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#21
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
On Apr 28, 7:29 pm, "
wrote: On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:22:52 -0700 (PDT), Robert wrote: snip/Without AMD, one of threee things would have happened: 1. Intel would have had the resources to deliver a satisfactory Itanium product and accompanying compiler on schedule. Itanium was stillborn, even more so than Netbust. Its only purpose was to move everyone and their mother-in-law away from x86 and in the process thereof screw all other chipmakers (chiefly AMD, since others were, and still are, almost non-entities). While AMD and some other guys have a license to churn out x86 compatible product, no licenses were ever planned for IA64. Thanks to AMD and their Opteron product beating Itanic on performance for a mere fraction of the price, it didn't happen. I've lived a long time now, and I've seen a lot of predictions come and go. Anyone who wants to make emphatic statements about what was inevitable should take a good, hard look at all the successful predictions of the ramifications of the attack of the killer micros. In all this "I knew all along" talk about Itanium, I've heard a few insightful comments indicating that people actually understood something of importance about the actual architecture, and not what they've heard from others. If anyone *really* understood what went wrong with Itanium, it would make the case study of all case studies for business schools interested in the development and management of technology. As it is, I don't think anyone really knows. By comparison, it's pretty easy to see what went wrong with Netburst and, among other things, we have public statements by its principal architect, who no longer works for Intel. Even so, it's a puzzle as to why Intel missed the importance of power consumption. 2. Intel would have been forced into a partial retreat to x86, anyway. It took AMD64 (later renamed x84-64 to make it more digestable to Intel) to do so. In all Intel roadmaps, x86 was to be relegated to the low end of the market and then obsoleted in a matter of a few years, if not months. The more fool Intel. The "low end" is where all the action is. To see that, you have only to look at Blue Gene that was built with "low end" processors. Low end or high wasn't what mattered. Power consumption did. Intel has it figured out by now, and they're pouring resources into low-power processors. If Intel hadn't had a credible x86 candidate, what would it have done? I have no idea. To give up on the low-power market is essentially to give up on the future because the cost of computation is going to be dominated by the cost of electricity, including the costs of cooling. 3. Sparc or Power would be holding much larger market share under any number of possible licensing and manufacturing arrangements. Sparc is big iron stuff, it just doesn't scale down to desktop, let alone laptop. And Power... It could not even hold on to Apple, the only desktop/laptop maker ever using it. Ironically, it was dumped to make way to Intel x86 product. Sparc would have much of the market share for servers now dominated by x86. The disappearance of Power is simply a matter of money. If the market is entirely consumed by x86, no one will want to put the resources into it necessary to compete with Intel's offerings. To be sure, IBM has never been very much interested in that market, anyway. I personally believe that what we've got is the worst of all possible worlds: AMD on death's door, Microsoft holding on to its monopoly catering to just one ISA, and, to all intents and purposes, zero diversity in processor architecture. Some prefer divercity, others prefer standard. Looks like you are not in the business of writing software, otherwise you'd know what a pain in a$$ is cross-platform compatibility. I have very little sympathy for the concerns of software developers. We'd be much better off with longer software development cycles so we had less bad software. Robert. |
#22
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Robert Myers wrote in part:
Without AMD, one of threee things would have happened: 1. Intel would have had the resources to deliver a satisfactory Itanium product and accompanying compiler on schedule. Are you joking? AFAICS, Intel threw money and people at Itanium well past the point of diminishing returns into the region of negative returns (were additional people/resources consumed more communications and managment than their contribution to the project). Itanium did not fail for lack of resources. It might have failed from a surfeit. Dis-economies of scale are real and a constant peril in large projects. 2. Intel would have been forced into a partial retreat to x86, anyway. Would it have been any more graceful than P4, ie an overclocked original Pentium? Perhaps. It could hardly be worse. Without AMD breathing down Intel's neck on the performance end, INTC would have developed and released processors much slower. There would have been no need. 3. Sparc or Power would be holding much larger market share under any number of possible licensing and manufacturing arrangements. Add in Alpha. In addition to the non-x86 code hurdle, they have identical issues with AMD. None can deliver the sheer massive volume that Intel can and the PC market demands. I personally believe that what we've got is the worst of all possible worlds: AMD on death's door, Microsoft holding on to its monopoly catering to just one ISA, and, to all intents and purposes, zero diversity in processor architecture. I do not agree. Linux and to a lesser extent NetBSD have done wonders to keep alt-arch alive and vital. ARM is far from dead. I would not be at all surprised my next PC had one (ASUS EEE-like). MSFT has been seduced down a dead-end. Sic transit gloria mundi. -- Robert |
#24
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
"krw" wrote in message
t... In article , says... " writes: What could be more boring than the x86 domination we have now? Without AMD, there would be no such monoculture. Did you mean "without Intel"? I suppose if AMD hadn't been around, there would have been a greater chance of Intel getting their butts whipped by some other architecture, instead of by AMD. What architecture? You grossly underestimate the x86 inertia. Of course AMD _did_ come up with "x86-64", which is an improvement over the x86 (obviously even Intel thinks so). Intel did too, but had no interest in pushing it forward to product. They did, but was told by MS to dump it & use AMD64 code MS did not want to make 2 ver. of Windows. --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 080429-0, 29/04/2008 Tested on: 29/04/2008 11:52:34 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software. http://www.avast.com |
#25
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
Wes Newell writes:
On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:18:24 -0400, krw wrote: In article , says... " writes: What could be more boring than the x86 domination we have now? Without AMD, there would be no such monoculture. Did you mean "without Intel"? I suppose if AMD hadn't been around, there would have been a greater chance of Intel getting their butts whipped by some other architecture, instead of by AMD. What architecture? You grossly underestimate the x86 inertia. Of course AMD _did_ come up with "x86-64", which is an improvement over the x86 (obviously even Intel thinks so). Intel did too, but had no interest in pushing it forward to product. Funny, that's not how I recall it. Intel dropped their x86-64 bit plans after trying to push it onto Microsoft, and Microsoft telling them to shove off. I think this link will get more to the truth. From a history perspective, the P7 circa 1996 was to be the 64-bit follow-on to the ia32 architecture. Then Intel shifted gears and joined with HP to merge the P7 with some stuff at HP, producing Itanium. Itanium _was_ intel's 64-bit story (with the 32-bit x86 support in the processor). However, Merced was late and slow and AMD did x86_64 and Intel was forced to include it. scott |
#26
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
On Apr 29, 1:11 am, Robert Redelmeier wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Robert Myers wrote in part: MSFT has been seduced down a dead-end. Sic transit gloria mundi. From your mouth to God's ear. Vista did it, as far as I'm concerned. I was willing to pay my Bill Gates tax, no matter how much I resented it. No more. **Sigh** I *will* learn more about codecs and, if necessary, pay for legal copies for Linux before I will pay one penny for Vista. Robert. |
#27
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
In article KFzRj.12788$Rk6.2453@trnddc07,
says... On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:18:24 -0400, krw wrote: In article , says... " writes: What could be more boring than the x86 domination we have now? Without AMD, there would be no such monoculture. Did you mean "without Intel"? I suppose if AMD hadn't been around, there would have been a greater chance of Intel getting their butts whipped by some other architecture, instead of by AMD. What architecture? You grossly underestimate the x86 inertia. Of course AMD _did_ come up with "x86-64", which is an improvement over the x86 (obviously even Intel thinks so). Intel did too, but had no interest in pushing it forward to product. Funny, that's not how I recall it. Intel dropped their x86-64 bit plans after trying to push it onto Microsoft, and Microsoft telling them to shove off. I think this link will get more to the truth. Only after it was clear that AMD64 was going to happen whatever Intel did, did Intel try to get in front of the train (to derail it). M$ didn't see that in their interest either. http://www.gridtoday.com/03/0929/102028.html -- Keith |
#28
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
In article ,
says... "krw" wrote in message t... In article , says... " writes: What could be more boring than the x86 domination we have now? Without AMD, there would be no such monoculture. Did you mean "without Intel"? I suppose if AMD hadn't been around, there would have been a greater chance of Intel getting their butts whipped by some other architecture, instead of by AMD. What architecture? You grossly underestimate the x86 inertia. Of course AMD _did_ come up with "x86-64", which is an improvement over the x86 (obviously even Intel thinks so). Intel did too, but had no interest in pushing it forward to product. They did, but was told by MS to dump it & use AMD64 code MS did not want to make 2 ver. of Windows. Later, after AMD64 was a done deal. -- Keith |
#29
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
Robert Myers wrote:
Without AMD, one of threee things would have happened: 1. Intel would have had the resources to deliver a satisfactory Itanium product and accompanying compiler on schedule. LOL You are something else, man. |
#30
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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?
Robert Myers wrote:
I personally believe that what we've got is the worst of all possible worlds: AMD on death's door, Microsoft holding on to its monopoly catering to just one ISA, and, to all intents and purposes, zero diversity in processor architecture. I personally believe that's a ludicrous position. Sure, "things could be better", but do you REALLY think we'd have a chip right now with the Core2's price/performance, if it were not for AMD competing with Intel? Sorry, but you'd have to be REALLY stupid to think so. X86 would not be there, and IA64 sure as hell would not be there. |
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