Intel: x86 won't encroach on Itanium

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Itanium vs. Alpha, not x86

The Itanium is a very different processor than the x86 family, and the fact that it has not been eagerly adopted by the server industry is not an indication that the x86 architecture isn't a dead end (I believe that it is), but that Intel hasn't gotten it right.

The DEC Alpha RISC processor, which Intel owns the rights to, is a far better 64 bit architecture, though I don't believe that Intel is planning on ever enhancing or extending that line. If the same process improvements, along with other advances in the state-of-the-art since DEC went under, were to be applied to something based on an Alpha-like processor, Sun and IBM (and HP) would have a stronger high-end competitor. Further, by leveraging off of lower-end Alpha CPUs, a whole range of new Alpha-like desktops and servers (and super-computers) might evolve to run on a common architecture path.

There are already good programming tools for this architecture, and multiple operating systems, from Unix (True64), Linux, and even good old Microsoft, are already available. I don't know all of the legalities, but it would seem to me that Intel should really consider a multi-core Alpha chip as a hedge -- they didn't own the Alpha when they designed Itanium, and the Alpa (to my eyes, at least) is the better chip, cycle for cycle, instruction for instruction.

Of course, that's just one engineers opinion.

Posted by: Filker0_z   Posted on: 03/08/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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