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Why Doesn't the Itanium Get the Respect It's Due?
happycorp wonders: "As in recent years the Itanium does well, easily beating x86 processors even at its low clockspeed (1.4Ghz). The supercomputer people are serious about benchmarking (no easily tricked microbenchmarks or reliance on closed-source
commercial apps), so the discrepancy between the performance and perception of this chip is serious.
With a single-CPU Itanium2 system at
around $2000 their price is already reasonable, and the price would come down
(and software would be ported) if the Itanium ever became a mass market chip. Having an affordable chip one step above a Xeon or Opteron in floating-point performance would not be such a bad thing for gaming enthusiasts (or 3D artists). So, the recent
article
on the
Top 500 supercomputers list brings up a question I've been meaning to ask:
Why do we see so many disparaging opinions of the Itanium processor (all those 'Itanic' jokes, etc.)?"
"It seems computing enthusiasts' sentiment is set against this processor, and its likely that it's going to be abandoned sooner or later. We'll be paying for x86 compatibility indefinitely (recall the Xeon has roughly
three times the number of transistors of the ppc970 for example; but we hardly get three times the performance).
These are a couple scores from the top 20, with the total gigaflops divided by the number of processors to obtain a per-processor speed:
rank processor ghz (gflops / #procs) speed #5 ppc970 2.2 (27910 / 4800) 5.81 #7 itanium2 1.4 (19940 / 4096) 4.86 #10 opteron 2.0 (15250 / 5000) 3.05 #20 xeon 3.06 (9819 / 2500) 3.92
Given this, consider what a 2 or 3 Ghz Itanium could do.
(fine print: I am not affiliated with the Itanium or the top500 list in any way)."
These are a couple scores from the top 20, with the total gigaflops divided by the number of processors to obtain a per-processor speed:
rank processor ghz (gflops / #procs) speed #5 ppc970 2.2 (27910 / 4800) 5.81 #7 itanium2 1.4 (19940 / 4096) 4.86 #10 opteron 2.0 (15250 / 5000) 3.05 #20 xeon 3.06 (9819 / 2500) 3.92
Given this, consider what a 2 or 3 Ghz Itanium could do.
(fine print: I am not affiliated with the Itanium or the top500 list in any way)."
They should have called it the "Dangerfield".
the dead ones were always much better :)
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
Hey, bwalling is right! We shouldn't just take what other people say and assume it's true!
Wait...
*brain asplodes*
I protest! For the record, I have *never* publically stated that Itanium was "crap". I reserve such sentiments exclusively for products from Microsoft.
you must be new here...
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
Yeah, I had that class.
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"Howard Johnson is right!"
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Yes yes! We're all individuals!
Old joke. And you misquoted it...
"Windows is a 32-bit extension to a 16-bit graphical shell for an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition."
...cute female EE grad student...
I recognize all of the words, but it still doesn't make sense.
I read the internet for the articles.
Hundreds and hundreds of products have been killed or permanently crippled because their first versions were terrible.
There's the answer! Now it's clear what has to be done to make this processor a success!
The first version was terrible, you say? Well, then simply apply the one and only strategy that always guarantees that an absolutely horrible first version becomes a great market success.
Put a sticker on it with the name "Microsoft".
--
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I'm not.
"Yes, Jayne, she's a witch. She's had congress with the beast..."
"She's in Congress?" - Firefly, "Objects in Space