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."

3 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Not about 64 bits... by jeroenb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been looking into the IA-64 for the past year orso, and I'm convinced that on the technology side, both the architecture and the implementation are a good thing. What surprises me is that it's still taking quite some time for it to start popping up in actual production environments. Not sure what the reasons for this are.

    First of all, with HP being a co-developer of the entire architecture, they are a big backer of the Itanium. So is Compaq, who sold their entire Alpha technology to Intel to focus on implementing the Itanium in all their high-end products (makes you think, was this all decided because they already knew they were going to merge with HP? Probably...) Dell is still sticking with 100% Intel, so the Itanium will be their bet for capturing more of the high-end segment. Even SGI is selling Itanium workstations (although, with the recent announcement of the MIPS-only, IRIX-only Fuel workstation, they might abandon the Itanium as well.)

    So what's holding it back? I think that although there's now Linux available for it as well as a prerelease version of Windows Server along with some other systems (like HP UX) we still need to see more applications. Databases alone just aren't enough - and with the high prices of Itanium machines (the cheapest dual-Itanium 733 is around $22K at Dell, everyone else is probably more expensive) developers are not really happy about buying a couple of those machines and start hacking. So I think that because we don't see the Itanium much, developers are not investing in writing the software and business are not investing in buying the hardware.

    Maybe Intel should start giving out IA-64 machines to opensource hackers and watch it fly? Where can I submit my address info? :)

    Oh and about the subject of this post, the fact that the Itanium is 64 bits is not really all that important - the fact that a processor is 64 instead of 32 bits doesn't say anything about how fast it is. If you think it does, you can buy my R4400 Indigo2 for $10K :)

  2. 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?!?
  3. it's always been about the compilers by jrst · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Many of the comments about compiler technology in this thread could be taken verbatim from discussions about RISC architectures 20 years ago. Or from the HLL (high level language) architecture discussions 30 years ago. (Anyone remember the cries for "closing the semantic gap" between processor's and languages? No? Point made.)

    Hardware is getting more complex; it takes more sophistication to deal with it. Binding a (general purpose) processor to a language in order to make language implementation easier is exactly the wrong way to support a wider variety of languages. Making the most of a processor's capabilities is what compilers are for. That's what compiler writers get paid for.

    That's not to say I'm in love with the Itanium. At first glance I found it a baroque rehash of old ideas. But time--and compiler writer's--will tell.