Itanium

[Mephistopheles]

I think it is extremely interesting to see how Intel has responded to the threat of Opteron... Today, they launched a 1.0Ghz Itanium at $750 and a 1.4Ghz Itanium at $1100, both with 1.5MB cache... I think the latter is a serious powerhouse, regardless of its diminished cache... Not cheap, but certainly not the absurd $4200 for the 1.5Ghz Itanium!... This is the floating point god, remember...

I want to see a comparison of these new Itaniums and Opteron on server and workstation tasks! Am I the only one? :frown:

Also, who will cash out $4000+ for a 1.5Ghz, when you can get a 1.4Ghz for less than a third of that? Is cache that important?

I think Intel should have done that long ago. And I praise AMD for putting them in the position they are now - having to launch a cheaper Itanium and adding variety to their products.

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[imgod2u]

The same people who pay $3000 for a Xeon with 2 or 1MB of L3 cache instead of $800 for a Xeon of equivalent clockspeed but no L3 cache.
Remember this is the enterprise market. Single-processor performance isn't as important as scalability, and for that, more cache helps significantly. I see no reason why people who'd want single or dual processor workstations based on Deerfield should need to opt for Madison, but those building 64-way Itanium-2 Superdomes would definitely appreciate the extra cache.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[HardWareBoss]

Meph HardOCP has article on OC dual Xeon's. 3.06 That's what they used in test. They got 3.3 ghz.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Single-processor performance isn't as important as scalability, and for that, more cache helps significantly.

Oh... didn't know that... Never heard that before... But the price scaling is a bit unusual... I guess it's silicon quality-rated...

Anyway, workstations with Itanium-2s will probably become a tad bit more commonplace after supermicro releases their workstation itanium-2 mobos. They'll <A HREF="http://www.supermicro.com/PressEmp/Events/events.htm" target="_new">showcase</A> it in IDF... But anyway, that's a snail's pace...

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Now if only Intel would devise a mobo that'd house one Itanium and one Xeon and M$ would devise an OS that knew how to simultaneously use each effectively. That'd be freaky cool stuff.

<pre><A HREF="http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030905" target="_new"><font color=black>People don't understand how hard being a dark god can be. - Hastur</font color=black></A></pre><p>

 

[spud]

Shush dude youll ruine the surprise...

-Jeremy

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6940439" target="_new">Busting Sh@t Up!!!</A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1228088" target="_new">Busting More Sh@t Up!!!</A>

 

[traviss187]

i've seen the severs that the itaniums are put into, when the company is droping thousands of dollars on the memory and the servers cost like $60,000, I don't think they mind the price difference,
and for my question, do both itaniums run at the same fsb?

 

[imgod2u]

Yes, however, different companies probably use significantly different chipsets. SGI for example, uses a NUMA-like memory subsystem in their Altix Itanium systems while HP sticks with the more tranditional 4-way shared multidrop bus.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[spud]

I think they knocked em down to dual channel 2100 from quad channel 2100.

-Jeremy

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6940439" target="_new">Busting Sh@t Up!!!</A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1228088" target="_new">Busting More Sh@t Up!!!</A>

 

[Mephistopheles]

Yes, usually Itanium uses 4 channels of DDR200, but some mobos use only two channels... I saw that somewhere too, I guess.

Anyway, as for Itanium's FSB, they all use 400Mhz (data) busses - as in 200Mhz DDR. That's why they only come in semi-integer multiples of 200Mhz - 1300, 1400, 1500Mhz... Because of being 64 bit CPUs, they can transfer 6.4GB/s - theoretically, as much as the P4Cs with their 800Mhz FSBs...

I think Itanium will be ramped up next year for a 533Mhz FSB. A good indication of that is that Intel plans to introduce Madison "at speeds of" 1.6<b>7</b>Ghz and above; however, 1.67Ghz is not a semi-integer multiple of 200, but rather of 133Mhz... A 533Mhz 128-bit wide FSB on Itanium would transfer as much data as a P4 on a 1066Mhz bus (P4s use 64-bit-wide FSBs), if I'm not mistaken.

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[imgod2u]

The Itanium 2's FSB *is* 128-bits wide. It's currently operating at 200MHz *DDR*. I don't know of any other processor asside from the P4 that uses the Quad-Pumped Bus. Anyway. At 200MHz DDR, with 128-bit bus width, it theoretically provides the same throughput as the P4's 64-bit wide 200MHz quad-pumped bus.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Sorry... original post corrected...
Itaniums use a DDR FSB... Thanks for pointing that out.

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles