If I had a hammer

Trade shows such as Comdex and Cebit hold few surprises any more. It's a case of been there, done that and, if you've passed a big stand, you'll almost certainly have got the T-shirt. By simply keeping up to date with IT news pages, you'll know pretty much everything that's going to happen.

Not so with Taiwan's Computex show, held every June. Unlike the product and consumer focus of its glitzy rivals, Computex is targeted at the trade.

As the heart of PC component design and manufacture, Taiwan is the place to observe long-term trends, and Computex is where you'll hear about them first.

I'm not talking about the gradual adoption of wireless technologies, despite an increasing presence at this year's show. Nor the incessantly delayed upgrade to Firewire - the blank faces I met at the 1394 pavilion didn't inspire confidence.

I'm not even going to mention new Tablets running Windows CE .Net, although I have to admit that they seemed to deliver the best quick-fix I've seen for web browsing in a wireless local area network.

No, without a doubt, the star of this year's Computex, and the thing everyone's still discussing, was AMD's forthcoming 64bit Hammer processor, in particular the workstation Clawhammer version, designed to take on Intel's fastest Pentium 4s.

Will it be ready before Christmas? Could its clock speed exceed 3GHz?

In terms of hype anyway, AMD certainly had a great show. No matter how many strategically placed ladies Intel had tattooed with its logo, the AMD Hammer was ubiquitous.

But while an undeniable marketing triumph, it didn't take long to realise that there wasn't actually much new Hammer information from AMD.

There were demonstrations of the server version but, as far as Clawhammer was concerned, AMD was only showing prototype motherboards and talking up third-party chipset support. No official update on clocks, dates or performance.

Between the lines

But at Computex, you can often learn more by reading between the lines, as sometimes motherboard manufacturers give too much away in their specifications.

For instance one apparently showed a Clawhammer motherboard described as "supporting processors running at 1,600MHz". This was immediately reported by many news websites, only to be replaced later with a notice claiming support for "3,000+ processors".

This ties in with reports that AMD intends to launch with ratings above 3GHz, but the actual clock speed was a bit of a shock. AMD's Athlon XP processors outperform earlier chips running at the same clock speed, so instead they're described by a performance rating.

AMD believes its Athlon XP 2200+ is equivalent to an older Athlon running at around 2,200MHz, despite an actual clock speed of 1.8GHz.

AMD roadmaps show Hammer chips also employing performance ratings, but we had no idea what the clocks would be. Certainly if the first Clawhammers only run at 1.6GHz to 2GHz, AMD will have a job persuading consumers that they're equivalent to say a Pentium 4 clocked above 3GHz. A 20 per cent ratings increase on an Athlon XP is one thing, but claiming double could be asking too much.

In terms of performance, AMD also remains tight-lipped, but that didn't stop one manufacturer giving a website a quick shufty at a Clawhammer.

In its report, the chip was locked at 800MHz but still ran some 32bit benchmarks around 50 per cent faster than a traditional Athlon or P4 at the same clock speed. Apparently it was locked at 800MHz to prevent the launch performance from being revealed, or perhaps to minimise disappointment.

Christmas present?

Then there's the launch date. Most people seem to think December or early 2003 is a good bet, although there were rumours of a release as soon as this autumn. Paranoid analysts then concluded that perhaps rumours of a later release were fabricated to fool the competition.

Taking this one step further, perhaps the swiftly removed 1,600MHz label was simply a cunning plant. After all, its quick replacement had us all talking. Let's not even mention the strongly denied rumour that Intel is also developing a rival 64bit x86 processor codenamed Yamhill.

So hype and rumour aside, what do we really know? Certainly AMD is preparing to launch a 64bit desktop processor around Christmas. It'll probably be described as a Model 3400+ and maybe be called the Athlon Ultra; beyond that is mere speculation. We do know that between now and then AMD will also launch an upgraded Athlon XP with 512KB of Level-2 cache, codenamed Barton.

Of course Intel's not standing still. The Pentium 4 is being aggressively scaled, with a genuine 3GHz model due around Christmas. Intel's fastest P4s with the most recent Northwood core (identified by an A or B) are also performing well, especially when paired with fast memory.

A year ago, AMD may have had the edge on performance, but Intel has reclaimed the crown. Barton will be a good update to the Athlon XP, but it's unlikely to trouble the fastest P4s.

AMD's future undoubtedly rides on Hammer. What we've heard sounds promising, but AMD must now get on with delivering the goods rather than relying on trade show hype for support.