Replies to post #61169 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

Why didn't you ask why SGI introduced an IPF workstation?

HP discontinued them because they didn't sell nearly well enough for them. SGI introduced them subsequently because HP cancelled them and they thought that although maybe loss-making it was still an essential enough component to grow their piece of the Itanium market.

Big difference. The HP IPF workstation was a general
purpose system with no software and priced expensively
even by RISC standards. Given that the only reason
that RISC workstations were still selling at all vs low
price x86 workstations was legacy software this was
a losing formula.

OTOH the SGI workstation has a specific market - high
end visualization. It also has a built-in app base from
the start - SGI's extensive MIPS graphics workstation
software base running under Transitive's recompiler.
The Dorado is sufficiently fast to provide a performance
boost for SGI's existing MIPS workstation customers
while SGI and ISVs build up an native IA64 app base.

Anyways, from my point of view Itanium hasn't been strong enough to grow the PA-Risc/Alpha/Itanium/R16000 market so far, and is not likely to significantly enlarge it in the near future, but as always I can be wrong.

Market data I heard to date shows that the designated RISC
replacement market (PA/Alpha/MIPS) represents less than
half of IPF sales. IPF is taking about the same chunk of
opposing RISC business as friendly RISC business with
the remainder coming from x86.

You only talk about platform convergence. Does this mean you don't expect the cpu architectures will converge within the next four years?

Of course not. I think IPF has more to gain than to lose
from sharing infrastructure with x86. Intel is setting the
stage for a near level playing field competition between
x86 and IPF MPUs and will let various market segments
decide which architecture is better suited for its needs.
To date x86's biggest advantage over IPF is its software
base and lower platform cost both of which shrink over time.
IMO IPF's biggest advantage over x86 is microarchitectural
implementations that favours memory over complex logic
and transistors over interconnect, both of which grow more
important over time.