Will Intel Ship an x86-64bit Chip This Year?

Solid Paradox writes "According to The Register, American Technology Research predicts an x86-64-bit processor will 'soon' arrive from Intel and in another story, they also predict that Sun and IBM will be the major players in the future 64-bit boom. Meanwhile the Inquirer has a somewhat related article entitled Senior Intel PR man talks 64-bit extension talk, which follows their Pentium V will launch with 64-bit Windows Elements article that says that the chip is to be sampled internally this month."

Pentium V

Quoted from the article:
"The Pentium V is likely to fly along at between 5GHz to 7GHz, have 2MB plus of level two cache, be built on a 90 nanometer process, and have a stackable design." So, you'll have a 64-bit module sitting on top of your 32-bit CPU?
Sounds like Sega's 32X to me... except it'll play Doom 1 faster.

Re:Pentium V

Turbos? Yes, they're around, and quite common too. Difference is, they're not pushed as some kind of macho add-on anymore; instead, the technology is mainly used to improve efficiency (by, among other things, improving accelleration so you can use a smaller, more efficient engine and retain the performance you want). And among small diesels (common in Europe), I'd say turbo diesels are a lot more common than the non-turbocharged variety.

Re:Pentium V

So, you'll have a 64-bit module sitting on top of your 32-bit CPU?

I've been speculating (here and elsewhere) that this stackable thing is not going to be Intel's next big thing. I believe that the stacked module will simply contain NVRAM and not a 64-bit coprocessor. Why NVRAM? Well, it opens up some interesting possibilities. For example, if you had enough NVRAM on-chip (or reasonably close in terms of latentcy and bandwidth), you could simply shut down portions of the processor on-the-fly to save power. You could also stick the entire operating system on the stuff. The possibilities are amazing. If you haven't looked already, see my journal [slashdot.org] for much information on the subject as it relates to Intel.

Of recent interest are some [intel.com] presentations [intel.com] by Intel on NVRAM. Of interest is that they've announced that they've found that OUM will take them beyond transistors in one presentation while another presentation actually shows a transistorless cell that is quite simple (two electrodes and a programming material sandwiched in between).

A transistorless storage device could be the piece that stacks onto the P5.

Stack size

Darn, my stack size is about to double...

I guess recursive algorithms are about the become a memory hog.

But...

Can it do hardware 32bit as well? Currently the Intel Itanium 64 bit chip has to emulate 32bit for applications that are not 64bit compliant, and therefore the AMD64 which can do hardware 64 and 32 bit sweeps the floor.

Plus, who is ready to receive 64 bit chips? Windows isn't quite yet there with their 64 bit OS, and many linux distros only have beta quality 64 bit OS'es.

NeoThermic

Re:But...

many linux distros only have beta quality 64 bit OS'es.

Just to nitpick, Linux has supported other 64-bit architectures (at least Alpha) from its early years, so it definitely has the 64-bitness sorted out already. X86-64 is a relatively new thing, but not quite the first one with 64 bits.

Windows XP 64-bit

But will MS write their 64-bit XP to work on Athlon 64 and the new Intel chip, or will we have three different versions (Itanium, Athlon 64 and Intel x86-64)? At this rate Windows will become as fragmented as Linux ;-)

Re:Windows XP 64-bit

The rumour is that Microsoft said a firm no to Intel requesting support for an entirely new 64-bit variation, but they worked out a deal where Microsoft would delay their x86-64 version of Windows until Intel was able to develop a compatible processor. The Intel x86-64 processor might even contain a few extra instructions that AMD doesn't have, just to ensure incompatibility.

These kinds of rumours may not not have anything to do with reality, but at least they can explain why Microsoft has not released the x86-64 Windows for sale even though there have been fully functional betas available for almost a year now.

Re:Why would you buy an AMD64?

Let's just review a few facts:

Lets.

Many dual-cpu boards tie all the memory to one cpu, slowing down the other one.

There are a few boards like that, but certainly not a majority. The difference is very small however, considering that there is just one extra hop across a HT link to the processor with memory. (The memory controllers are directly connected to HT links which minimises latency)

Various versions of the AMD64 architecture are unreasonably expensive.

True, some versions are expensive, but your talking about a technology that's been released for approximately 3 months now. Give it time and prices on the high end stuff will go down. That said, you can get a single proc A64 system for fairly cheap.

I've heard rumors of Linux incompatibility with various boards and bioses.

Rumors...you're giving people advice on whether or not people should purchase a particular architechture on rumors? What's the severity of the problems?

AMD is also in the act of outsourcing it's IT staff to India. While Intel undoubtedly does the same, AMD's action is more recent and this sort of thing shouldn't be rewarded.

I agree

AMD's planning with Microsoft Win64 release was also obviously lackluster if Intel was able to delay it.

That's a whole ton of speculation. There's any number of reasons that release was delayed. MS could be having trouble porting the legacy code over, Intel could have negociated(sp?) hard(keep in mind who has the much larger market share), MS could have wanted to wait for marketing reasons...who knows? It's silly to blame AMD for it though.

My 2 cents.

Dumb question

Ok, flame me if you wish, here's my dumb question:

If I got a computer with a 64 bit processor, what difference would I notice compared to a non-64 bit resaonbly high-end PC? I mean, would it just be a bit faster? Or a hell of a lot faster? Or just faster at certain things? Or would it not make much difference at all for normal everyday office tasks and playing games etc.?

Re:Dumb question - deserves a straight answer

The best answer to your question is : not necessarily faster. Variables in this equation include but are not limited to:

• good motherboard support
• good OS support
• advanced multi-bit path to ALL hardware interfaces (eg them newsystem buses which are mostly not yet vailable)
• good fast RAM
• software recompiled to the 64-bit CPU
• actual use of 'benefits' of 64-bit computing (eg consumes unearthly amounts of RAM)

For you and I, JimBob and JoeBlow, a good fast 32-bit system will kick much 64-bit arse. At least until

• full OS (and driver) support for 64-bit mode
• apps recompiled for 64-bit
• fast mother with fancy-schmancy ultra-wide ultra-fast system bus
• new cards (*especially* video) on said new bus

Re:Dumb question - deserves a straight answer

For you and I, JimBob and JoeBlow, a good fast 32-bit system will kick much 64-bit arse.

This isn't valid. x86-64 systems can run 32-bit apps at full speed, so they'd be kicking their own arse.

Also note that x86-64 corrects some of the weaknesses of the x86 architecture, so x86-64 apps are automatically faster. Counter-strike was 30% faster, clock-for-clock.

Re:Dumb question

In theory, 64bit should be better than 32bit (that goes without saying).

Not actually true. The larger the word size, the more bits you have to move on every operation. Going to a larger word size is normally driven by application requirements: if an application doesn't need a larger address space or a wider ALU a larger word can actualy make it slower.

What can you do with a 64-bit processor?

Well, one thing you can do is directly address every byte on the largest disk drives we can get today. With an operating system that was designed for direct access, like Multics, you would never have to "read" any files: when you opened one, it would look just as if it had already been read in... all your physical memory would effectively be a big disk cache.

For another, you can give each computer on the network part of the address space, so the same thing would be true for any file on your local LAN. Or any program on your LAN... no more messing around with protocols and remote file servers and databases... if you had the access rights, it would be as if they were local files.

You could do the same thing for each instance of a program, so you wouldn't need complex mapping code when passing messages from one program to another... in fact you could just pass the address of a message and let the memory management system move it over when you actually need it. That would get rid of a LOT of redundant copying, since you probably don't need all parts of every message.

The problem is, you'd need a whole new OS (or a whole old one... Multics is older than UNIX) to really take advantage of this kind of thing.

Re:Dumb question

Don't be ridiculous. The main advantages of 64-bit architecture is memory addressability and large-number computation. There are many applications for this; just because Granny doesn't want to do anything besides send email is irrelevant to the rest of us that do have uses for this power.

Some examples, some of which have already been pointed out:

1) video editing. Digital video takes up tons of space, and 2GB of memory addressability just doesn't cut it when you're trying to edit something that takes tens of gigs or more.

2) large-number computation. Scientific simulations, video rendering, etc. do tons of computation, and doing it 64 bits at a time will improve performance greatly.

3) games. The way games operate isn't too different than the rendering that Hollywood studios do in massive quantities, and games need to do it in real-time.

4) computation using large data sets. Simulators of all kinds (used for designing semiconductors, aircraft, automobiles, etc.) work with massive amounts of data. 2GB of memory addressability isn't enough.

Whether you think "most people" need 64 bits or not is irrelevant. I really don't care about the masses of AOL users who just read their email; in my line of work, 64 bit systems will soon probide a very noticable benefit as the simulators we're currently using are pushing the limits of 32-bit memory addressability and will soon need more. Given that there's thousands of engineers here in my company alone, and untold hundreds of thousands more involved in other types of simulation, is alone enough of a market opportunity for these CPU manufacturers to be pushing this technology. As for the home users, I'm sure the game writers will come up with ways to use that power too.

Other things up their sleeve

I think that Intel have some other tricks up their sleeve. See my journal [slashdot.org] for some screwy wishful thinking. What is cool about loads of on-chip NVRAM is that it opens up the possibility for Intel to ship an embedded operating system. The Wintel duopoly will reach new heights with DRM and Trusted Computing.

Latest and Greatest

All the latest and greatest processors are already invented. It is only a question of the companies to wait for the right time to let it out onto the market as to maximize profit.

This is why I don't let the hype get to me. I rather praise the companies that give me the greatest price/performance ratio for a given time. If you can buy it, then it's not cutting edge.

Sample Results..

After Sampling the new Chip Internally the general view was :

"Tastes like Chicken"

Further Internal Samplings are being conducted using Tabasco and BBQ sauces.

Battle?

Is this the beginning of a Linux+AMD vs. Windows+Intel battle?

Add-in module is for an *ITANIUM* coprocessor ...

I don't believe Intel could bring themselves to adopt an AMD design. It is known that Intel was working on an Itanium-Pentium hybrid that failed due to development complexities. By going with the "add-in module" (like the "Numeric coprocessor" before it) they can still push forward with their original plan in a slightly different way.

For the moment, there are more tools and a slightly more mature development environment for IA-64 versus x86-64. But x86-64 adoption will come for free, whereas its going to be like pulling teeth even with this "module add-in" solution. On the technical side, things look grim for Intel, however, Intel is too resourceful a company to bet against.

The picture will be clearer 12 months from now -- it will be a Pentium V + an Itanium add on versus Opteron or Athlon FX. Intel's got to try to bank on outperforming AMD (no easy feet as the benchmarks on Opteron and Athlon FX demonstrate), otherwise their more expensive solution with be DOA.

x86-64???

x86-64-bit processor will 'soon' arrive from Intel

Do you mean AMD64? Will the Intel chips really be fully compatible with an AMD-designed instruction set?

If this happens, it will only reinforce the fact that Intel has lost it's leadership position in the x86 compatible market. It will also severely impact any eventual large scale adoption of Itanium.

AMD just needs to bite the bullet and actually do some marketing. It has clearly superior products at this point. The Athlon 64 3000+ looks like a great buy, and a nice way to check out 64 bit computing at a low price point. If you have the money laying around, though, you really can't beat the PowerMac G5s. :-)

BTW, it's also too bad that Microsoft has delayed 64-bit Windows. It shows all too clearly that the "Wintel" partnership is alive, well, and smelly. On the other hand, it does provide a nice platform for Linux to tout it's superiority - "What's taking so long Microsoft, we've had an AMD64 version of Linux for months already!". So much for the "advantages" of Microsoft's software development practices... :-P

Re:x86-64???

Leadership is determined by who's got more out there, not by who's following whose standard. By your definition, AMD could never ever achieve leadership position because it's usinng Intel's instructions.

No, leadership is determined by who introduces the technology that everyone will be using in the future.

You're talking about "marketshare" which is a different concept. ;-)

The fact that Intel has such a commanding lead in marketshare at the moment is mainly a glowing endorsement of effective marketing practices. The P4 has been a stunning failure as a technology - all it has really achieved is lower performance at 1/3 higher clockspeed (P4 3.2 GHz. vs. Athlon FX 2.2 GHz.). The only place that P4 excels is the SIMD instruction set, where latency doesn't matter - and those instructions don't help much at all with general purpose computing.

Intel Inside - Just Say No. :-)

I don't doubt it at all...

Guess the Rumours are True [theinquirer.net].

Itanic == Titantic

You can help but think they might of chosen another name to start with can you? Of course they might of been hoping for the success of the film rather than the story of the boat sinking Rus

How fast are things really getting?

How fast are these processors getting lately! It just seems odd that a few years ago a jump in processor speed or architecture actually meant something significant. But lately I haven't been noticing this phenomenon as much. Clock speeds are skyrocketing at the same if not greater rate than in previous years but applications seem to demand proportionatly less cycles as time goes on. In 95 a computer could barely keep up with the demands for more memory, cpu speed and whatnot by programs making many computers unusable after about a year. Now we see in a years time improvements in opening photoshop a few seconds quicker than before. Please dont flame this post saying that IA64 is meant for high end servers and workstations, I realize this, but is advancement in clock speed and architecture really as important a step as it used to be.

Re:How fast are things really getting?

That's because a lot of these clock speed improvements are "marketing MIPS".

To speed a computer up, the best way is to look for what's slowing it down the most, and speed that up.

To sell more computers, the best way is to look for what's easiest to speed up, and advertise that as the big advantage.

It's actually possible for a clock speed improvement to be accompanied by other changes that slow down some programs. Intel hit that when the first generation XScale was used in the Pocket PC... the big bottleneck for video on the ARM chips used in the Pocket PC was memory bandwidth... they had 206 MHz processors and 100 MHz memory and people were trying to play videos from memory cards that were far slower than that. They sped up the ARM instruction set on the XScale by breaking the instructions up with a longer pipeline. What happened? Well, that longer pipeline actually increased the impact of the slower memory by increasing the impact of a "bubble in the pipeline" when it had to go to main memory instead of cache to load instructions or when a mispredicted branch forced it to discard partially completed instructions, and on some benchmarks the 400 MHz XScale was actually slower than the 206 MHz StrongARM... and some vendors actually ran the XScale at 200 or 300 MHz!

The second generation XScale's 200 MHz bus largely solved that... at the cost of having to use faster and more power-hungry RAM. Everything's a tradeoff.

So, if you have a computer with a 266 MHz memory bus... how much difference do you think you'll see going from a 700 MHz processor to a 1.4 GHz processor or even a 2.1 GHz one? Well, that depends on what you're processing! If your program and its data is small enough to mostly fit in the cache, you'll get a big boost. If you're playing a videogame with megabytes of graphics being shoved down the AGP port to the video card, probably not a whole lot... save your money and upgrade the graphics card instead.

And that's why memory chips keep changing, they keep coming up with faster and faster memory... but that's falling further and further behind the marketing MIPS because there's a lot fewer tricks left to pull to market those numbers up.

Internal use only

"...article that says that the chip is to be sampled internally this month."

Perhaps I'm up too late, but when I read the above, this image of a windows developer flashed in my mind. He's frustrated with a child-proof cap and resorts to reading the side of this bottle from Intel: "For marketing use only. Do note mix with alcohol or windows. New buffer exploits are inevitable. May cause loss of market share if ingested."

Linus' opinion on 64 bit desktops

Linus Torvalds on 64bit desktops [realworldtech.com]

Linus Torvalds on 64bit desktops [realworldtech.com]

just what we need

Great just what we need. another patch on a 20+ year old design. its not Apple who needs to switch platform's its us the whole x86 platform should be dropped. Apple has been able to pull off a proccessor change from the m68k to the PPC and they were able to mantain compatibly with legacy apps in emulation.

back in the day...

Remember when everything was simple, no color monitor, simple keyboard layout etc. Back then, my Tandy3000 and I could take on the world.

Did I Miss Something?

...they also predict that Sun and IBM will be the major players in the future 64-bit boom

Isn't IBM already a major player [apple.com]?

twas a noble idea by intel

for a change, to break backwards compatibility, but we have to ask them. WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING THIS TIME???? finally, x86 becomes THE commodity platform and they try to kill it ?? ? ? makes no sense. AMD knew what was up all along. IBM did the same with its 64 bit offering, and Sun still makes slow processors (fun to complain about hardware too).

anyway, they screwed the pooch, but will never correct the mistake. when you've got a few billion dollars, you can wait just long enough to lose most any amount of money on a new product.

NO

No they will not.
Intel likes to keep its architectures separated. They have Pentiums/Xeons for 32bit and Itaniums for 6bit processing. Releasing a x86-64 CPU will kill the Itanium plain and simple.

Re:NO

Itaniums for 6bit processing

I always thought Intel was a few slices short of a loaf, but that's just ridiculous.

Too Much Work

I don't think MS could port Windows to all those different architectures (they can't get one right) so perhaps they'll either need more people, make it open source within a select few MS Devs or something or just make it really crappy.

Think about it, optimizing an operating system for 4+ archs is no easy task and I doubt MS could do it in a reasonable amount of time.

Maybe they'll hire the Duke Nukem: Forever developers on that one.

Will AMD's x86-64 and Intel's x86-64

architectures be compatible? If they aren't, that could be quite a hassle

Very Likely

Intel will very likely release a 64-bit x86 processor, or kludge unit for Pentium V, this year (just like the math coprocessor was prior to the 486).

However consider this:

AMD has been shipping Opteron for nearly a year already, and ports of the main OSs (including Windows and Linux) have been done, with others already working in the lab. It also runs old 32-bit OSs with no change. It will run legacy x86 code at full speed along side new 64-bit code. It is more efficient in terms of useful work done per clock cycle compared to Pentium 4 and Xeon. It scales better in multi-way systems (very important in workstations and serves) : the logic is built in. Xeon does not have this (and plain P4 is limited to single-way). It has a built in memory controller. It has twice as many registers. It's very inexpensive. Go and look up your favourite component retailer right now and compare an Opteron to a Xeon (and even the "high-end" Pentium 4).

The only place AMD may have trouble selling is to the ignorant masses who buy on MHz (or GHz) from highstreet stores, and pay too much.

The corporate world is more clued-up, and so are the enthusiasts and power-users.

Even if AMD does not knock intel off of it's perch, there is a huge potential market for Opteron. Several major corporations are behind Opteron. They've committed to it. It's going to be big business. 2004 will see a radical change in the hardware business. I predict that in the second half of this year, people will laugh a 32-bit PeeCees. They will be obsolete and bargain-basement by then.

Re:Very Likely

It took 11 years for 32bit operating systems to finally displace 16bit operating systems. Your prediction of 32bit PCs being laughed at by December 2004 is probably a little too radical.

However, your other comments about AMD and the Opteron are spot on, IMO - the enterprise world is NOT going to buy a competing, slightly incompatible 64bit platform when it has already invested in another 64bit platform that is ALREADY AVAILABLE and is KNOWN to be just as fast/faster than a 32bit commodity platform or an older 64bit platform like a PPC box from IBM. It's hard enough these days for IT departments to support the current heterogenous mix of 32bit commodity desktops and servers and the old/new 64bit platforms from AMD and IBM. Throwing in a third which could cost even more and add more headaches would be pretty hard to sell, IMHO.

You were also right about marketing; AMD abolsutely MUST find a way to conclusively show that GHz != Speed. They need a new aggressive marketing campaign ASAP - unless the rumours about Prescott being a bit of a dud are true.....

Either way, AMD knows that they're sitting on a goldmine; they just need to exploit it as much as they can.

It's not the bits, it's the instruction set.

The big problem with the Pentium isn't that it's only 32 bits wide, it's that the instruction set is so poorly designed. It's complex and hard to execute quickly, doesn't have enough registers, REALLY doesn't have enough floating point registers, has too high a cost to transferring data between the CPU and FPU, and huge chunks of silicon have to be used to cover for these faults.

Intel has tried to patch this with extended instruction sets before, like MMX, but they haven't been able to discard the legacy design. The last big improvement in their architecture was when they went from the 286 to the 386, and were able (eventually) to shed the overhead of 16-bit segments. Mostly... and they did that by making it a completely different mode instread of a patch on the existing instruction set the way the 8086-80286 transition was.

If their new "extensions" have a better instruction set, they will be able to perform the same kind of break without losing their existing user base. They tried to do this with IA64, but the processor was too slow and the IA32 "mode" was WAY too slow. It remains to be seen whether the new chip does a better job.

If they had been smart, they'd have kept the Alpha EV8 team intact after they bought them from the Compaq fire sale, renamed it the "IAXP", and shipped it with a hardware IA32-Alpha recompiler for legacy support.

Licensing?

Does anybody know if the extensive cross-licensing agreements that exist between AMD & Intel cover the x86-64 additions?

Would that not be the cats meow if Intel had to pay AMD royalties for each chip they sold?

AMD fan or Intel fan; we are damn lucky that there is competition.

Old News

Most of the articles linked to are pretty old. Only two are even from this month, and they're from Friday/Saturday. Yawn.

Let's keep it current.

Intel, AMD, etc

All of the posts I've read only talk CPUs. Hasn't anyone noticed that MS now (quietly) has a multi-platform software virtual machine? .NET strives from cross-platform compatibility, just as Java did years, and years ago. MS realised this IA-32/IA-64 was going to happen, and .NET quietly solves the problem. MS is pushing people to migrate their IA-32/Win32 apps to it. As a current .NET software engineer, the specific Windows platform becomes irrelevant. You could easily argue that MS is delaying the 64-bit world to give developers more time to migrate to .NET. Sean

Pentium V

If the Pentium V suceeds, will intel market its successors as Pentium V pro, Pentium V MMX, Pentium V II, Pentium V !!!, and Pentium V 4 ?

Intel 64 bit? Who cares?

Intel 64 bit? Who cares? We still don't use current processors efficiently today! Linux being the exception, boxes are saddled down with bloated, resource-hungry Windows running highly inefficient code based on VB or Mighty Fat Classlib (MFC).

Yesterday there was a /. article on Windows 98's death knell. People are pondering this with incredulity as W98 systems are still perfectly suitable for the needs of a great number of people.

It's sad that the hardware and software companies engage in unchecked one-upmanship while marketing departments FUD users into upgrading.

IBM a majoe contender?

I thought IBM was supposed to be working with AMD on the new chips...

16-bit?

I was actually talking to someone (a Mac person) today, and he was talking about a CAD prog and how it was 16-bit and wouldn't run on the g5... Any idea as to the 16-bit compatibility of the Athlon 64 (FX) and the Opteron/Itanium?

I do want to be able to run Win3.11wfw on my Athlon 64 3400+ of course ;-)

Re:AMD

> AMD dominates Intel so much now eh... It is year 2004, right?

Re:Itanium

No, It is a new arch (Intel Architexture, IA64) - That's one of the big deals about the AMD 64 bit chip, it is x86 compatible.

Re:Itanium

Elaborating slightly on this, the Itanium is a "VLIW" chip, which is a wholly different way of doing computation compared to the more usual "superscalar" paradigm. That's why it wasn't compatible with the x86, that's why they targeted it at servers doing heavy computation etc. The AMD chip, on the other hand, can support x86 relatively easily by including a "morphing layer" (I think that's the name) which maps x86 instructions to the native instructions of the chip. So they're able to target desktops.

Re:Itanium

The AMD chip, on the other hand, can support x86 relatively easily by including a "morphing layer" (I think that's the name) which maps x86 instructions to the native instructions of the chip

This is only correct if you consider microcode to be the "native instructions" on AMD. Itanic introduced a whole new ISA, which I guess requires some kind of 'morphing to support x86. Opteron uses the existing x86 ISA with a small number of 64-bit extensions. So, x86 is the "native instruction" set for the AMD CPUs, which allows for much better performance of current 32-bit applications.

Furthermore...

...the only two major computer system manufacturers who have elected to rely upon the Itanium are HP and SGI.

HP is manufacturing a number of different Itanium systems and winning performance awards with them. The largest is the "Superdome" which I believe will hold 64 CPUs. The Superdome is interesting in that it can accept either the old (soon to be discontinued) PA-RISC processors or the newer Itanium chips (hopefully Sun will do something similar with Sparc and Opteron in a revision of the e10k line).

SGI also makes a Linux Itanium NUMA supercomputer called "Altix" that is far more scalable than Superdome.

Both of these companies are going to be royally shafted if Intel produces a chip using the Opteron/Athlon64 instruction set. Intel has been incredibly unwise in not dropping the cost of the Itanium below the Opteron. Itanium has flaws, but it does have some incredible floating point performance.

HP is probably of the greatest concern. They ported their enterprise UNIX (HP-UX) to Itanium some time ago, and they are nearing a stable port of the OpenVMS operating system to Itanium. These operating systems have large, dedicated followings and they are technically quite advanced (far more so than Linux in many respects).

If the Itanium fails, it will be a bloodbath for HP enterprise systems.

Re:What's next for Apple?

"I wonder what apple will do to counter Intel when they put their 64bit chip on the market?"

The same thing they always do with Intel - ignore them and hope that they go away.

Re:AMD

I find they only really "dominate" in with 64 bit architexture with their Opteron, but again, Intel hasn't yet released their own "desktop" 64bit cpu.

Intel (as far as I know) are trying to increase cpu speed and reduce the die (or the cpu) size.

Re:AMD

That's EXACTLY AMD's problem. People like me can't buy their gear even though we'd like to because third party developers don't bother to support AMD CPUs.

Funnily enough, it's not my business to crusade on AMD's behalf, I have actual work to do. I'd far rather use a Mac anyway.

Re:Better Question

I used to work for them a few years ago and I agree with the fact that marketing tries to push stuff that the public doesn't necessarily want. They're definitely not as egregious as micro$oft in this regard, but they do try.

Re:AMD

Provide a link to the company that makes that shit. I am curious what they produce.

No it's Yamhill

The Itanium is some sort of 64bit VLIW processor with it's own instruction set that can also emulate X86-32 & PA-RISC or something.

X86-64 is what AMD's Hammer series processors (claw, sledge, etc) use.

Intel's rumoured 'Yamhill' is s'pose to be their X86-64 Hammer clone, that's what this thread's about.