AMD?s planning an 'escape from confines of Intel?s x86 instruction set'

[irwincur]

I'm no processor designer, but I think I've noticed something that might be a clue: A large percentage of their processors are actually made by Big Blue, and in turn, Big Blue is using them in quite a few servers. IBM, in turn, has rights to the CELL processor, and the technology that makes it work. The CELL, which will be in production in the very near future, should be 50$ or so in a similar configuration to the PS3, and so long as AMD and IBM work together, they could give a direct link to the processor through, say, a secondary socket or slot. (And the chipset makers would love this, as they could still use their old chipsets.)

IBM has already stated that they will not be producing the cell for the greater computing market. It will be employed in specific applications - such as video game systems and set top boxes. This is precisely where it will excel. It is by no means a good general processor.