Introducing An x86 Advisory Board … Finally
2024 is a wild year and it keeps getting stranger; AMD and Intel have agreed to work together towards a shared goal. The plan is to provide consumers and system makers with a new ISA for x86 designs. The members of the board include not just Intel and AMD but also companies like Broadcom, Dell, and Google, as well as individuals like Linus Torvalds, and Tim Sweeny. It’s unlikely we are suddenly going to see AMD chips running on Intel chipsets nor vice versa, though that would certainly shrink the list of chipset names we have to memorize and shoppers have to navigate when building a new system.
Instead we are more likely to benefit from standardized branch prediction, memory addressing and other architectural designs. This will be a huge boon when migrating a VM and programming software that runs quickly and effectively on both company’s hardware. ServeTheHome rightly suggests that the huge announcement from OCP Summit 2024 has come about to ensure that Intel and AMD can retain their market dominance, as ARM is starting to make impressive inroads into market segments that used to be the sole domain of x86 products.