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Itanium Problems

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fever-dreams dept.

webdev writes "An article in today's NYTimes (free but...) highlights some industry concerns over Itanium. The author suggests the normal "what's bad for Intel is bad for the computer industry". Anyone know the power consumption for IBM's 64 bit effort GPUL?"

6 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. Google is your... by xenoweeno · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...friend!

  2. Ironic by sheepab · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just read a story on msnbc.com about AMD's 64bit processor, I close the window, check slashdot and there is the story about Intels Itanium. Anyway here is the link for msnbc. http://www.msnbc.com/news/813950.asp?0si=-

    --


    In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
  3. SPECint / SPECfp vs. POWER4 / US III / P4 by khuber · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here are some spec numbers

    http://www.hp.com/products1/itanium/performance/ar chitecture/speccpu.html

    -Kevin

  4. Re:IBM's Processor by Shuh · · Score: 5, Informative

    The IBM 64-bit processor is reported to be much lower power than the Power 4 chip it is derived from, and the actual chip is rougly the size of the Intel Celeron. See article.

  5. Not dead, just new by fparnold · · Score: 5, Informative

    We've ported chemistry simulation code to the pre-release ITA-2, and run benchmarks. There's not much like it, performance-wise, and on a cycle/dollar scale, it's in a class by itself. Smokes US-IIIs, walks away from the Alpha, and keeps pace handily with the Power4, at a more academicly-tolerable price. It's a good chip in its second incarnation, and has the misfortune to be introduced during a recession.

    As always, the NYT ignored that you'll need the 64-bit address space for large applications, it has excellent memory bandwidth, and those customers requiring such a system weren't explicitly interviewed or mentioned. The heat issue is true, and that's it's one failing, but as with the Alpha, it will get better in time. (I still remember the rumors, pre-release of the Alpha that DEC was going to have to build a liquid-cooled workstation)

  6. Re:itanium is a solid chip from what I've seen... by foobar104 · · Score: 4, Informative

    In the future I envision every IT department having its own trash can sized nuclear reactor. No need for UPS.

    I know this was a joke, but a lot of people won't understand how silly this comment is. A nuclear reactor can really be quite small... but all it will do for you is get hot.

    A lot of people don't seem to realize that a nuclear reactor is really just a fancy steam generator. The nuclear pile gets hot (heat-- after neutrons-- is the primary by-product of a fission reaction) and that heat is used to boil water. Steam drives a generator which creates electricity from the kinetic energy of motion.

    So a trashcan-sized nuclear reactor isn't such a fanciful idea. But the enormous closed-loop steam turbine generator attached to it may be somewhat unwieldy.

    Now, if you want to talk super-high-efficiency fuel cells, you've got my attention.