As I undersand it, the AMD-64 is basically an Athlon with 64 bit extensions pasted on. Much like a 386 was a 286 with 32 bit extensions pasted on.
I was a bit disapointed when I discoved it's nature.. I was rather hoping that AMD would design a 64 bit processor from the ground up for the masses. Unfortunately, three things prevented them from doing that.
Backwards Compatability
Backwards Compatability
and
Backwards Compatability
Looks like we will be in a windows PC world for a long time to come... I bet I can still run star control and where in the world is carmen sandiego on my new AMD-64 also.. argh.