Intel: x86 won't encroach on Itanium

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I think Intel would even disagree with your post.

They specify their Itanium is for the high end market. Compared to the total server market, this is a small piece.

And I don't see the market on the borderline ready to spend the money to redo their IT when the x86 is now and for quite sometime able to do everything they require, and then some. Intel found out very quickly how important it is for companies to leverage their existing investment in IT. AMD understood it, however.

With the multiple core CPU's knocking at the door, and the interconnecting architecture providing bandwidth in and above the Gigahertz level, x86 still has a long life ahead of it. In fact, the x86 cpu has the ability to do what the big iron can do for a fraction of the cost. Only the very high end computing arena will get more performance from Itanium. And, the server proccessing requirements are not where the most power is needed. It is the high end workstations that do the number crunching which needs all it can get. And here again, the cost of x86 versus Itanium is a step most users are not going to want to take.

x86 is a long way from reaching its end of the road. The peripheral architecture has slowed the x86 performance in the past. We have never really been able to wittness all of the power of the x86 because it has had to sit and wait for the rest of the peripherals. With things like hyper-transport and new PCI bus improvements, the x86 is just now being able to stretch out and deliver the goods.

One more mitigating factor which will be the actual determining factor is economics. Companies are not going to keep spending as they have to keep up with the new technology. They don't see the current crop doing what they were told it would do. And they were conned into upgrading being led to believe the next product will be the one. They want to see what they have do what they were told. From here on out, expect economics to dictate technology. The CEO's are becoming more educated and are becoming more involved in the IT decision making.

Itanium has its place, but x86 will be the mainstream until there is a totally different approach to the CPU.(something other than transistors for instance) Economics is the reason.

Posted by: bjbrock   Posted on: 03/08/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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