Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 22nd Sep 2009 21:20 UTC
More than a decade ago, Intel ran into an issue trying to deliver what was to be the world's top-ranked supercomputer: it looked possible that its new Pentium Pro processors at the heart of the system might not arrive in time. As a result, the chipmaker made an unusual move by paying Hewlett-Packard $100,000 to evaluate building the system using its PA-RISC processors in the machine, said Paul Prince, now Dell's chief technology officer for enterprise products but then Intel's system architect for the supercomputer. Called ASCI Red and housed at Sandia National Laboratories, it was designed to be the first supercomputer to cross the threshold of a trillion math calculations per second.
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RE[3]: Comment by kaiwai
by tylerdurden on Thu 24th Sep 2009 00:07
in reply to "RE[2]: Comment by kaiwai"
Member since:2009-03-17
No itanium was never supposed to provide decent X86 execution, if anything it was more focused on PA-RISC compatibility.
And even during the height of the Opteron, Intel was still selling more P4s/Xeons than AMD. It is not that AMD could have killed Intel with Opteron, as much as Opteron allowed AMD to not flat out die.
What many people neglect to understand is that Itanium did what intel set it out to do: kill competing architectures in the high end. MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC all went the way of the dodo in the mid/high ends. SPARC is hanging by a thread, and PPC is pretty much on life support since IBM is not even clear if there will be a successor to POWER7. Most of the sales from the dismissal of those platforms went to Intel, either Itanium or Xeon is of little relevance, since a sale is a sale. So if anything, I assume Intel sees itanium as a marketing expense, more than a technical expense.
RE[4]: Comment by kaiwai
by bannor99 on Thu 24th Sep 2009 05:33
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by kaiwai"
Member since:2005-09-15
No itanium was never supposed to provide decent X86 execution, if anything it was more focused on PA-RISC compatibility.
Sorry, but you're wrong. The Itanium was supposed to be the end-all and be-all. Go back and read the industry pundits pronouncements between the initial announcement and the first release.
If x86 performance didn't matter, they wouldn't have wasted precious silicon on it - however, it was supposed to be "good enough" but, by the time the chips were shipping, it simply wasn't.
And even during the height of the Opteron, Intel was still selling more P4s/Xeons than AMD. It is not that AMD could have killed Intel with Opteron, as much as Opteron allowed AMD to not flat out die.
As I clearly stated, AMD's problem has, for a long time, been one of manufacturing yields not design.
The much ballyhooed Core i7 that has put Intel squarely
back at the top of the heap features designs that AMD introduced with the Athlon 64, 6 years ago.
However, Intel has revived HyperThreading which, may just work, this time around.
Intel's manufacturing strength has always allowed them to throw more cache at the problem or go for the next die shrink, keeping their chips competitive and forcing AMD to play catch up, even when their design was superior.
Now, however, they are behind on all counts, except perhaps price/performance [/q]
RE[4]: Comment by kaiwai
by bannor99 on Thu 24th Sep 2009 05:37
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by kaiwai"
Member since:2005-09-15
Nope. It was supposed to give "good enough" x86 performance. If that wasn't the case, they wouldn't have wasted precious hardware on it. Trouble was, the hardware didn't deliver.
As for AMD, until the Core i7 release from Intel, they've had the design lead but have always lagged on manufacturing yields, total chip output and die shrink.
Now, they've lost the edge in design so the next year could be really bad for them if they also lose the price/ performance edge ( assuming they still have it ).
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/15/13 22:44 UTC
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?More Features »
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Member since:
2005-09-15
I do think that Intel didn't get the success they planned on. But it is a good processor.
I have a dual processor Itanium2 1.4GHz (Celestica off eBay) that produces roughly the same speed results as a 2GHz dual Opteron when I compile my software with GCC 4.4 with profiling feedback.
That's pretty good for a 600 MHz speed difference.
Itanium has other neat features, like not using the stack for function call returns. And things like a large selection of jumbo and giant page sizes.
First off, you're not using the "Itanic", you have the second generation. You're also using an up to date compiler - after all, the whole idea of the Itanium / EPIC arch was that the smarts would be in the compiler.
Based on your description, your Itanium2 could be as old as 2003 or as new as 2006. The Opterons have had such a wide clockspeed range that I can't tell how old they would be.
Let's assume that both your Opterons and Itaniums date to 2004; now answer these questions, what was the price differential? How about typical power dissipation? What was the performance of software using the compilers ( free or otherwise ) available at the time? If commercial compilers were used, how expensive were they?
Another thing to consider is that the original Itanium was supposed to deliver decent IA-32 performance - and it didn't, even though there was hardware emulation.
So the question remains, how could Intel and HP screw up so badly? It also opened the door for AMD to take the lead on Intel's own architecture. If AMD had had more fabrication plants and better manufacturing processes, Chipzilla might have gone the way of the dinosaur.