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1.4-1.6 GHz Alphas
maniack writes, "Looks like the Alpha is striking back at AMD and Intel after a quiet period. Eetimes.com has a story on new Alpha processors from 1.4-1.6 GHz being available by the end of the year despite rumors of Samsung pulling out of the processor market. Keep in mind that this is a 64 bit processor, so there will be a lot of competition in the that arena. " At this point, much of it is still conjecture, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
Don't bet on that. I have a 600MHz Alpha next to me right now, and for many tasks it performs at the same level as my 450MHz PII. There's two things dragging down the Alpha:
1) Compiler quality
gcc gives good optimization on Intel chips, but its Alpha code quality isn't so great.
2) Driver quality
Many drivers are simply not optimized for 64-bit systems. They work, but they don't fully utilize the system's potential.
(1) can be partially solved by using Compaq's cc compiler for the Alpha, but even that has its limits. (2) can only be solve if enough developers get behind the platform (not particularly likely unless the price of an Alpha drops to PIII levels).
Yes they do.
The current debian build system donated by Alpha-Processor is.
Check www.alpha-processor.com. Look for UP2000
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I keep hearing low-grade rumors that AMD may end up actually making Alphas. If true, that plus the motherboard commonality might put a dent in the price.
Nice would be if AMD postured the Athlon as an "entry level Alpha". Buy Athlon & board now, upgrade to screamin' Alpha later.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hmm... well, I'm not sure we've gotta give them credit, because their business model seems pretty weak. I mean, these guys are still pouring money into not just Tru64 (a not-particularly popular Unix), but also OpenVMS?!? Come on guys, you're willing to drop support for WinNT on Alpha, but not your frickin' proprietary minicomputer OS? No one can really understand their strategy for the chip, with on-again, off-again support for Linux. Read interviews with their execs, who really haven't seen all that much demand for Linux on Alpha. It just doesn't make sense for servers on a price/performance level, so it's relegated to the (important, but unpredictable) scientific market. I guess a lot of this comes down to whether or not McKinley lives up to expectations. --JRZ
While I agree that the TurboLaser architecture is old technology, I must point out that it WILL run the latest processor chips. I have a GS140 in my lab that has eight EV67 processors @ 700MHz and 20GB of RAM.
The Wildfire series will be cool when they start shipping. Up to 32 processors and 256GB of RAM in a single system based on switching technology. Then you can start clustering those puppies together for some really impressive numbers.
My favorite, though, is the ES40. It is, without a doubt, the nicest machine we're currently shipping. My ES40 with 667MHz EV67 processors is almost twice as fast as my "old" GS140 with 700MHz EV67 processors. How? It's the memory switch!
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I gave my boss a reality check. It bounced.
Already been done.
:-)
The AlphaServer SC is a cluster of up to 64 ES40 machines connected by a high-speed memory channel.
The ES40 can take up to four EV67 Alpha processors running at 667MHz and 16GB of memory. Memory is 4-way interleaved on a crossbar switch rather than a conventional memory bus. It's a really nice machine.
A fully decked-out AlphaServer SC can, therefore, have up to 256 processors and 1 Terabyte of RAM.
Is that enough for now?
--
I gave my boss a reality check. It bounced.
You can get an EV67-based 600MHz 2MB cache UP1000 SYSTEM for $3000. That includes software. Ads are running here on Slashdot and Freshmeat.
Yea, it's not $1500, but if you need what Alpha has, it's a good price.
Speaking of price, what IS a good price?
mike (I work at API)
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
I'm curious to see whether Intel designed the floating point units in Itanium or whether that was an HP contribution. If Intel got the HP floating point units as part of the joint-development deal, this would obviously narrow the gap substantially; HP and Alpha have been pretty neck and neck in the SPEC race the last few years.
--LP
Maybe for what you're using it for but when I ran Povray on my 275mhz alpha w/2MB cache it ran slower than it did on my girlfriend's new PII-266. And the Alpha had twice as much memory. Not that that would have mattered--it was a fairly simple raytracing.
True though, Alpha's rock.
numb
I've upgraded my expectation of the Itanium. I still think that it's going to suck for Windows, but SGI and others seem to be really focussed on getting it working and working WELL with UNIX.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I like Alpha chips. For number-crunching, they are the best, but their commercial future has been a concern. Intel doesn't have the best chips but they do make A LOT of them. The sheer volume brings down not only the selling prices of the cpu, but also the prices of motherboards etc. Alpha chips might still be the king for FP computations but IBM and Sun have pretty good chips, too. How many High-end chips can the market support? I am afraid that Alpha chips will be forced into a very small niche. People would have to pay a lot more for the same porformance/price ratio if they want alpha machines. If that happens, it will only be a matter of time before Compaq pulls the plug. The key point I see is the volume. How can they sell more to justify the R&D cost? One possibility I saw is to let Aplha chips use the same MBs as AMD's K7s. That has not happened, right? Even AMD has troubles to bring down the prices of the K7 motherboards. Is there a way out?
With that much memory you wouldn't even need a hard drive. Just create a virtual drive with your ram :) Imagine how fast you could play Quake 3...
:)
If you've got 256 processors and 1T ram, you're probably not using it for Quake.
NOC: "Network Operations, this is Bob speaking." Jim: "Hey Bob, this is Jim. We've gotta take the server offline. Necesary Maintenance." NOC: "No sweat. Thanks for the warning!" Joe: "We're set?" Jim: "Yep! QUAKE ON!"
Long signatures suck.
Even the 500Mhz alphas in our year old machines are still faster than the gigahertz athlons and PIII's which are grabbing the headlines.
Processor speed isn't just about the clock - The alpha's rock in every way
I can't wait for one of these - I've always wanted to see a heat sink the size of a shoebox...
Let's see - Linux et. al. have M$ on the decline, and IMHO the Alpha could sink _any_ x86 processor out there. The guard is changing. Two years ago I was getting bored with this industry, but not anymore.
BTW, check out http://www.digital.com/info/hp c/ref/ref_alpha_ia64.pdf for the reasons Alphas will smoke IA64. Technical, but interesting.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Net: Intel may be about to catch up a significant amount on floating point, a historic Alpha differentiator, and Intel clock rates and integer/branch performance definitely keep pace at the 1-2 GHz levels.
--LP