The Inquirer reports that Intel won’t go with an x86-64 processor.
I wouldn’t take that all too seriously.
Not that I think we’re being lied to, but you shouldn’t take that statement as meaning there’s no way, no how it ever could happen. Intel burns no bridges with that statement.
Yamhill (Intel’s x86-64 project) is a contingency project. You create contingency projects to protect yourself in case things you don’t want to happen happen.
Intel would much, much rather not have to do x86-64. They’d much rather build and sell very expensive 64-bit processors.
Even under the worst of circumstances, Intel would end up being dragged kicking and screaming to x86-64. Hammer would have to be a threatening success for Intel to act.
But if you want to think Intel won’t do it under any circumstance and give AMD a free ride to conquer the world, just who recently got dragged kicking and screaming to DDR for the PIV?
x86-64 would not be terribly difficult for Intel to implement. The circuitry needed for x86-64 only adds about 5% to CPU die space.
If Intel doesn’t do this, it will be because of pride and not wanting to risk/kill their huge investment in 64-bit technology, not because they can’t implement it.
That was the case before the statement, that is the case afterwards.
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