Intel's Itanium - to be or not to be?

Posted on Saturday, January 28 2006 @ 0:55 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
DigiTimes published the final part of their Q&A with Nebojsa Novakovic, a consultant in high-end computing systems. Today one of the main subjects is Intel's Itanium processor.
Q: If, as you say, the Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest core could well restore dominance for Intel on x86, that then leaves the question of IA-64 and the future of the Itanium. Many in the industry seem to be involved in a guessing game about the future of the Itanium. What are your own thoughts?

A: I have heard an interesting rumor that Intel always was planning to have a 64-bit x86 CPU. After all, 64-bit x86 does work, and it works pretty well. It is probably the most elegant version of x86 we have, and a compiler will hide some of the worst aspects of the architecture. If you program in x86 64-bit mode, the registers are all in sync (there are no proprietary accumulators, and so on), and floating-point (FP) performance will be quite elegant. So you are not that badly off with 64-bit x86, and you are certainly not as badly off as you would be with something like Itanium.
You can read it over here.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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