The year 2000-- the year Intel and Hewlett Packard will finally unveil their long-awaited 64-bit Itanium processor (formerly known as "Merced"). Maybe. After all, Itanium's so late it's starting to make Windows NT 5 2000 look prompt by comparison. Delay after delay after delay has plagued the super-chip's development, but Intel was sure it'd be all worth it, since Itanium will be the fastest and most powerful thing in silicon once it ships. It'll be Superfly TNT. It'll be the Guns of the Navarone. It'll be the Chip To End All Chips™.

Or it'll just be a huge disappointment. Itanium was once the lurking horror that threatened to erase whatever design and performance advantages the PowerPC might still claim to have, but as the (current) release date creeps ever nearer, it's starting to look about as scary as Count Floyd. The latest rumors about Intel's impending bellyflop came to us via Mac OS Rumors-- who built upon data gleaned from The Register, who reported on an article in Forbes. (Don't you love how the 'net works?) Here's the deal: apparently Intel's having a dickens of a time getting Itanium's clock speed up over its current blistering 400 MHz mark. Yes, 400 MHz. In terms of speed, Intel wanted a rocket car, but so far Itanium's more like, say, a Honda Accord-- a fine vehicle, we're told, but not one to set a land speed record.

And apparently Itanium generates about as much heat as a Honda, too. It seems that in its current state, a 350 MHz Itanium actually burns off a staggering 30 watts of power. So much for modern design. With the venerable Pentium architecture running at twice the clock speed of the "next generation" Itanium, we can see why some Intel sources are referring to Itanium as the company's own Copland. Let's see, here... Apple buried Copland, reinvigorated development on the existing Mac OS, and bought NeXTSTEP as the basis for Copland's successor. So if Intel follows suit, we can expect the end of the Itanium project, faster and faster Pentiums, and Intel's eventual buyout of AMD and the renaming of the Athlon with a classically stupid Intel name, like Sweateron or Caketonium. Any bets?