Intel's New Technology: The Itanium 2
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Keywords
Itanium 2 processor, microprocessors, high-end enterprise, business intelligence, databases, enterprise resource planning, SCM, computing, computer-aided engineering
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Competition
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Intel's chip rivals such as IBM, Sun and AMD had already launched their 64-bit chips. Digital Equipment began selling its high-powered 64-bit Alpha chips in the 1990s. Sun's high-end Unix machines used the company's 64-bit UltraSPARC chips. IBM made another 64-bit chip, the Power4. For the first time since the IBM PC exploded onto the market in 1981, PCs were losing some of their luster. Instead of more powerful PCs to run faster software programs, many customers just wanted cheap PCs to get online. Making low-cost PCs meant using low-cost chips; something that rivals such as AMD seemed to do better than Intel. AMD gained market share from almost nothing to about 18% by pricing much lower than Intel. AMD is expected to launch its 64-bit computer chip, Opteron, by mid-2003. Opteron represents its biggest gamble ever and is a direct threat to Itanium 2 processors. Though Opteron is designed for high-end servers it would also run like 32-bit (Pentium and Athlon) processors in most PCs. Opteron would run 32-bit Windows and Linux software, as well as future 64-bit code. A PC version of Opteron is also expected to be available unlike Intel, which is not planning to launch the PC version of Itanium 2 immediately. |
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Desktop computers, and most servers, used processors that read data from memory, 32 bits at a time. A computer running a 32-bit processor could only use a maximum of four gigabytes of memory chips. All other data has to be stored on hard drives, where it could not be accessed nearly as fast, so when working with multi-gigabyte databases, 32-bit computers worked more slowly. In theory, a 64-bit processor could access vastly more memory: about 18 billion gigabytes. In practice, the first-generation Opteron would only be able to handle one terabyte, or 1,000 gigabytes of data. But that is still enough to make Opteron-based machines well suited for big number-crunching jobs. Unlike Itanium 2, Opteron would not have the problem of software rewriting and hardware reconfiguring because it contained all the features of a standard X86 chip. It is designed to run software as efficiently as any Pentium or Athlon processor, and future 64-bit programs as well.
Opterons were priced from $283 to $794, while prices of Itanium 2 processors ranges from $1,338 to $4,226. By offering both 64-bit and 32-bit operation with the same chip, AMD believes that Opteron systems would be the perfect upgrades for aging servers that used Intel's Pentium and Xeon processors . AMD would make another big bet later in 2003, by bringing out a 64-bit processor for home computers. The Athlon 64, due for release in September 2003, would be the first such chip aimed at the consumer market. In early 2003, there were no 64-bit applications for consumers, but AMD believed that once Athlon 64 machines were available, multimedia and game software companies would create programs to take advantage of their power. Intel has no plans for a 64-bit chip for desktop users. David Brown, general manager of Intel's software enabling group said5 : "Right now we're not seeing demand for 64-bit on the desktop. It's cost-prohibitive. Users are getting the performance they need from 32-bit."
5] The core architecture for all the processors, IA architecture, is the same. The difference is whether it is built on 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit platforms. All processors provide software compatibility and a huge support infrastructure to the embedded designer.