Itanium Still Going Strong?
For those wondering if the Itanium with its IA-64 was going away now that Intel has more or less adopted the x86-64 instruction set, it appears the answer is no:
"In a conference call on Thursday, Intel laid out its mid- to long-term plans for the Itanium Product Family (IPF). With all the hype around Penryn and Nehalem and the ongoing popularity of chatter about Itanium's eventual demise at the hands of 64-bit x86, Intel took a moment to remind the press and analysts that Itanium is still here, still posting double-digit year-over-year growth in revenue and unit shipments, and still looking toward the future.
Indeed, Itanium's future was the focus of the call, in which Intel described its IPF roadmap for the next few product iterations. Here's a summary of what was announced."
Indeed, Itanium's future was the focus of the call, in which Intel described its IPF roadmap for the next few product iterations. Here's a summary of what was announced."
Perhaps the most interesting new feature coming soon to an Itanium near you is CSI. No, that's not a new TV series (CSI:Itanium!), but rather Common Systerms Interconnect, or a fancy acronym that means you can plug either a Xeon or Itanium CPU into the same motherboard sometime in the future. Hopefully sharing motherboards with the more common (and affordable) Xeon will help drive down the overall cost of Itanium systems, even if the price of a motherboard is only a relatively small portion of the entire system price.
