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Intel 64-bit Announcements at IDF

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the forced-to-compete dept.

cribb writes "Some fascinating stuff is going on over at the IDF. Ever since the first sneak previews of the Opteron, there has been lots of uncertainty around its future, and that of AMD. AMD have bet everything on the success of their new 64-bit CPU, and with Microsoft severely delaying the release of a 64-bit Windows, and Intel complaining that 64-bit processing has no place in the desktop market, things were starting to look dim for AMD. However, after rumours around the 64-bit extensions of the Pentium 4 EE, it became clear that Intel is not willing to lag behind AMD in the 'innovation' department. Now comes the shocker: Intel boss Craig Barrett today anounced that Xeon-class 64-bit server CPUs codenamed Nocona will be coming out the second half of 2004. It isn't clear whether they will support AMD's Opteron AMD64 extensions. Barrett is quoted saying, 'There will be one operating system that will support all (64-bit) extended systems.' Maybe 64-bit computing is right around the corner after all, and we may even see compatible instruction sets from Intel and AMD! And does this mean that Intel will be dumping Itanium, which never caught on as expected in the server market, and forget the billions spent on developing it?" See some other articles at EE Times, and EWeek.

9 of 518 comments (clear)

  1. They know how to keep a secret... by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Intel sure knows how to keep a secret. So what will these mystery Xeon-class 64 bit CPU's be? Opeterons with an 'i' painted on them?

    As for one operating system, who? They in cahoots with Microsoft, after Microsoft dragged it's feet on AMD? Sounds like collusion, anti-competitiveness, and all that.

    --

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  2. More brainless ad campaigns... by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So after the Apple 'first 64 bit desktop' campaign we get to see an AMD 'first 64 bit desktop' _and_ an Intel 'first 64 bit desktop' campaign?

    In the mean time my 1998 vintage Mesh/Alpha desktop system (no, it's not a server, it was sold via consumer magazines in the UK) is still running happily with 64 bit Linux... and that was hardly the first either, an honour that probably belongs to someone like Sun.

    --
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  3. Intel may also push new memory standard by morcheeba · · Score: 4, Interesting

    EE Times is also reporting that Intel may be pushing a new kind of RAM interface to compete with existing DDR and RDRAM. At 2 Gbit/sec per wire, this is about twice the speed of current RDRAM and four times the speed of DDR SDRAM. But, more interestingly, this is a point-to-point architecture - unlike the traditional bus architecture, when you add more memory modules you can get more bandwidth. Also notable is that simultaneous bi-directional communications happens over a single wire. Infineon and Samsung have made test chips, and results are to be released at the International Solid State Circuits Conference today.

    I wonder how this figures into their processor/chipset roadmap...

    --
    HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
  4. Is this a surprise to anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Posting anon due to affiliations.

    Anyone that didn't think Intel had 64-bit Workstation and Desktop chips "in the pipeline", as it were, must be sitting in a cave humming with their fingers in their ears.

    The production pipeline on these sorts of products. take years, so this was not a knee jerk reaction. If you look very carefully at what Intel has actually officially said the whole time, you'll see that they simply said they would provide a solution when the appropriate OS support and perceived need becomes available, and that is EXACTLY what has happened here. What do you know, Steve Balmer announces Windows XP 64 now has support for these "Xeon" extensions. These things don't happen over night.

    It is still a fact that most people DO NOT need 64-bit computing in any way shape or form, but one mistake that Intel did make is the fickleness of the vocal minority and AMD fanbois.

    Also, if you think that the existing Prescotts don't already have these extensions (just disabled at the moment), you are also kidding yourself.

    1. Re:Is this a surprise to anyone? by Fnkmaster · · Score: 5, Interesting
      People do not need 64-bit computing for standard desktop computing applications - of course not. But the point here is a further shift down in price point of the workstation and server markets - lots of applications where you did need 64 bit memory addressing or where 64 bit calculation helped a lot are now cheaply implemented on commodity hardware. And if you don't need it, the AMD 64 bit hardware still runs your old 32 bit apps better.


      Your derisive tone clearly does quite a disservice to your employer (whether it's Intel, Microsoft or related) - makes you guys look like a bunch of whiny shits. Athlon64 and the other 64 bit Athlon processors are doing well because they perform well with both legacy apps and OSes as well as 64-bit apps and OSes. They are good products, and yes, the 64 bit "higher numbers are better" marketing factor is part of it. Assuming you work for Intel (or are an Intel "fanboi" of some sort to use your own gay little derogatory term), you should be very familiar with making higher-is-better a key part of your marketing strategy, since Intel has been doing it with MHz for years now, pipelining until the cows come home to crank the MHz rating higher and higher to generate sales of new processors, whether or not their "goodness" is actually directly related to the operating frequency of the processor or not.

  5. The Register agrees by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Register compares Itanic to the i432: "Bob Colwell, chief architecture honcho for the chip that saved Intel in the mid-1990s, the P6 (Pentium Pro), described the i432 as 'a wonderful research project masquerading as a bad product'."

  6. Intel wouldn't ditch Itanium... by Glasswire · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...any more than IBM would ditch Power4/5 architecture, just because they have a commodity market x86 chip with 64-bit address extensions (Opteron).

    In the 'big iron' enterprise market against RISC where Itanium is beating everything handily (check out the latest TPC-C list Top 10 where Itanium holds spots 1,3,4,7,10 (5 out of the Top 10 are Itanium systems running a mix of Linux, HP-UX and Windows on HP and NEC systems), Itanium is gradually out-selling all of the big RISC opponents like Power4. Note that IBM is certainly not spending the money to put up an Opteron cluster for the TPC-C test(no 32-way or 64-way scaled solutions for it on the horizon) even if they got good enough results (which they wouldn't) if they can't beat Itanium 2 right now with the high-margin Power 4. No doubt they'll have a run at Itanium again this year with Power 5.

    But there's no way that Opteron OR a 64-bit Xeon plays in the big high thoughput space, so people that assume Intel would get rid of Itanium simply don't know what they're talking about.

    As for Itanium not selling, That's funny. Itanium sold over 100,000 cpus last year which is a big number for the enterprise server market (That's more than some other major RISC processors sold in 2003 (like Power 4)). If you don't believe me Google "Itanium" "100,000" and "Otellini" and you'll see lots of links to Intel pres Paul Otellini's announcement back in Nov that Intel would ship over 100,000 Itanium processors in 2003.

  7. See the doc: IA32-e is in fact x86-64 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While AMD have alway talking about new developpment and invits others to share, Intel keep all secret and try to act like no others exists (including there customers sometimes).

    Sorry Intel. There is no AMD words in your doc, but now all the worlds known that your IA32-e is no more than the AMD X86-64. For me you just act like a child!

    Intel IA32-e documentation:
    http://developer.intel.com/technol ogy/64bitextensi ons/30083401.pdf
    http://developer.intel.com/techn ology/64bitextensi ons/30083501.pdf

    AMD x86-64 documentation:
    http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/co ntent_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/24592.pdf
    http://www.amd.co m/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/24593.pdf
    http://www.amd.co m/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/24594.pdf
    http://www.amd.co m/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/26568.pdf
    http://www.amd.co m/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/26569.pdf

    How long Intel while wait before it make the same kind "new extention" compatible with HyperTransport ?

  8. Intel 960 by bstadil · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Add the Intel 960 to the list.

    It was supposed to replace X86. Itanic will go same route. Repositioned and slowly fade into the sunset.

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