If we look more closely though, AMD’s eighth generation was already very similar to its seventh generation, albeit with a slightly longer pipeline, 64-bit support and an integrated memory controller. Similarly, even with its numerous improvements, the Core 2 can’t hide the fact that its roots were taken straight from the P6.

We have to get used to it, current CPUs are extremely complex and demand an awful lot of work, so starting off with a blank sheet is more risky than any business can reasonably accept. Exploring every new idea can certainly improve performance but can also run the risk of being stuck in a never ending, too ambitious project in which the gains in performance might never live up to expectations.

Intel noticed this with the Netburst architecture. Even if a giant like Intel was able to get over this failure, such a situation would be practically catastrophic for AMD, which doesn’t possess the resources its competitor to make up for such a setback, particularly not in record time as Intel managed. As a direct consequence, we now expect to see Intel proceed by small successive retouches on already proven architectures (more like AMD).

Let’s stop talking about the general stuff and talk about the specific improvements introduced with the Barcelona (K10), firstly we will discuss the new CPU’s pipeline. Whether you’re looking at the front-end (which reads and decodes instructions) or the back end (where the operations are executed), AMD’s engineers have made substantial modifications. We’ll begin by looking at Barcelona’s brand new memory hierarchy; then come back to other, less significant, modifications.