dumbmoney, Re: "You're spouting marketing gibberish. RISC CPUs are built for speed, not extreme reliability."
Who's spouting gibberish? The majority of RISC architectures are falling far behind the rest of the industry. There are a few exceptions, notably Power4 and EV7, but if you look at IBM's RISC lines, MIPS, PA-RISC, UltraSparc, etc - they will soon be lapped in the performance race by commodity processors built on the most advanced manufacturing process, and given the most dollars of R&D budget. RISC can't hope to compete.
The idea of IA-64 is to give the research and manufacturing dollars towards a RISC competitor. It was a tough job designing a new ISA, but Intel and HP finally managed to do it, and they actually have a product out. Of course, the first iteration is a dog, but the second and third generations are right around the corner. Performance will no longer be a problem.
Re: "If you need extreme reliability, try an IBM mainframe (which of course is a 32-bit CISC CPU)."
As you may or may not know, there are many varying levels of reliability. While IBM continues to lead by being able to offer the highest of uptimes, there are many markets that require less expensive systems than mainframes with far more reliability than commodity chips. Alpha, PA-RISC, MIPS, UltraSparc, and others were traditionally enjoying this market, but now Intel comes with IA-64, and several designs have already moved over to give it room.
Why write it off before it has a chance?
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