Hammer. It's a name that makes you think of power, and it's an image that is all too real for Intel.
We know that Intel decided that it needed a new architecture when it designed the current breeds of Pentium IV. Intel created what it dubbed the NetBurst architecture. Within this new architecture, it made use of a few new technologies: Hyper Pipelined Technology, Rapid Execution Engine, Execution Trace Cache and a 400MHz system bus. This architecture (discussed in more detail here) is great, but its emphasis is on capability of increasing the clock speed over time. They have increased the depth of their pipelines so as to increase clock speed and they have reduced the amounts and latencies of the on-board caches and used a high-speed memory sub-system (RDRAM). Intel's major maketing plan seems to be that it will release processors with new, high clock speeds and thus blow AMD away.
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