Intel: x86 won't encroach on Itanium

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Points taken: "1. You are the only source I've seen stating that I2 has an x86 core built in; most have said one reason for slow market acceptance was that x86 was supported only through extremely slow software emulation. Can you cite a source? (I might look myself, but I'm not terribly interested in Itanic...)"

A quick Google comes up with the definitive manual: http://www.intel.com/design/itanium/downloads/248701.htm
http:Section 2.6 IA-32 Execution. The stupid Adobe reader won't let me cut and paste the one paragraph I wanted to but it says there IS a separate HARDWARE "core" that runs IA-32 (x86) commands. It makes use of the registers, cache, and execution resources of the EPIC IA-64 stuff - so I would say it's a "half" x86 core . . .

"2. I think it's interesting that Intel has *finally* seen Power as its main competitor at the very time IBM, Sony and Toshiba are gearing up to introduce the Cell processor. Predictably, this consortium has repeatedly described the Cell as "revolutionary" (aren't they all?)."

I agree. The Cell looks interesting. Here at Company "F", I get to work with the new P595 - Power 5 chip - which is the "core" of the Cell processor. It has some very interesting characteristics . . .

"*IF* Cell is *truly* revolutionary, then Intel are left well behind in technological terms and potential market size; Cell will supposedly work for everything from cellular telephones to supercomputing clusters. Intel can't match that flexibility."

The Cell is a multi-core Power chip. It is still RISC technology, so the hardware pipelining stuff is in there. As for performance, I would never count InHell out of that race.

"MS will also becomes "has been" precisely because of their increasing dependence on Intel's x86 architecture over the years and their failure to really implement the "hardware abstraction layer" they touted so heavily at the introduction of NT..."

Yeah and Java Beans was supposed to do that as well (not there yet). Windoze DID run on the Alpha chip - but they gave that up. Today they are hoping for new life with Windoze 64-bit on Opteron. This could give them some market advantage - but it would still be an uphill climb to unseat the RISC powerhouses. Oh yeah, Windoze runs on Supercomputers too . . .; Posted by: Roger Ramjet Posted on: 03/09/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use