ITANIC sinking fast? Is Intel's Itanium CPU losing ground

[wallie_x]

Intel Forcefully Rebuffs Skeptics of Its Advanced Itanium Chip

At the risk of getting myself in a lot of trouble, I'm going to declare this the year of Itanium," Paul Otellini, Intel's president, told a gathering of analysts in New York.

Yeah Right!
More like the year of Intel arm twisting in a vain attempt to keep AMD from blowing them away in the server market.
HERE!

[Darthgary]

The itanium is a very nice and efficient CPU, I hope Intel continues it.

[wallie_x]

As an AMD fan I really don't know much about this CPU. But from what I do understand is that it takes specialized software to run and it’s quite expensive.

With AMD getting support from both SUN and Apache, the Opteron CPU will look much more appealing to budget conscious companies.

Only time will tell though, and hey!! Maybe when prices settle a little I might own an Athlon 64, but right now its Athlon XP 2600 for the next couple of years.

Things are going to get interesting though.

[Mickwish]

I think Intel is gonna have to change it's pitch to stay ahead. With AMD announcing they will produce ALL 64-bit CPU's within a couple of years, Intel is gonna have to embrace 64-bit for the desktop whether they like it or not, IMO. And that will hurt Itanium sales, no doubt.

Itanium has a good rep as a server CPU, but if it doesn't compete on prce with AMD it's gonna go down, IMO.

Cheers
Mick

[sm8000]

Itanium took like 4(?) years to bring to market in the first place, and it was and still is overpriced, and doesn't do anything 32-bit.

Don't know much about Itanium 2, but I imagine it can't possibly offer what Athlon 64 and Opteron can do for the different markets.

[RobRich]

Itanium runs 32-bit software just fine. However, it must use a dreadfully slow emulation/translation layer to do so that averages around a pathetic 4-10 clock cycles per x86 instruction executed. Think Pentium Pro performance, or less.

Intel's answer to the x86-64 platform? Yamhill anyone?

Back to the Itanium, BTRANS should be near release for both Linux and Windows 2003 Server. It is a highly optimized software emulation layer for the IA-64 architecture. It will provide 32-bit x86 software compatibility and support options like SSE that are not available via the processor's embedded translation engine.

An Intel representative claimed the IA-32 Execution Layer (BTRANS) will be able to execute traditional x86 software with decent performance. She even said the 1.5GHz Itanium 2 will be able to run 32-bit software about as fast as a 1.5GHz Xeon MP. Not great, but better than before.

Robert Richmond

[Dputiger]

BTRANS has been delayed from what I've heard. Not supposed to show now until Q1-Q2 next year. Even once it does, and we allow for Marketing Speak to be funneled out of the Intel reps statement, what are we left with? A 1.2 GHz Xeon?

I really dont' think that's going to be very impressive to anyone, even if it IS a giant leap forward (and its that, too).

Software emulation layers simply haven't proven themselves effective as of yet, and Intel's is going to have to have a stunning code optimization system to be any different.

[XxCowOfChaosxX]

omg...I didn't undertstand the title at first, didnt know why u used "ITANIC" haha

[Ace McGirk]

Originally posted by Darthgary
The itanium is a very nice and efficient CPU, I hope Intel continues it.

At what? generating heat?

[noisedude]

it seems to me that while everyone's been slating AMD for not having the architecture to keep up with the p4 in the 32bit market, it's been quietly perfecting a killer new piece to take the next market before it's even mainstream. intel have been caught off guard by their inflexibility, AMD are giving people what they are going to want but by keeping 32bit native support they're easing us in til the time is right to ditch the legacy! i'm not anti-intel but it does looks like it's their own fault!!