Re: AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:22:52 -0700 (PDT), Robert Myers
<rbmyersusa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
NNN