AMD’s Voyage into the 64-bit Arena: x86-64 Revealed

Final Words

AMD's x86-64 ISA is an interesting approach to the 64-bit computing migration, and it is entirely too early in the game to decide its fate. The theme of the architecture is obviously compatibility and ease of migration, which is what it allows since it is just an extension of an existing architecture. As AMD likes to put it, the "[x86-64] extends existing mechanisms rather than creating new ones."

With the architecture documentation now publicly available, it won't be long before discussions of x86-64 vs IA-64 are sparked once more, but the real question to ask is whether AMD is helping or hurting the industry by keeping the x86 ISA alive for yet another round?

Only time will tell…