Stop the X86 Instruction Set War

[janggut]

very interesting piece of reading on the instruction set war between Intel & AMD. this guy calls for an open, unified standard for x86 instruction set extensions.

worth reading as it tells us about the ancient feud between Intel & AMD & how they try to outdo each other.

[Elliot Kane]

I think I now understand why so many games companies hate developing games for the PC.

I knew Intel & AMD were competing, of course, but I hadn't really thought about quite what that meant before - and certainly not to programmers, who must consider this a major headache.

Good find, Jang

[Terrordar]

I think that different designs MUST persist, even if it is bad for games, why?

Because there must be competition.

[Elliot Kane]

A good point, Terror.

I think they need to find a good balance between competition (prices) and co-operation (Supporting each other's innovations) though. Not least because it's good for them, as well as the industry as a whole.

[janggut]

for consumers, with only two major processor manufacturers left, it's definitely scary if there's only one clear winner.

for chip designers & low level programmers (low level here means working with machine codes), the competition has gone to a nutty level where almost every little innovation, with little time to spend on refining it, is thrown into the die of the chip without looking at the grand design of the chip. in other words, they keep adding stuff without revising many of the old stuff in the design. thus a bloated processor with high wattage. not so good for consumers in the end.

[Alrik]

I'm against monopolism. 'Nuff said.

The EU has several suits against Intel running - accusing them of exploiting their power (especially against AMD, of course).

I'm pro AMD, since they built a huge factory plant in East Germany - near Dresden - giving a lot of otherwise unemployed people from eastern Germany work. Still today, eastern Germany has relatively high rates of unemployment.

By the way, did you know that either AMD & Intel hold Patents from each other ?