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Ask HN: Could Intel have challenged x86 with 64-bit RISC instead of Itanium?

3 points by networked 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pestatije 3y ago
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- networked 3y ago
  That was supposed to be "challenged". Thanks for noticing. Fixed. I wanted to write "competed with" but didn't have the space. "Replaced" would have fit; however, it would be too easy to answer "no".
FrankWilhoit 3y ago
x86 has survived, not despite its flukes, but because of them. The effort to learn around them increased the sunk costs that created an emotional block against moving off the platform.
bell-cot 3y ago
Sure. But to have any chance in the marketplace, the new "iRISC64" architecture would have to actually ship working chips, with decent price/performance ratios, in a timely manner. The #1 reason for Itanium failing was Intel's disastrous inability to do that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Design_and_delays:_1994%E2%80%932001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Design_and_delays:_199... Meanwhile, actual x86 chips were shipping - in volume, with fast-improving price/performances ratios. And industry insiders, who were familiar with Intel's long history of great-sounding, non-x86 architectures - which turned out to be crap for ~99% of use cases - were quietly filing "Itanium" into the "another one of those" pigeonhole.
warrenm 3y ago
Itanium was a 64-bit RISC architecture Had Intel said something like Apple has each time they have made a CPU change (68k to PPC to x86 to ARM): "here is the new thing; we will support a fat binary model for a 'while'; move to the new thing", Itanium (which, from a technical viewpoint should have blown the ever-loving PANTS off x86) would have [probably] 'won' Or we would have an even-more splintered CPU space - x86-64 from AMD, ARM, POWER, Itanium, etc But they did not They release the Itanic as a side-by-side with their existing CPU lines, which encouraged AMD to develop AMD64, and more-or-less forever broke Intel's utter dominance of the desktop and server space
RetroTechie 3y ago
Wasn't a big reason that success of Itanium relied heavily on compiler technology to make effective use of the VLIW architecture? And that even with compiler support, it didn't manage to give Itanium systems a (big enough) edge over other systems? Combined with product delays & other issues. What makes more sense to me is Intel's proposal to drop some 16/32 bit legacy cruft from x86-64 ("x86-S"). Perhaps even drop user-mode 32 bit support? (depending on how much it simplifies implementations, and/or improves performance/W). Haven't heard about this recently. But maybe it's up for introduction later on? This would keep support for existing software (mostly) intact. But still cut out a nice chunk of x86 ugliness.
- brucehoult 3y ago
  Dropping compatibility would be a huge change for Intel. Don't the latest chips still look like an 8086 on reset? But never say never, I guess. Arm has entirely dropped 32 bit support in the last couple of years of cores. Cortex-A710 is the only ARMv9 core that supports 32 bit in User mode (EL0). Ability to run a 32 bit OS has been gone for quite a while.

3 points by networked 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pestatije 3y ago

networked 3y ago
That was supposed to be "challenged". Thanks for noticing. Fixed. I wanted to write "competed with" but didn't have the space. "Replaced" would have fit; however, it would be too easy to answer "no".

FrankWilhoit 3y ago

x86 has survived, not despite its flukes, but because of them. The effort to learn around them increased the sunk costs that created an emotional block against moving off the platform.

bell-cot 3y ago

Sure. But to have any chance in the marketplace, the new "iRISC64" architecture would have to actually ship working chips, with decent price/performance ratios, in a timely manner. The #1 reason for Itanium failing was Intel's disastrous inability to do that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Design_and_delays:_1994%E2%80%932001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Design_and_delays:_199... Meanwhile, actual x86 chips were shipping - in volume, with fast-improving price/performances ratios. And industry insiders, who were familiar with Intel's long history of great-sounding, non-x86 architectures - which turned out to be crap for ~99% of use cases - were quietly filing "Itanium" into the "another one of those" pigeonhole.

warrenm 3y ago

Itanium was a 64-bit RISC architecture Had Intel said something like Apple has each time they have made a CPU change (68k to PPC to x86 to ARM): "here is the new thing; we will support a fat binary model for a 'while'; move to the new thing", Itanium (which, from a technical viewpoint should have blown the ever-loving PANTS off x86) would have [probably] 'won' Or we would have an even-more splintered CPU space - x86-64 from AMD, ARM, POWER, Itanium, etc But they did not They release the Itanic as a side-by-side with their existing CPU lines, which encouraged AMD to develop AMD64, and more-or-less forever broke Intel's utter dominance of the desktop and server space

RetroTechie 3y ago

Wasn't a big reason that success of Itanium relied heavily on compiler technology to make effective use of the VLIW architecture? And that even with compiler support, it didn't manage to give Itanium systems a (big enough) edge over other systems? Combined with product delays & other issues. What makes more sense to me is Intel's proposal to drop some 16/32 bit legacy cruft from x86-64 ("x86-S"). Perhaps even drop user-mode 32 bit support? (depending on how much it simplifies implementations, and/or improves performance/W). Haven't heard about this recently. But maybe it's up for introduction later on? This would keep support for existing software (mostly) intact. But still cut out a nice chunk of x86 ugliness.

brucehoult 3y ago
Dropping compatibility would be a huge change for Intel. Don't the latest chips still look like an 8086 on reset? But never say never, I guess. Arm has entirely dropped 32 bit support in the last couple of years of cores. Cortex-A710 is the only ARMv9 core that supports 32 bit in User mode (EL0). Ability to run a 32 bit OS has been gone for quite a while.