Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Inside the Itanium

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hammer-time dept.

vanguard writes: "Extreme Tech has a detailed overview of the Itanium. It's fairly long but it's worth your time if such things interest you."

10 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Better link by jeroenb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Go here to view the entire article on a single page without all the annoying crap around it :)

  2. Dell Launches 64-Bit Workstation by Mattygfunk · · Score: 2, Informative
    Dell launched this 64-bit machine mid-2001. It comes with a single Intel Itanium processor at 733 MHz, 1 GB SDRAM, Matrox Millenium G450 graphics card, 18 GB SCSI hard disk drive.

    The price? $7,999 at the time.

  3. beginning of the end of hand crafted assembly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Just the other day, I sat in on one of the compiler developers of the itanium giving a seminar. Needless to say, most of the group went to sleep the moment he started talking about the instructions. The assembly seems awfully arcane, so it's likely someone could go insane before speeding up anything :).

    Anyway, To all those who think it's performance is rather low, It seems more like a proof of concept chip rather than something intended for mass production. :)

  4. What about power / heat ? by redelm · · Score: 3, Informative
    A nice architectural overview, but there's no mention of power. IIRC, Itanium sucks back 125 Watts!


    Power/heat this high gives system designers problems, plus it can't be easy getting ~100 Amps to&from a chip.


    Otherwise, AFAIK, Linux has working ia64 so code size can be compared. I'd expect 4x x86.

    1. Re:What about power / heat ? by CMiYC · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah it is a power hog. For Merced there is a power pod that goes next to each "processor". That pod provides the power to the processor only. Then from there, there power is distributed to the L3, PAL, Core, etc. I'd imagine on the processor's core chip the power is distributed by a signfinicant amount of pins. Otherwise it'd be a bear to get the power evenly to different areas of the die.

  5. Re:Not about 64 bits... by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 3, Informative

    So what's holding it back?

    For real-world numerical applications, using state-of-the-art Intel compilers, the Pentium 4 is faster than the Itanium. Of course, people still use the Itanium because of its substantially larger address space, which is a very, very significant issue. And we can expect the IA-64 architecture to catch up as compilers improve, as it is common with such architectures.

  6. So what's holding it back? by dpilot · · Score: 3, Informative

    How about the fact that VLIW (or EPIC, if you prefer) compiler technology really isn't there yet for general purpose problems? Maybe you can write a program for EPIC and get it to scream, but simply recompiling the ray-tracer (or what-have-you) you already have just won't show much. Take a look on comp.arch for more, especially under X86-64 for evolution vs revolution opinions.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  7. Overview? How about Autopsy... by HiredMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    HP decided as early as 1996 that the then "Merced" project would not overtake their PA-RISC arch and essentially walked away from the the project.

    Years late the "Itanium" finally ships (although no one buys it) as Intel says, "But wait for McKinley! Then it will really work!"

    The McKinley is the product of the "rethought" Merced project. McKinley is shipping later this year - with a completely different socket system so even the arch surrounding the "Itanium" is dead in the water.

    Let's compare this to the REAL competition:

    IBM Power4 1.3GHz - shipping for a while now:
    SPECint2000 = 814 SPECint_base2000 = 790
    SPECfp2000 = 1169 SPECfp_base2000 = 1098

    Sun UltraSparc III Cu 1.05GHz:
    SPECint2000 = 610 SPECint_base2000 = 537
    SPECfp2000 = 827 SPECfp_base2000 = 701

    Even the best Itanium 800Mhz reported int numbers are:
    SPECint2000 = 365 SPECint_base2000 = 358
    (Same box) SPECfp2000 = 610 SPECfp_base2000 = 526

    Even if the McKinley (which doesn't ship for 6 months or so) produces double the Itanium numbers it'll still lag the currently shipping Power4 chips.

    Remember the hype and FUD surrounding the launch of the "Itanium" chip that eventually hasn't even caused a ripple in the marketplace? Intel has sunk billions into this EPIC project and refuses to let it go even though it's years late so far hasn't produced the clear advantage over the RISC arch it was supposed to make obsolete. In many cases the "consumer" chips continue to make better results than the "server" chip series - and with AMD knocking on Intel's door throttling back production/performance of the consumer ship is not an option.

    Will the McKinley better than the Itanium? Certainly.
    Will it be compelling? Wihtout Intel behind it - probably not. (Alpha was the clear performance winner for so long but couldn't get any traction.)
    Is VLIW^H^H^H^H EPIC the future of computing? "Answer unclear... ask again later." ;)

    =tkk

    --
    Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
  8. Try out Linux Itanium on IA-32 systems by mbalma · · Score: 2, Informative
    If you want to try out Linux on the Itanium architecture using an IA-32 system go here. You can download a simulator and a development environment at no charge. HP released this SDK in 2000 to help developers before systems were available. David Mosberger (maintainer of IA-64 Linux kernel) developed the SDK along with Stephane Eranian. It's still a good option if you can't get access to a system.

    If you want to know more technical details about Linux on the Itanium Architecture, David and Stephane just released a book "IA-64 Linux Kernel: Design and Implementation". David was signing copies at HP's booth at LinuxWorld NY.

  9. HP is actually cheaper [Re:Not about 64 bits...] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    the cheapest dual-Itanium 733 is around $22K at Dell, everyone else is probably more expensive


    $7995 single / $14995 dual
    Check the prices yourself:
    http://www.hp.com/workstations/products/itanium/ i2 000/summary.html
    link