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The grapevine has been buzzing with something that is pretty huge as far as developments in this industry go. According to Bitsandchips.it, Intel has started working on a brand new x86 architecture that will succeed the current ‘Core’ generation that has been in force since Sandy Bridge. If true, this would be a pretty huge move since an update is long overdue, and according to the source would happen sometime in the 2019-2020 time frame. Unlike before however, there will be a slight twist this time around.
So when they say new architecture, what exactly does that mean. We talk about architectures a lot as far as GPUs go but the fact of the matter is that the architecture of a CPU works in a slightly different way. Where GPUs have historically freely shifted architectures on a very significant scale, Intel really hasn’t shifted from its primary one in ages. As the inventor of the x86 architecture, it has a cross-licensing agreement with AMD to utilize the x86_64 extension of the same architecture (which is basically the 64-bit implementation of x86). It’s a funny state of affairs since Intel cannot offer 64-bit compatibility without licensing x86_64 from AMD and the latter cannot ship 64-bit processors unless it has licensed the base x86 from Intel.
All this time, and through the generations, however, Intel processors have remained 100% backward compatible with all previous iterations. The same basic architecture expanded over and over with new features with time. Every new Intel architecture that we talk about on here (or every tock of Intel’s PAO cadence) is essentially the same underlying x86 architecture expanded with new features with every iteration. For the first time, however, and if this rumor turns out to be true, things might actually change. Intel might introduce an x86 architecture that we can consider to be truly different from what we have seen so far. The reason? It will be a lean mean, x86-on a diet where backward compatibility is no longer assured. Intel’s PAO cadence) is essentially the same underlying x86 architecture expanded with new features with every iteration.
Read more here. (WCCF Tech)
So when they say new architecture, what exactly does that mean. We talk about architectures a lot as far as GPUs go but the fact of the matter is that the architecture of a CPU works in a slightly different way. Where GPUs have historically freely shifted architectures on a very significant scale, Intel really hasn’t shifted from its primary one in ages. As the inventor of the x86 architecture, it has a cross-licensing agreement with AMD to utilize the x86_64 extension of the same architecture (which is basically the 64-bit implementation of x86). It’s a funny state of affairs since Intel cannot offer 64-bit compatibility without licensing x86_64 from AMD and the latter cannot ship 64-bit processors unless it has licensed the base x86 from Intel.
All this time, and through the generations, however, Intel processors have remained 100% backward compatible with all previous iterations. The same basic architecture expanded over and over with new features with time. Every new Intel architecture that we talk about on here (or every tock of Intel’s PAO cadence) is essentially the same underlying x86 architecture expanded with new features with every iteration. For the first time, however, and if this rumor turns out to be true, things might actually change. Intel might introduce an x86 architecture that we can consider to be truly different from what we have seen so far. The reason? It will be a lean mean, x86-on a diet where backward compatibility is no longer assured. Intel’s PAO cadence) is essentially the same underlying x86 architecture expanded with new features with every iteration.
Read more here. (WCCF Tech)
