3 ms·

But why not just jump and let momentum carry x86 like before? The problem with Itanium was largely that the ISA itself sucked to work with and SW/tools were not

But why not just jump and let momentum carry x86 like before? The problem with Itanium was largely that the ISA itself sucked to work with and SW/tools were not ready for prime time when 3p SW/HW vendors like Nvidia were expected to have ported to it. It doesn't seem like ARM and maybe RISC-V will have the same issues, at leatin terms of magnitude so I don't really see why it matters. I think long term they risk ending up like Canon/Nikon in the DSLR market when Sony came along with the new fangled mirrorless technology - sometimes you gotta disrupt yourself and skate to where the pick is going.

klelatti 4y ago
Largely agree. I'd be astonished of they don't have high performance RISC-V designs under development. Problem is that the endpoint is much less attractive (for them) than where they are now and the transition will be very, very messy. At a time when the business is under strain for other reasons it's a risky move. Should have done it a few years ago - when they had process lead - but hindsight is a wonderful thing!