Commoditization of 4-way

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Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

In article <m3vfis9m83.fsf@averell.firstfloor.org>,
Andi Kleen <freitag@alancoxonachip.com> wrote:

>As far as I can see the main difference in practice right now is that
>there is a PCI-E connector and there isn't one for HT.

But there is a candidate for one -- if anyone is interested, I can put
you in touch with the people involved.

-- greg
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

"Andi Kleen" <freitag@alancoxonachip.com> wrote in message
news:m3vfis9m83.fsf@averell.firstfloor.org...
snip.
>
> As far as I can see the main difference in practice right now is that
> there is a PCI-E connector and there isn't one for HT. And the error
> handling issues Del noted (hopefully be fixed with HT 2.x)
> Ok and HT hotplug would be nice too.
>
> -Andi

Can't have much wire and a connector in a 56 ps skew+jitter allocation
(at 1.6 Gb/s), with no provision for aligning clock and data. :-(
The last draft of V2.0 goes to 2.8 Gb/sec still with no alignment. I'll
have to look at the "networking extensions", but the 8131 doesn't have
any recovery. Maybe there is a new version coming.

del
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

In article <16qna0l7vrgmi92ds2nh75m3c1q2im5e3h@4ax.com>,
Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote:

>In short, not really a worthwhile comparison. For all intents and
>purposes, the 21364 is a non-existent product.

Can we please stop wasting everyone's time by telling other posters
that their example is irrelevant because it doesn't ship in enough
volume, etc? It's pointless.

-- greg
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

In article <40abef20$1@news.meer.net>, lindahl@pbm.com says...
> In article <16qna0l7vrgmi92ds2nh75m3c1q2im5e3h@4ax.com>,
> Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> >In short, not really a worthwhile comparison. For all intents and
> >purposes, the 21364 is a non-existent product.
>
> Can we please stop wasting everyone's time by telling other posters
> that their example is irrelevant because it doesn't ship in enough
> volume, etc? It's pointless.

Is it any more pointless than to say "XYZ" did it first, but
failed in the marketplace? ...other than in the .folklore group?


--
Keith
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

On 18 May 2004 23:59:57 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack
<twomack@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

....snip...
>I'm not sure I'd call a system with two dual-core CPUs a quad system,
>though I'm not quite sure where that prejudice comes from; I suppose
>that part of the issue of a quad system is the enormous motherboard
>required physically to fit four sockets, four cooling systems, four
>sets of memory ... on memory-intensive tasks I think I'd rather have
>more memory subsystems than more cores, dual-core Opterons will be no
>less memory-starved than 800MHz FSB Noconas.
>
>Tom
With each dual-core chip containing the same dual channel memory
controller as the current crop of socket 940 chips, each core would
have the same memory bandwidth as current socket 754 Athlon64. While
not quite as impressive as A64 FX/Opteron, A64 xx00+ is still a
formidable CPU and doesn't seem to really badly suffer from
insufficient memory bandwidth. If I could get a quad A64 on the cheap
(comparably priced to the dual Opteron 242/MSI Master2-far I am
building now), I'd go for it without much thinking. Unfortunately
it's not possible technically (the number of HT links enabled on each
CPU etc.) But 2 dual core Opterons would closely resemble that
hypothetical quad A64, just better because it would have 2
heatsinks/fans less.
As for having more memory subsystems than cores, here is an article
comparing lowly (among dual boards) MSI K8T Master2-far to higher end
Tyan K8W Tiger and yet even higher Tyan K8W Thunder.
http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=68739
Contrary to expectations, the more expensive Thunder with both CPUs
connected to own memory is not any better than its humble competitors
with one CPU accessing the memory through the other (give or take a
fraction of a percentage point).
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

In article <kgtna0l6kofic8bdbc6945n0dujisnci4p@4ax.com>,
nobody@nowhere.net <MyGarbage2000@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Contrary to expectations, the more expensive Thunder with both CPUs
>connected to own memory is not any better than its humble competitors
>with one CPU accessing the memory through the other (give or take a
>fraction of a percentage point).

Given that you didn't give any details at all, the most likely
explanation is pilot error. I know that STREAM on Linux 2.6 with the
bios interleave set off and a user-level utility to confine the
processes appropriately is much improved. And my testing with
various HPC codes also showed significant improvement.

-- greg
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> Hopefully that time might be coming soon, that's what started this
> whole thread. The trick is that next year AMD is expecting to ship
> dual-core Opterons that are pin-compatible and
> infrastructure-compatible with existing single-core Opterons. If all
> goes according to plan they will be drop-in replacements for current
> Opterons, so all you would need for a 4-core machine is a "2
> processor" motherboard (whether or not that makes a true "4 processor"
> system or just a "2 processor with dual cores" machine depends on your
> point of view).
>
> Those 2P motherboards start at only ~$200, though good ones will cost
> you more like $500. No word yet on the price of the chips, but they
> might sell for $350 a piece, and most likely will sell for less than
> $700 a pop (2 cores for $700 will keep in your price range of
> single-core for $350).

That's another thing, dual-core 2-way processors. However, I think these
server makers are actually looking to getting down the price of a true 4-way
processor system down to the $5000 range.

Yousuf Khan
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

On Thu, 20 May 2004 01:45:39 GMT, lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
wrote:

>In article <kgtna0l6kofic8bdbc6945n0dujisnci4p@4ax.com>,
>nobody@nowhere.net <MyGarbage2000@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Contrary to expectations, the more expensive Thunder with both CPUs
>>connected to own memory is not any better than its humble competitors
>>with one CPU accessing the memory through the other (give or take a
>>fraction of a percentage point).
>
>Given that you didn't give any details at all, the most likely
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Have you not noticed the link? Just in case I am providing it here
again: http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=68739
Please note that I bear no responsibility for either the content of
that article or the methodology the authors applied to their
benchmarks. I just found the comparison interesting and worth noting
in the groops.

>explanation is pilot error. I know that STREAM on Linux 2.6 with the
>bios interleave set off and a user-level utility to confine the
>processes appropriately is much improved. And my testing with
>various HPC codes also showed significant improvement.
>
>-- greg
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

"myren, lord" <thefowle@wam.umd.edu> wrote in message
news:c8gen6$5sq$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...
> i thought intel was one of the infiniband people too.

Initially they were. There was a "falling out" between the server people,
who wanted the advantages of IB and the desktop people who, while they were
initially on board, saw it getting too complex and too far delayed for their
tastes and decided to go with their own solution. That was when Intel
decommitted doing IB in the chipset.

> infiniband and
> pci-e arent mutually exlcusive technologies by any means.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you mean you can have some sort of PCI
adaptor that talks IB on the other side, then yes, but I wouldn't consider
that to be "real Infiniband". A big part of the advantage of IB is the
elimination of the PCI, memory mapped I/O scheme, etc. and having the
interface directly in the chipset. If you mean you could have a chipset that
supports both, then yes, I suppose you could, but I don't think anyone will,
as they are pretty much competitors for that function.

> parents said amd wasnt a fan of pci-e. are they designing any competition?

I don't know anything about what AMD is doing.

--
- Stephen Fuld
e-mail address disguised to prevent spam
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

"Andi Kleen" <freitag@alancoxonachip.com> wrote in message
news:m3vfis9m83.fsf@averell.firstfloor.org...
> "Stephen Fuld" <s.fuld@PleaseRemove.att.net> writes:
> >
> > And the fact that it preserves the investment in software of lots and
lots
> > of PCI drivers that exist today. Preserving that investment was one of
the
> > reasons that the Intel desktop people decided they wanted to do PCI
Express
> > rather than sign on to IB.
>
> Seen from the software (not firmware) side HT is basically completely PCI
> compatible. I don't know of any visible differences. The north
> bridge on a Opteron system is implemented in the CPU and e.g. all the
> PCI config accesses originate from the north bridge. But the request
> has to travel over an HT link before it can actually talk to an real
> PCI bridge. This works completely transparent.

Then ISTM that HT and PCI are at a different level. i.e. if you have HT to
PCI, then PCI and HT aren't direct competitors. This jibes with my,
admittedly modest, understanding of HT as primarily an interchip (CPU-CPU
and CPU-"Northbridge") interconnect and PCI as primarily a way to connect
external peripheral interfaces such as Ethernet and Fibre Channel/SCSI.
Thus there isn't a decision between HT and PCI, as each have their potential
(though different) place in a system.

--
- Stephen Fuld
e-mail address disguised to prevent spam
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

>>>Contrary to expectations, the more expensive Thunder with both CPUs
>>>connected to own memory is not any better than its humble competitors
>>>with one CPU accessing the memory through the other (give or take a
>>>fraction of a percentage point).
>>
>>Given that you didn't give any details at all, the most likely
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Have you not noticed the link?

Yes, I read the link. It didn't say anything about the BIOS settings
or whether the OS was told/has the capability of restricting processes
and their memory to particular cpus. As you can see from my
explanation of how I saw better performance, these details all matter.

-- greg
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl) writes:

>>>>Contrary to expectations, the more expensive Thunder with both CPUs
>>>>connected to own memory is not any better than its humble competitors
>>>>with one CPU accessing the memory through the other (give or take a
>>>>fraction of a percentage point).
>>>
>>>Given that you didn't give any details at all, the most likely
>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>Have you not noticed the link?
>
> Yes, I read the link. It didn't say anything about the BIOS settings
> or whether the OS was told/has the capability of restricting processes
> and their memory to particular cpus. As you can see from my
> explanation of how I saw better performance, these details all matter.

An NUMA aware OS with the right BIOS settings (no node interleave)
should be able to run multithreaded STREAM even without explicit tuning,
giving near perfect scaling on Opteron systems with local memory
on each CPU. Linux does usually.

-Andi
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

"Stephen Fuld" <s.fuld@PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote in message
news:8RXqc.30889$hH.653926@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> "myren, lord" <thefowle@wam.umd.edu> wrote in message
> news:c8gen6$5sq$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...
> > i thought intel was one of the infiniband people too.
>
> Initially they were. There was a "falling out" between the server
people,
> who wanted the advantages of IB and the desktop people who, while they
were
> initially on board, saw it getting too complex and too far delayed for
their
> tastes and decided to go with their own solution. That was when Intel
> decommitted doing IB in the chipset.
>
Some Intel folks are still involved in the trade association. But not
to the extent they were before.

del
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

On Wed, 19 May 2004 23:34:59 GMT, lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
wrote:
>In article <16qna0l7vrgmi92ds2nh75m3c1q2im5e3h@4ax.com>,
>Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>>In short, not really a worthwhile comparison. For all intents and
>>purposes, the 21364 is a non-existent product.
>
>Can we please stop wasting everyone's time by telling other posters
>that their example is irrelevant because it doesn't ship in enough
>volume, etc? It's pointless.

It's no more pointless than pointing to the 21364 as an example of
much of anything beyond a proof of concept. One pointless message
answered by another? Perhaps.. welcome to Usenet.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

On Thu, 20 May 2004, Tony Hill wrote:

> It's no more pointless than pointing to the 21364 as an example of
> much of anything beyond a proof of concept. One pointless message
> answered by another? Perhaps.. welcome to Usenet.

Oh, for goodness sake.

And it was Ford who invented the motor car, since noone else
mass produced, right?

Peter

> -------------
> Tony Hill
> hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca
>
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

"del cecchi" <dcecchi.nojunk@att.net> wrote in message
news:2h56tjF9d036U1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Stephen Fuld" <s.fuld@PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote in message
> news:8RXqc.30889$hH.653926@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> >
> > "myren, lord" <thefowle@wam.umd.edu> wrote in message
> > news:c8gen6$5sq$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...
> > > i thought intel was one of the infiniband people too.
> >
> > Initially they were. There was a "falling out" between the server
> people,
> > who wanted the advantages of IB and the desktop people who, while they
> were
> > initially on board, saw it getting too complex and too far delayed for
> their
> > tastes and decided to go with their own solution. That was when Intel
> > decommitted doing IB in the chipset.
> >
> Some Intel folks are still involved in the trade association. But not
> to the extent they were before.

Fair enough. But back when they started, with their IB predecessor
proposal, NGIO, the idea was a total replacement for PCI, embedding it into
the chipsets, etc. Of course there was to be a transition, but there were
no plans for a "serial PCI" for all the reasons we discussed. That changed
for the reasons we also discussed.

--
- Stephen Fuld
e-mail address disguised to prevent spam
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

In article <Pine.GSO.4.58.0405210517400.17672@holyrood.ed.ac.uk>,
Peter Boyle <pboyle@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Thu, 20 May 2004, Tony Hill wrote:
>> It's no more pointless than pointing to the 21364 as an example of
>> much of anything beyond a proof of concept. One pointless message
>> answered by another? Perhaps.. welcome to Usenet.
>
>Oh, for goodness sake.
>
>And it was Ford who invented the motor car, since noone else
>mass produced, right?

Pointing it out probably constitutes nitpicking, but Oldsmobile (or the Olds
Motor Works, as it was then known) had its cars in production for several
years before the first Model T hit the streets. (Neither Ransom E. Olds nor
Henry Ford invented the automobile; they were just the first to mass-produce
them. Mass production != assembly-line production...while the latter
implies the former, the reverse isn't true.)

We now return to the regularly-scheduled topic, already in progress... 🙂

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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=PV6m
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Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

>>>opteron is amazing in that it has its switching technology built in via ht.
>>
>>Yawn - the 21364 had that how many years ago?
>
> And how many did they sell?

And in what way is that relevant to opteron being amazing, or not?

Jan
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

Peter Boyle wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 20 May 2004, Tony Hill wrote:
>
>> It's no more pointless than pointing to the 21364 as an example of
>> much of anything beyond a proof of concept. One pointless message
>> answered by another? Perhaps.. welcome to Usenet.
>
> Oh, for goodness sake.
>
> And it was Ford who invented the motor car, since noone else
> mass produced, right?

Gottlieb Daimler or Karl Benz.... dicounting things that ran on wood burning
stoves.

Martyn
 
Archived from groups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel (More info?)

"Stephen Sprunk" <stephen@sprunk.org> wrote in message
news:cea7be8cf3b003d69a5c9287e9f5c4ee@news.teranews.com...
....

Making innovation _profitable_ is arguably more
> important than bringing it to market first and then going under, because
the
> former leads to permanent change and the latter is just fodder for
> comp.arch.

1. Alpha was profitable, and could have been far more so. The consequences
of the fact that Compaq (and DEC before it, post-Olsen) chose to concentrate
on its failing PC business rather than on its profitable high-end products
have little relevance to this discussion.

2. Given the somewhat incestuous relationship between Alpha and AMD over a
significant period of time (e.g., high-level people and the EV6 bus), it is
not unreasonable to suggest that EV7's memory and glueless MP architecture
at least inspired and to some degree may have informed AMD's.

- bill
 
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