By comparison, Intel's Itanium 2 server processor tops out at 1.66 GHz.

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Intel, which has dedicated 64-bit silicon in Itanium, de-emphasizes the processor's 32-bit performance, according to Nathan Brookwood, and analyst with Insight 64.

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The two companies were building the Itanium chip, an expensive, energy-intensive processor that cost billions to develop, gained few customers, offered middling performance and was shuttled to the sidelines.

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AMD, is that Intel has to use software to make Itanium compatible with 32-bit programs, but this slows down the processor.

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In addition, Fujitsu (otc: FJTSY - news - people ) has designed its own chip set working with the Intel processor to raise performance and reliability for both 32-bit and 64-bit computing, Itanium's specialty.

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"It has a little bit of an Itanium feeling to it, " AMD's director of stream computing Patricia Harrell says, referring to an Intel processor design that has fallen well short of its early expectations.

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