Also known as: x86-64, amd64, IA-32

x86 is the long-dominant instruction set architecture for desktops, laptops, and servers — a CISC design originated by Intel and extended to 64 bits as x86-64.¹

Overview

The family began with Intel’s 8086 in 1978 and grew by accreting new instructions while staying backward compatible, the hallmark of a CISC design with many rich, variable-length instructions. In 2003 AMD added 64-bit addressing as x86-64 (also called amd64), which Intel adopted, and that variant is what almost every modern PC and server CPU runs. Intel and AMD are the two main x86 chip makers.

Where it fits

x86 owns the PC and most of the server and cloud market, so the great majority of compiled binaries and operating systems assume it. Its main challenger is ARM, which leads in mobile and is rising in laptops and servers on efficiency, while RISC-V offers an open alternative. A GopherTrunk decode server is typically an x86-64 box; the same Go source also cross-compiles to ARM for edge capture nodes.

Sources

1. x86 — Wikipedia, on the x86 instruction set family and x86-64. ↩

See also

• Instruction set architecture (ISA)
• ARM architecture
• RISC-V
• Central processing unit (CPU)
• Semiconductor
• Von Neumann architecture