I assume they've skipped it to avoid unflattering 'dog' references.

RE: K10?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 3/17/2007 11:49:46 PM , Rating: 2
Interestingly enough, inside AMD the engineers codename the project Greyhound.

RE: K10?
By middlehead on 3/18/2007 12:53:32 AM , Rating: 2
Greyhound would be one of the flattering dog references, them being best known as racing dogs, sleek and fast. K9/Canine says one of two things to me: a police dog, which isn't necessarily bad or good, or a big goofy mutt, friendly but not too bright.

RE: K10?
By crystal clear on 3/18/2007 1:16:55 AM , Rating: 1
What about the "BULLDOZER"-anything new on this.

Expect something on this on "Analyst day"

HEY "Viditor" any news from your side on "Analyst day"

RE: K10?
By Cogman on 3/17/2007 11:39:27 PM , Rating: 3
K9 never existed per say. Intel Assigned K8L to the Barcelona architecture (as far as I remember) to avoid the obvious pun on the word canine. It seems daily tech had desided to opt for K10 instead. (unless I missed something and AMD did call it K10)

The anandtech article about the new Barcelona architect seem to suggest some major changes (I mean, they are introducing another Cache Layer, that alone has to take a fair amount of effort to get working correct)

As far as being a completely new architecture, I don't think there has ever truly been such a thing. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that most tech changes have been based on former technology (or some other companies technology)

RE: K10?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 3/17/2007 11:48:26 PM , Rating: 2
Couple things:

*K9 and K10 were both canceled AMD projects.
*AMD's Henri Richard continued to call Barcelona K10 for almost 6 months (that's pretty well documented) so it's an AMD thing not an Intel thing.
*Inside AMD, it's called Grayhound
*AMD has been calling it K10 after they canceled the older K10 projects (there was more than one) -- there's a few interviews with Giuseppe Amato floating around where he claims K10 is the new architecture, and K8L was something else ... though it seems pretty obvious this is just face saving as it was called K8L for almost 6 months

RE: K10?
By KernD on 3/18/2007 12:57:54 AM , Rating: 2
Core2 architecture is also just an IPC upgrade over Core1, and Core1 was just a native dual core PentiumM with shared L2 cache, K8 is a widened K7 with a memory controler. They have always done evolution from previous generations, the size of the difference only depends on the time they spent working on it. They just make smaller and faster steps forward and still label them as new architecture. Thats there right...

RE: K10?
By PrezWeezy on 3/19/2007 12:31:42 PM , Rating: 2
That's not entirely true about the Core2. Core was a rushed "out the door" architecture so Intel could secure the Mac contract. Core2 adds on from that allowing 64bit and some other things. It's based not off the pentium M but off of a chip that was developed in Isreal, I think, that was based off of the PIII. It's very similar, but it is truely it's own.

RE: K10?
By 91TTZ on 3/20/2007 1:25:33 PM , Rating: 2
The Pentium M is the chip that you're referring to, which was based on the P3 and was designed in Israel.

RE: K10?
By subhajit on 3/18/2007 3:02:12 AM , Rating: 2
Here is a comprehensive article about Barcelona architecture. Also there is some details about K8L/K10 core names.

RE: K10?
By Spoelie on 3/18/2007 9:22:13 AM , Rating: 2
RE: K10?
By stmok on 3/18/2007 11:07:10 AM , Rating: 2
Firstly Ard , I suggest you watch the AMD presentation at Standford (video) for Computer Science Dept on the K8. K8 is really a souped up K7 with 64bit extensions. The goal is to provide a "transitional CPU" to 64bit. (Gently guide the users and software developers to 64bit, but still have good 32bit performance for backward compatibility reasons).

They did it because they saw how Itanium (a full blown 64bit platform), failed to attain consumer adoption.

Its no different from K8 to K10. (Improving existing design again: more cache, better IPC, improved AMD-V implementation, power saving features, etc).

The method is to continually improve on a proven/existing design. If there is nothing wrong with the existing solution at the fundamental level, why the heck would you radically change it?

The biggest change for AMD is when they moved from K6 to Athlon (K7). Since then, everything else has been largely evolutionary. K7 -> K8 -> K10

Think about it. How is that different from the Pentium Pro, PII, PIII, Pentium-M, Core Solo/Duo and Core 2 Duo/Quad? They're all fundamentally based on the P6. (Pentium Pro). The P6 is a good design that has evolved. Intel tried to replace it with Pentium 4, but they ended up coming back to the P6 solution with the Core series.

BTW, its K10 because AMD said so! :) See video interview.

K8 and then K10. There is no K9. (Woof!)

K8L is the mobile version of the K8 (ie: Turion).

RE: K10?

RE: K10?
By nerdye on 3/18/2007 4:22:22 PM , Rating: 2
stmok, I appreciate your post, and praise you for your information and understanding of generations of cpu designs! Many people would include the P4 architecture "netburst" in the current tech within the development of core 2 duo, there's no doubt intel learned from it, yet core 2 is a different beast that lies in other footsteps of their cpu's evolutionary steps.

RE: K10?
By formulav8 on 3/18/2007 5:14:26 PM , Rating: 2
AMD has tweaked 90% of the K8 core for Barcelona. You don't consider upgrading 90% of the cpu core a new architecture? What you would consider a new architecture as being then?



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