DDR2 Transition, Integrated Memory Controller

FiringSquad: Since the Athlon 64’s memory controller is integrated on the processor’s core, supporting new memory types may take longer. Is this a fair assessment?

Henri Richard: It is a fair assessment, but the advantage of working with an integrated memory controller is so huge that it’s a price we’re willing to pay. The combination of the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport makes the architecture of the Athlon 64 and Opteron products just unbeatable; and we all know that the competition will have to react by doing something because the front-side bus architecture is just not going to cut it anymore.

FiringSquad: What steps are you taking to keep up with the latest memory technologies?

Henri Richard: Well right now we have plenty of room on DDR1 and we have plans at some point in time on our roadmap where we’ll start to introduce DDR2 into the architecture but probably not until uh [pauses] the next generation processor. But if you look at the available memory bandwidth and the performance we can get between the integrated memory controller and DDR1 technology we’ll still be very competitive against DDR2 well into the launch of that new technology and by the time DDR2 would become a faster solution then we’ll roll out our own DDR2 support. So I believe we have a very strong roadmap when it comes to the memory subsystem.

FiringSquad: Athlon 64’s greatest advantage over Pentium 4 is its integrated memory controller. Is this statement true or false? Why?

Henri Richard: I think that there are three areas where, today, there is a significant advantage with Athlon 64, first and foremost, that’s not to be forgotten is thermal. You know, Prescott is a very hot product, Athlon 64 is a very cool product.

Second is the integrated memory controller, and it does make a lot of difference and the more memory, more complex texture, the more you have to move bits around, the bigger the difference, and in particular you also have to remember that the [inaudible] multiprocessing that AMD-64 offers makes for a very efficient multiprocessor system. Another trend that you’re seeing is at the very high-end of the gamers is there are a lot of guys who are now using two processor systems. If that’s the case, the scalability of the AMD solution will just be second to none and I think that will be very interesting.

The third area of course is HyperTransport, because it is an architecture that is far superior to the older architectures. And so the view from our perspective is three big advantages: HyperTransport bus, the integrated memory controller and much better thermal.

FiringSquad: Uh, you didn’t mention 64-bit, that goes without saying I guess?

Henri Richard: Yeah, that kind of goes without saying, absolutely.