B. Kuestner wrote: >> Also, if I recall correctly, Intel’s current 64bit chip is based on >> the old Pentium architecture, but they’ll have a 64bit version of the >> low power chip this summer for the Power Mac. > > > Yes if by 64-bit you mean the extension to the old x64 ISA. Intel > fledged that onto the Pentium IV, whereas the Core chips are successors > to the Pentium M. > > But Intel has their own non-x86 64-bit architecture which has failed to > gain much success so far. But the Itanium II looks much better than the > first release and the compilers seem to be getting into gear as well. Itanium isn't x86. It has to emulate/decode x86 instructions. Intel and HP created a new platform basically with the Itanium and dumped x86 from the equation. Due to the emulation, etc x86 software performs poorly on it I suspect, probably why it has failed to take off. AMD64 (ie Opteron) and Intel's own 64bit Xeon CPUs have seen more success than Itanium really. Kelly