Editing 3DNow! (section)

{{short description|Extension to the x86 instruction set by AMD}}{{Infobox computer hardware
| name         = 3DNow!
| logo         = 3dnow-logo.svg
| image        = 
| caption      = 
| designfirm   = [[Advanced Micro Devices]]
| introduced   = 1998
| discontinued = 
| type         = [[instruction set architecture]]
}}
'''3DNow!''' is a deprecated extension to the [[x86]] [[instruction set]] developed by [[Advanced Micro Devices]] (AMD). It adds [[SIMD|single instruction multiple data]] <!-- astounding that the expansion redirects to the initialism page...meh --> (SIMD) instructions to the base x86 instruction set, enabling it to perform [[vector processing]] of [[Floating point number|floating-point]] vector operations using [[vector registers]]. This improvement enhances the performance of many graphics-intensive applications. The first microprocessor to implement 3DNow! was the [[AMD K6-2]], introduced in 1998. In appropriate applications, this enhancement raised the speed by about 2–4 times.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3685 |title=Effectively Utilizing 3DNow in Linux |publisher=Linux Journal |date=December 1, 1999 |access-date=2010-10-03 |archive-date=2011-06-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607184325/http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3685 |url-status=live }}</ref>

However, the instruction set never gained much popularity, and AMD announced in August 2010 that support for 3DNow! would be dropped in future AMD processors, except for two instructions, <code>PREFETCH</code> and <code>PREFETCHW</code>.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://developer.amd.com/2010/08/18/3dnow-deprecated/ |title=3DNow Instructions are Being Deprecated &#124; AMD Developer Central |publisher=Blogs.amd.com |date=2010-08-18 |access-date=2010-10-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101024174505/http://developer.amd.com/2010/08/18/3dnow-deprecated/ |archive-date=2010-10-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref> These two instructions are also available in Bay-Trail Intel processors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wiki.minnowboard.org/IntelE38xx|title=IntelE38xx - MinnowBoard Wiki|access-date=13 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211075815/http://wiki.minnowboard.org/IntelE38xx|archive-date=11 February 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>