[NEWS] - Intel Itanium to be boosted for 32bit applications.

[CougTek]

The new software approach, called the IA-32 Execution Layer and code-named btrans, will give the forthcoming 1.5GHz Itanium 2 the ability to run 32-bit software about as fast as a 1.5GHz Xeon MP,...

...The emulation software's speed, if it meets Intel's expectations, wouldn't be far behind the top 2GHz speed of today's Xeon MP,...

The emulation move is also likely to be more palatable to customers than "Yamhill," an Intel project that sources have said is similar to AMD's 64-bit extensions to Intel's 32-bit design rather than the dramatic departure Itanium represents. "This could be another way to respond to AMD without necessarily compromising their Itanium strategy," Brookwood said

IMO, Intel now slightly in panic mode because of Opteron. I don't think IA-64 will ever be a success if x86-64 offers a decent speed improvement. And that's a good thing. Not because x86-64 is good, but because IA-64 is bad replacement.

More infos on News.com

 

[P5-133XL]

Why should Intel be in a panic (of any form). The two 64-bit strategies (Intels and AMD's) were announced years ago: Intel has had plenty of time to consider the ramifications. The fact that Intel has announced an emulation mode on the next generation Itanium simply means that they were prepared: It would take a lot longer than the forthcoming Itanium to create the emulation from scratch.

 

[The Grammar Police]

Why? Because, with one single, solitary exception, Intel have never successfully introduced a brand new architecture and made money out of it. Never. (Can we say "i860"?)

Panic mode? Huh? Intel are not in panic mode. They always introduce stupid new architectures that no-one wants, lose bucket loads of money on them, and then do the same old X86 thing one more time, only better, in the hope that it will fill up those money buckets once again. And it always works. This ain't panic, it's business as usual.

 

[.Nut]

Because, with one single, solitary exception, Intel have never successfully introduced a brand new architecture and made money out of it. Never. (Can we say "i860"?)

Not true!

The i860 became a microcontroller (as opposed to a general purpose RISC microprocessor) called the i960 and have made Intel quite a decent pile of cash in the high-end microcontroller marketplace.

 

[Newtun]

Why? Because, with one single, solitary exception, Intel have never successfully introduced a brand new architecture and made money out of it. . . .

Why? Because, with one single, solitary exception, Intel has never successfully introduced a brand new architecture and made money out of it. . . .