what other cpus are there for enthusiasts than intel or amd?

[norseamd]

most of the enthusiast cpu industry is either intel or amd.

what else is there?

assuming you would have to use some sort of linux?

would many linux games and software still be compatible?

anything else?

 

[sandorski]

None. Unless you want or are able to write your own Drivers/APIs or even make your own hardware to make things work on the various CPUs used for large Servers and the like.

 

[DominionSeraph]

There's ARM if you're enthusiastic about Angry Birds.

 

[code65536]

all of the x86 cpu industry is either intel or amd.

Fixed that for you.

Take a time machine two decades back, and you'll find other manufacturers like Cyrix or VIA. But it's a 2-player market (that may even shrink down to just one years down the line) because CPUs are hard.

 

[ShintaiDK]

If you consider that enthusiast, there is also VIA, Vortex86 and so on. Else there is also plenty of alternatives outside of x86.

 

[lamedude]

The AmigaX1000 has an enthusiast price ($3K!) and exoticness. If you don't mind obsolete software you can dig up old Alpha/Itanium/MIPS/SPARC workstations on eBay.

 

[BSim500]

most of the enthusiast cpu industry is either intel or amd. what else is there?

All I can think of is the Via Epia embedded stuff (C3, etc), which last time I looked were a lot worse than Intel's Atom chips (perf, perf-per-watt and overall chipset driver quality). Nothing like the old days of the 486 clones (Cyrix, IBM, SGS Thompson, UMC, etc). These days, enthusiasts usually muck about with ARM / Raspberry Pi stuff, or for x86, those tiny Mini-ITX / NUC's.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

why would someone feel a need for an alternative?

 

[SPBHM]

Via Nano Quad Core is probably the best "x86" CPU outside of AMD-Intel.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/VIA-Nano-QuadCore-L4700-Notebook-Processor.53959.0.html

 

[scannall]

most of the enthusiast cpu industry is either intel or amd.

what else is there?

assuming you would have to use some sort of linux?

would many linux games and software still be compatible?

anything else?

Well, I suppose the IBM Power8 is in a different league entirely. It's a real beast, but it won't play Crysis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER8

 

[Soulkeeper]

there is always arm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson

From a linux perspective pretty much any cpu on the market is supported.

 

[norseamd]

powerpc came to mind

Else there is also plenty of alternatives outside of x86.

which ones?

 

[ShintaiDK]

which ones?

Most are already mentioned in the thread. ARM, MIPS, IA64, POWER and SPARC based CPUs.

 

[Rakehellion]

IBM PowerPC.

 

[Cerb]

There's ARM if you're enthusiastic about Angry Birds.

Or tinkering. The RPi isn't the only cheap ARM dev board out there, anymore.

 

[Phynaz]

Raspberry Pi, and about a million Arduino projects.

 

[Cerb]

I think you mean Arduino. Adreno is my cell phone's GPU family .

There is now the Beaglebone Black, and new Odroids, right off the top of my head. The RPi has the best overall support, but the BB is starting to get good support, too, including for FOSS server products (PIAF, FI). The Odroid boards are likely to get better supported as more people buy them, as well, but they are still a bit under the radar, compared to the other two.

 

[Phynaz]

Yep, I ninja edited that one. iPad autocorrect.

 

[Ken g6]

Fixed that for you.

Take a time machine two decades back, and you'll find other manufacturers like Cyrix or VIA. But it's a 2-player market (that may even shrink down to just one years down the line) because CPUs are hard.

Take that time machine back about a decade plus a little more and you find Transmeta. I still think they may have been onto something with that software emulation of x86. They were just a decade too early.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Did anyone mention Itanium yet? Do they still make those? What about Intel's Larrabee chip that fits into a Xeon socket? Could be fun to play with if you're a programmer.

 

[DominionSeraph]

If you don't mind obsolete software you can dig up old Alpha/Itanium/MIPS/SPARC workstations on eBay.

>workstation
Pleb

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cray-J932SE-Supercomputer-/121298733569

 

[bryanl]

I'm running an Alpha CPU built on a 5nm process, puny humans.

 

[cytg111]

I'm running an Alpha CPU built on a 5nm process, puny humans.

^^Found the NSA mole !!

 

[NTMBK]

ARM could be a fun diversion. Get something with a fairly standard variant of the instruction set, like the Beaglebone Black- the Raspberry Pi has some weird quirks relating to its floating point unit, and is based on an older version of the instruction set.

 

[jhu]

ARM could be a fun diversion. Get something with a fairly standard variant of the instruction set, like the Beaglebone Black- the Raspberry Pi has some weird quirks relating to its floating point unit, and is based on an older version of the instruction set.

Depends on what you want the goal is. If you and want to be plugged into the Raspberry Pi community, you should get that. If you just want to mess around with programming on an ARM-based computer, the Samsung Chromebook with their Exynos 5 Dual chip is pretty nice: put it in developer mode and install Ubuntu on it. Plus it has a much faster CPU than than the Raspberry Pi.