Originally posted by cubist
Intel's definitely between a rock and a hard place. They got to 3.06G by making a long, long, long cache. The P4's not going to go much faster without liquid nitrogen. Now they want to move server people to Itanium, but surprise! It's only 1GHz, and it's completely incompatible. 32-bit machine code runs like a 33MHz 486. You can recompile all your apps and run on HP's Unix...
Meanwhile AMD is working on the Hammer, a 64-bit CPU with 32-bit code compatibility. It can run 32-bit machine code fast. But surprise! It's only 1.2GHz (1.8GHz? Who knows, it's not out yet). Hence the return of the old Cyrix "PR" numbers.
Intel wants to steal the Hammer's thunder (hm, sounds like Thor) but they'll probably end up having to swallow their pride and license it.
Meantime, GHz numbers will go the "PR" route and become completely mythical.
Solution for Apple? Hey, we can play the "PR" game too! That dual 1.4, let's call it "PR-3300"!
😛