Ted, a couple points (or counterpoints):
As I've stated before, the marketing hype is obviously retrofitted. And, in the short term, broadband internet access with enough reliable bandwidth to drive streaming video is going to be too rare to make for much marketing traction. Aside from which, it's far from clear that you need that much processor power to do streaming video; look at what wimpy Transmeta claims is needed to play a dvd.
Looking years forward, who knows? Looking back, the Intel hype seems oddly reminiscent of using the original MMX to implement a pure software modem on your PC. On that front, dedicated hardware turned out to be much more practical, and for most video stuff, I'd guess there's a good chance that history will repeat.
On the other hand, who knows, Microsoft might figure out how to make NT6/Win2001 or whatever into a realtime OS. I'm not holding my breath on that one, though. Near term, the P4 is going to be expensive and limited in availability. The P4 may or may not look bad in conventional benchmarks, but the super-sized die and Intel's apparent production limits give us breathing room. We'll see about performance when it's actually announced.
Cheers, Dan. |
