I agree with both of the previous 2 posts... (NN and Rint)

x86 has been around forever, and probably a little too long...

The real winner of all this would be the company who could come up with a whole new arch that could interpret x86 instructions (maintaining compatability without much performance loss)
while offering a whole new option for easier/faster code, bypassing the legacy stuff.

I'm not naive, I'm sure this wouldn't be easy, and it would open a whole new can of worms, with licenseing being the major problem!

I really think it's at least close to time though, x86/x64 are both getting a little long in the tooth....

If Dresdenboy is even close with his projections, Bulldozer might just be the chip to take us to a whole new level of performance...

It's not like AMD hasn't "rocked the boat" before, one thing I love about AMD is they seem to think outside the box...

Personally I have high hpoes for Bulldozer, can't wait!