Re: It is almost certain now, INTEL will have 64bit x86 !!

From: Robert Klute (robert_klute_removethis_at_hp.com)
Date: 02/19/04 

Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:06:35 GMT

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:06:34 -0500, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@istop.com>
wrote:

>HP need to tackle the issue. They cannot pretend nothing happened otherwise
>they will lose credibility. IA64 has just been relegated to low volume niche
>market and has absolutely 0 of the originally promised benefits (low cost,
>industry standard, commodity). Goeing forward with IA64 today means that HP
>will need to support 4 additional platforms (VMS, NSK, HPUX, Linux) on their
>IA64 boxes, and then support them on the 8086, on to of the original
>VAX/Alpha/MIPS/PaRisc support.

Why all the platform support? HP could support VMS, NSK, HPUX, Windows,
and Linux on IA-64. Then support 32-bit and x86-64 Windows and Linux on
on its Industry Standard Server (ISS) boxes (whether they use AMD or
Intel chips). The legacy support would slowly dissappear as the
architectures are retired.

Even though it was announced in July (if I remember correctly), there
are still no 8ways based on the Opteron 800. Intel appears to be
focusing in on the desktop to 2way space with it's offering. Cray still
talks about Red Storm with lots of caveats and warnings in its SEC
disclosures. So, right now, I see little evidence of the x86-64
architectures being generally used in anything other than the desktop to
4way space.

That leaves IA-64 as Intel's offering in the large SMP space. It is a
place Microsoft wants to be. Its gives HP a single architecture for
enterprise systems and a separate one for ISS. Coming from a Big
Iron/Tin background, I just don't see what being able to run a 8086
derivative ISA brings to the enterprise table.

Robert Klute,
Who speaks for himself and not the company he works for.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: It is almost certain now, INTEL will have 64bit x86 !!
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