Re:AMD Killed the Itanium
by giantrobot on Saturday February 04, 2023 @03:22PM
(#34657841)
> AMD killed that plan by releasing AMD64 architecture. It was an obvious upgrade to x86, so it would clearly do better in the market than IA-64.
One of the best aspects of the Opteron was it also happened to be a fantastic 32-bit CPU in addition to AMD64. This was a period where a lot of software, even FOSS wasn't 64-bit clean. There was a lot of pointer arithmetic hiding deep in libraries that were assuming pointers would always be 32-bits.
The Opteron running a 32-bit OS at least as well as a 32-bit Athlon was a huge point in its favor. So your existing system running on new Opteron hardware ran fine and you could mix and match Xeon and Opterons in a fleet. Then switch over to 64-bit on the Opterons for (hopefully) better performance.
One of the best aspects of the Opteron was it also happened to be a fantastic 32-bit CPU in addition to AMD64. This was a period where a lot of software, even FOSS wasn't 64-bit clean. There was a lot of pointer arithmetic hiding deep in libraries that were assuming pointers would always be 32-bits.
The Opteron running a 32-bit OS at least as well as a 32-bit Athlon was a huge point in its favor. So your existing system running on new Opteron hardware ran fine and you could mix and match Xeon and Opterons in a fleet. Then switch over to 64-bit on the Opterons for (hopefully) better performance.