>>Even if the Athlon-XP's FPU is able to use 64 bits double precision 
>>floats
> 
> 
>   What do you mean "if"?

Ah?
Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, so I may have used the wrong 
saying.
I was NOT trying to say that I do not think the FPU able to work on 64 
bits double precision floats. In fact, I KNOW that it can work on 80 
bits long double floats, as any x87 compatible FPU must.

> 
>>it's internal structure is only 32 bits
> 
> 
>   Says who? Do you have any links or other references to corroborate this?
> 

Well, I just had a quick look at the Athlon-XP white papers. There are 
no references about the registers' size.
BUT, being a x86 compatible processor, it MUST have 32 bits registers 
and ALU. Using 64 bits registers with a 32 bits ALU is STUPID, so if the 
Athlon-XP had been build with 64 bits registers and ALU, be sure that 
they would have advertised about it (just as they are now about the 
Athlon-64...).

Regards,

-- 
Laurent ARTAUD (lau### [at] freefr)

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