AMD 64 build absolutely necessary for install on Athlon 64?

[Alexandru Cabuz <alexcabuz@gmail.com>]

I am trying for a few days here to boot my brand new Athlon 64 box on
a Sarge Installation CD. But since sarge is not yet ported to AMD 64
(http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ports-status)
I tried IA 64. 

The computer refuses to boot off of it. It just hangs instead. At
first I thought it's just a bad motherboard or bios or something, but
now I tried those CDs in my Dell Pentium M laptop, and  the laptop
does the same thing.

So I am starting to wonder if it isn't just an architecture problem.
It won't boot off CDs that were not built for its architecture...

In this case, will I just have to get used to the fact that I won't be
able to install Sarge AMD 64 on this box until the AMD64 build is
complete? Is there no way around this? And is this normal behavior in
the first place?

Thanks.

Alex.