A few questions about Itanium

[Burnsy]

From the intel site:

"IA-32 compatibility supports largest installed software base"

I don't know much about this but isn't IA-32 intel's alternate name for x86?

From what i know Itanium doesn't use x86 but a totally different(and vastly complex) instruction set called EPIC.

So is this just a mistake on my part? a mistake on intel's site? or is there something intel isn't telling us?


Ok that was the question, the rest of this is just poking fun at some of the statments made about Itanium. Not looking to be flamed, just pointing out how stupid the statements are.

"EPIC technology removes performance bottlenecks"

So basically they're saying that it will not slow down no matter how heavy the load is or complex the computations? Seems like another marketing ploy aimed at the idiots.


"Reduced replacement downtime via error logs, hot-swap PCI, and redundancy"

Hmmm last i heard PCI was a feature of motherboards, not processors.

 

[AndyHui]

1. The Itanium processor supports 32-bit instructions; standard x86 programs can be run on the processor (at the speed of a Pentium 100...). It is correct in saying IA32 compatibility.

2. The x86 architecture itself is a bottleneck. Moving to EPIC is a valid statement for removing bottlenecks.

3. Since Itaniums are designed for high-end, you would expect the system to have hot-swap PCI. It may not be a feature of the processor, but having the processor there tends to lead to other features being present.