Intel: EM64T and AMD64 the same, practically

THERE'S ONLY one difference between AMD64 processors and EM64T processors, according to Intel documents seen by the INQUIRER.

Referring to its competitor - by which Intel means AMD - the chip giant makes the clearest statement we've seen yet on the similarities.

In a paragraph intended to aid Intel customers market desktop processors which will include EM64T instructions in 2005, the chip firm says:

"Even though the hardware micro-architecture for each company's processor is different, the operating system and software ported to one processor will likely run on the other processor due to the close similarity of the instruction set architectures".

It continues: "Intel processors support additional features like the SSE3 instructions and HT (hyperthreading) technology, which are not supported on non-Intel platforms".

So, it ends: "We believe developers will achieve maximum performance and stability by designing specifically for Intel architectures and by taking advantage of Intel's breadth of software tools and enabling services".

Earlier this month, Intel claimed it invented 64-32 technology and that its competitor - AMD - had muscled in on the work it had done. µ

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