HP shifts last of Itanium work to Intel

TalkBack 2 of 3:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Too many compromises sink Itanic

The IA64 chip has a PA-RISC instruction set, and a separate 32bit P4 core (for x86 compatability). This is the giraffe of CPUs! It should NEVER have had this p4 core - but Intel HAD to put it in there (it can't be upgraded - which is the largest drawback). The PA-RISC instruction set makes it easy to run HP apps (most all HP-UX apps will run on Itanium - albeit in a degraded mode) - which isn't very attractive to Sun or IBM, since none of their existing apps will run.
The EPIC architecture was a leap of faith - its design makes sense - move the complex branch prediction and look ahead hardware into software! This makes the chip less complex, thus faster. Of course, no one had any idea about how to make this stuff happen with compilers (and software complexity and quality designs move slower than in hardware designs). I'm not sure where they are today in making those compilers - but I'm sure that HP is further ahead than Sun or IBM - another reason for them NOT to use this chip.

Posted by: Roger Ramjet   Posted on: 12/16/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Reducing Server Total Cost of Ownership with VMware Virtualization Software VMware VMware virtualization enables customers to reduce their server TCO and ... Download Now
• The True Costs of Virtual Server Solutions VMware In an economic environment that is repeatedly heralding the message "do ... Download Now
• Key Strategies for Federal Agencies - Safe and Cost Effective Migration for Legacy Hardware GovConnection The federal government has mandated that federal agencies reduce energy ... Download Now