AMD Athlon 800

The Athlon on the losing side?

With more applications showing SSE support, it is going to become increasingly more difficult for AMD to gain support in benchmarks as well. Remember the SSE compiler we talked about in our Coppermine review? Here is a quick refresher:

Intel has been working on making the implementation of SSE even easier for developers. They currently have two compilers in beta that are SSE optimized, a Fortran and a C++ compiler, that should become available in the first half of next year. These compilers will automatically generate SSE enhanced code where appropriate. So when a programmer goes to write a function that could be aided by the use of SSE, the compiler generates a single binary with SSE and non-SSE code. The generation is done in such a way that the overall size of the binary is not increased too greatly and there should be no compatibility problems with non-SSE processors.

This method of implementing SSE is a definite step forward on Intel's part because it is the only way to get SSE into the hands of the users without asking for too much from the developers. In terms of integration, the compilers essentially plug into the Microsoft Development Environment so the developers don't even have to migrate from the environment they are used to. The compilers will be a part of Intel's VTUNE package and should be in final release form sometime in the first half of 2000. The package will retail for around $500.

The compilers should make it very easy and thus very tempting to include SSE support in upcoming applications, especially since the added development time is next to nothing because of the convenient compiler. Unfortunately for AMD, there is no equally as simple compiler for 3DNow! or Athlon optimizations, making it more likely for a program to ship with better SSE optimizations than 3DNow! or Athlon specific optimizations.