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Intel Shifting 64-bit Plans

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the kicking-it-up-a-notch dept.

OS24Ever writes "News.com has an article stating that 'Intel plans to demonstrate a 64-bit revamp of its Xeon and Pentium processors in mid-February--an endorsement of a major rival's strategy and a troubling development for Intel's Itanium chip' Is this the end of Itanium?" Looks like the rumors were true.

4 of 462 comments (clear)

  1. Itanium is not being replaced by mrm677 · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, this does not signal that Itanium is doomed. Have a look at www.spec.org and look at the CPU2000 scores. Itanium is starting to kick some serious tail.

    However Itanium is not a desktop chip-- its too big. 64-bit x86 will be a consumer product for desktops.

    1. Re:Itanium is not being replaced by LeninZhiv · · Score: 4, Informative

      The worlds largest computer company is in the process of migrating their whole HP-UX line

      Of course, to the best of my knowledge, * IBM * doesn't have much of an HP-UX line, so I can't imagine this migration you speak of is a very big undertaking.

  2. Re:64 bits of nothingness by JanneM · · Score: 5, Informative

    People would rent time on huge (and hugely expensive) supercomputing centers; greatly simplify the models, knowing they introduce oversimplifications and errors; or, simply, not do the modeling they really wanted to do at all. A friend is working in a chip design company, and his simulations regularily run over an entire weekend, despite the hefty hardware they have.

    In some areas (like climate modeling and some kinds of neural simulations), people can _still_ not do the kind of modeling they would really like to do, 64 bit clusters or not.

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  3. Re:saw it coming by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    As somebody who has worm a *lot* of tin foil hats...

    The tinfoil hat crowd would happily tell you that the reason there's no 64 bit windows is because Microsoft knew about this a long time ago and deliberately held off releasing Win64 technology because of some shady business dealings with Intel.

    I have to point out than Windows Server 2003 64 bit edition is currently a free download from MS's website, and comes with a one year free trial.

    I have it installed. I rather like it. But, it's damn well not ready for prime time. It couldn't pick up the ethernet on my Athlon64 without some headaches. Lots of people are having trouble with SATA. There is no hardware 3D, even with the latest detonators. My sound hardware apparently has no driver support of any sort.

    Seriously, it just isn't ready. MS is doing some respectable things with 2k3. No stupid luna theme, IE is way locked down by default, and it bitches at you if you try a weak administrator password. (it's even pickier than Linux about what it calls 'weak')

    Linux is in a much better state. Fedora Core .96 for AMD64 picked up my ethernet right off, and my sound seems to work for playing, but I haven't gotten it to record anything. The detonators are still a work in progress... I hear reports of people getting them running, but I have no luck.

    And yes, I really do mean that I wear a lot of tin foil hats. I even visited the Periodic Table Table whilst wearing one. I got into a discussion with Theodore Gray about the purity of the aluminium in 'Tin Foil' Hats, while I was at Wolfram research. I own a VAX, an Athlon 64, and I've made a pilgrimage to the periodic table table. Do I get a Karma bonus?