New Itanium More Powerful, Power Efficient

Heir Of The Mess writes "Intel have a press release out about their new Itanium 2 Processor. The new processor doubles the performance, and improves performance per watt by 2.5 times compared to the existing single-core versions. The flagship model triples the cache and can execute 4 threads/instructions per processor enhanced by Hyper-Threading. Transistor count is a whopping 1.7 billion. Triples the previous SPEC_int_rate_base_2000 record. Retails for US$3692 for the top of the range.
So yes the Itanium crew are still pushing forward. I wonder if this could help save SGI?"

Comments

Working with the hardware directly

[drachenstern]

I can tell you that the processors are not even in production at the main server manufacturer backing the Itanium family (ie, not Intel, the other one*).

We have seen a few proto style units roll through, but they have all had serious problems and are not running at full speed. The engineering group either cannot or will not give us a reason why these units are running crippled, but we believe it to be a chipset issue. Hopefully we will see the servers rolling through our manufacturing process within the next 60-90 days, but no management timelines have been released.

Here's to all those of us who want that raw power and are looking to pay for it!!!

*Won't disclose the name since I don't know if this info violates my NDA, but screw it, the public should know this stuff. Information does deserve to be known.

-drach!