Ace's Hardware heeft deel 5 gepost in z'n serie 'Secrets of High Performance CPUs' artikelen. In dit deel komt de EPIC instruction set aan de beurt:
Intel's x86 architecture is now 20 years old, and it is crystal clear that designing a fast x86 CPU is like designing a race car with the brakes on. While the Pentium was a big step forward compared to the 486, the PII could not show the same improvement over the Pentium.Intel is well aware that the x86 instruction set is limiting CPU performance and is working hard on the next Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): EPIC. To Intel, "IA-64 is the architecture for the next 10 to 15 years." This new ISA should allow Intel to ditch the old x86 architecture, and design CPUs which would dwarf all older RISC and x86 CPUs.
What are the advantages of EPIC? Why does Intel want to get rid of the x86 architecture that made them famous and rich? Find out in the fifth part of the "Secrets" series: the final showdown between EPIC and the others!