Throwing good money after bad

Intel will on Tuesday offer a further glimpse into the future of its Itanium processor family, shining the spotlight on a new model code-named Poulson, CNET News.com has learned.

Pat Gelsinger, Intel's former chief technology officer and now one of two chiefs of the company's Digital Enterprise Group, is expected to discuss Poulson briefly at Intel's Developer Forum in San Francisco, sources familiar with the situation said.

Poulson is scheduled to succeed Tukwila, an Itanium processor due in 2007 that had previously been code-named Tanglewood. Intel declined to comment for this story.

http://news.com.com/Intel+to+spotlight+new+Itanium+Poulson/2100-1006_3-5593047.html?tag=nefd.lede

Ok, let's think about this for a second.

  • Intel has a CPU family called Itanium.
  • Itanium, when running x86 software, requires the use of an emulator that is so slow as to be unusable.
  • Itanium requires a significant investment in all of the supporting chips.
  • Itanium will not be I/O compatible with Xeon until 2007.
  • Itanium is a no show in the white-box area.
  • Itanium systems are not for sale at CompUSA or Best Buy.
  • There is a commodity 64 bit platform that is referred to as x64.
  • There will be no new version of WinXP for Itanium.

I don't think that Itanium will be a good investment for Intel assuming that they want to drive the CPU into the volume/commodity area.

Wally

 

2 Comments

  • The whole point of getting an Itanium box is to get away from the x86 architecture, even the 64-bit version. I see that as a major plus, not a disadvantage.

  • Your right jerry it is a advantage and a disadvantage. At the moment, however, it is a disadvantage, due to the fact that most everyone still uses x86 software and will be for years to come. If they were smart Intel would of started trying to "slowly" move away from the x84 architecture, and not just try to do it overnight. In my personal opinion Intel has been failing far to long to even be considered a good CPU manufacturer. My pick in this, and this has been my pick for serveral years, would have to go to AMD.

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