quote:

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> Hellmark <hellmark@gmail.XXXXSPAM.com> wrote in
> news:pan.2005.07.21.20.21.34.440436@gmail.XXXXSPAM.com:
>
>
> Maybe they have more engineering capacity now and can keep up with
> Intel's announcements. This sounds like an incremental change, with
> the same core but more off-chip stuff brought on-chip to reduce
> chip-to-chip delays. Given the die shrink going to .90 micron, that
> means more space to squeeze in other features. I think this year's
> cores brought the advanced memory controller on-chip, but they ended
> up with plenty of room to bring in the PCI-E controller. The big
> constraint on modern chips is pin count, not die space, so the big
> delay is getting the infrastructure in place for the new package
> (socket, motherboard, heat sink).