So PowerPC is dead you say?

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So how comes IBM's AI machine called Watson which outsmarted the two best champions on Jeopardy TV show uses Power7 not x86 architecture?

The answer is a bit mundane... But IBM own the rights to the Power Architecture and use it for all their custom CPU work. They don't need or want to be slaves to AMD and Intel.

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Just for information: the PowerPC is not at all dead, it's not even close to dead, it's still being actively pushed forward by some big companies, and is evolving all the time.

Just because PowerPC isn't used in desktops any more (apart from ours) doesn't mean it's dead - nor does that fact that it's slower than x86 mean it's dead. PowerPC isn't competing with x86 any more, it's competing with ARM. That's why our Sams and things are so power efficient, they're embedded CPUs, not designed to compete with x86 desktops (what would be the point? It'd be corporate suicide).

Easy way to check if a CPU architecture is dead; Just ask yourself if you would choose it when starting a new project

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The key here is that as the x86 get more power efficient and the ARM gets more powerful, there is going o be increasingly less reason to choose any other architecture... That is why I think of the PPC as "dead", other than IBM (who have no desire or need to use ARM, Intel or AMD intellectual property) the PPC architecture doesn't have much of a long term future.

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Trouble is if Xenon and CELL CPUsaren't used in their future replacements then backwards compatibility will costly via 100% software emulation of PS3 and Xbox360.

Hahahahahhaahahahah! :roflmao: PS3 and Xbox360 are stone age compared to even mid range computers now... Software emulation won't be an issue

-edit- Hell, we can even do full 30fps H.264 decoding in JavaScript on a web browser now... Something unthinkable 6 years ago!!