Which AMD? Today's AMD wouldn't be able to carry on these projects, but the AMD of 2010 would. The company spent a lot more on R&D and had a much larger work force than today. It wasn't lack of resources that hindered AMD in the first place, but the limitations of a failed concept (CMT) coupled with a failed architecture (Bulldozer) and failed product conception (APU).
Had AMD more resources to spare and if they decided to spare on the CMT line up, the result would be just a deeper hole.
AMD of 2012 could have done it. That AMD would not have hired Keller or spent anything on Zen. They actually would be in a (slightly) better position now since they'd be shlepping XV Opterons instead of Piledriver Opterons, but they'd have a weaker 2016 lineup, so it's hard to say what would have been the best choice. Maybe we'll find out next year.
Regardless, an AMD that released SR and XV Opterons could not have happened, at least not one beholden to the WSA, since 28nm shp was not adequate for either product, so it's fruitless to go too far down that rabbit hole.
Well, if we're talking x86 products, the first wasn't AMD or Intel, it was actually Cyrix back with the MediaGX in 1997.
Oy, I had forgotten about that thing. Go Cyrix?
Yusuke Ohara on ascii.jp estimated 3GHz for Zen (8 core I think). Without turbo and avg. 40% IPC increase this would mean 1.05x XV@4GHz for 1 thread. So how would turbo headroom, core count, SMT, sth. else change that ratio? I have ideas but want to see yours.
I was worried about that. 8c/16t @ 3 GHz on 14nm LPP just makes too much sense, though. I think it would be a very nice chip for those workloads that can make use of all the thread capacity, but power usage will climb like a mofo if anyone tries to overclock it. Just a guess. That would make it an excellent basis for a new Opteron lineup, Nosta's silly pronouncements notwithstanding!