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AMD comes to the 64-bit rescue

Matt Loney ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 26 Sep 2003 16:20 BST

When Intel launched its first 32-bit processor in 1985, it might have marked a watershed moment for the personal computer industry, but users barely batted an eyelid. The 386 brought with it more than just 32-bit processing and addressing; it also brought multitasking to the desktop.

Aside from a rather high price, buyers saw only benefits in the 386 processor: it enabled multitasking for the new 32-bit applications that would follow; it ran all the old 16-bit software that had been written for the 286, and it ran that software a whole lot faster than the 286 could ever hope to manage.

Fast forward a decade or two, and some might say Intel is one bit short of a byte. Itanium, its 64-bit processor, is selling slowly however you count it. Like all chip manufacturers, Intel does not give out its own figures, but luckily for us AMD is more than happy to oblige, and estimates Intel has shipped around 16,000 of its 64-bit chips. Now you can add a few to compensate for AMD's negative spin, remove a few for the ones that Intel shipped gratis, and divide by four to get a figure that represents the total number of servers out there (few are single-processor servers) using Itanium. It's not very impressive by any measure.

The problem is, that when Intel got the 64-bit bug and began working on how it could prepare for the next big thing in processors, it turned to HP. It seemed like a good idea at the time, mind you; HP had just completed its PA-RISC processor, and was working on its EPIC architecture, to which the boys at Intel took a shine. The resulting processor would enable Intel to ditch much of the clunky x86 instruction set, but never mind: this would be an enterprise chip and enterprises would be happy to ditch the 32-bit legacy in return for all the benefits that 64-bits bring.

Now compare AMD's approach. AMD appeared on the mainstream computing scene in the early 90s with its own reverse-engineered version of the 386. After a bumpy ride through the mid-90s, caused largely by the decision to forward-engineer its version of the 486, AMD emerged with the Athlon and now the Athlon 64 -- its own 64-bit processor.