“In July, Intel released the dual-core Itanium 2 processor, formerly code-named Montecito, and announced that the new chip is capable of double the performance of its predecessor while consuming 20 percent less electrical power. eWEEK Labs’ tests of a server based on the newest Itanium 2 platform show promise but also limitations.”
Are there any price reductions compared to previous models?
They could improve all they like, but it ain’t gonna do much if it ain’t competitively priced.
After all there are competing 64bit products from Intel that provide better price-performance benefits.
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I’m not sure if its a price reduction from the previous version, but you have to notice that Intel and HP priced the box they submitted for review, so that it fit in the price range as existing x86 machines.
Its really pretty obvious when you look at how expandible it is, yet they are shipping such a low end config.
“Our review unit was equipped with Intel’s 1.6GHz dual-core Itanium 9040 processor with an 18MB of Level 3 cache (9MB per core), 4GB of DDR2 (double-data-rate 2) RAM and a 73GB SAS (serial-attached SCSI) hard drive. In this configuration, the server costs $12,500.”
one drive for an enterprise box that holds up 8 drives? this is obviously to save money and make the box look more like a x86 box. No one is going to buy a box that holds 8 drives and install only one.
only 4GB ram included in the review system? what year is this again? they are shipping a box that expands up to 96GB with 4? once again this is to cut the price, they won’t be subbmitting benchmarks from a box with this config.
If I read the article correctly the review unit doesn’t even have the second optional powersupply?
Here is a sun x4200 x64 box that sales for $4k less.
Sun Fire X4200 Server
2 AMD Opteron Model 285 Processors (Dual Core)
8-GB Memory
2 73-GB 10000 RPM SAS Disk Drives
1 DVD-ROM Drive
4 10/100/1000 Ethernet Ports
4 USB 1.1 Ports
5 PCI-X Slots
Redundant, Hot-Swap Fan
2 Redundant, Hot-Swap Power Supplies
1 Service Processor
Sun Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM)
Java Enterprise System Software Pre-Installed
Solaris 10 Operating System Pre-Installed
3 Year Warranty, Next Business Day
List Price: $8,195.00
My bet is that with any typical enterprise benchmark the x4200 will beat the low end config, if it doesn’t upgrade it with more ram and two more sas drives for less than the difference to that of the tested HP machine.
One major reason they shipped such a low end machine is that they had to stay below the list price of the Sun x4600, the low end model starts at $25k and is far better equipped than the HP box. it has 4x dual core opterons and 16GB of ram, in the same form factor as the HP box. And expands to 8x dual core opterons and 64GB of ram. The fully loaded version of the HP system most likely sales for more and is no where near as powerful.
Edited 2006-09-08 08:00
Is there a table anywhere relating spiffy name, actual name, price, clock speed, cores, and 32/64 bittiness?
I’m interested in shopping a 64bit motherboard/chips for nerdy adventures, but I don’t find Intel or AMD’s marketing material comprehensible.