"Features and Benefits With eight cores and 64 threads on one chip, integrated 10 GbE networking, crypto, and PCI-Express expansion, you have the jump on anything else on the market. The opportunities for system consolidation and virtualization are here like never before. Consumes less power per core and thread than any processor in its class - without compromising on performance. The UltraSPARC T2 processor gives OEMs a massively threaded, multi-core alternative to more power-hungry, less threaded processors from competing vendors."
Conclusion: "The six-core Opteron is not an alternative to the mighty Xeons in every application. The Xeons are more versatile thanks to the higher clockspeeds, higher IPC, Hyperthreading and higher bandwidth to memory. The Xeon 55xx series is clearly the better choice in OLTP, ERP, webserving, rendering and there is little doubt that it will continue to reign in the bandwidth intensive HPC workloads. There are two types of applications where we feel that the AMD six-core deserves your attention: decision support databases and virtualization."
25 years of Macintosh: Ars Technica's favorite Mac
on
Happy 25th, Macintosh!
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The spanish organization ONCE (Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles - Blind Spanish Men Organization) has a group that also develops applications for blind people.
Some applications (which you can download trial versions): MOBILE SPEAK POCKET http://cidat.once.es/home.cfm?id=184&nivel=2 You can hear the text of the text in a windows mobile pda
Why there isn't a suite of speed tests that are automatically done by Canonical about the speed of several usual operations? (maybe there is this kind of test and Phoronix test suite is very different)
It's a crash between a Volvo 940 (big car: 4.80m, but bad Euroncap rating) and a Renault Modus (small european car: 3.90m and great Euroncap rating: 5/5 stars)
The result? A driver in the Renault could go out on his own from the car. The Volvo driver...well, would have several damages in his legs and would need some help to get out of the car.
How much do you want to spend on it? In my opinion, I think that the new MSI Wind is a very good alternative.. if you want to spend 399$ in the Linux version and upgrade the battery to get 5.5h.
Google Earth is based on QT and it's avalaible for Windows / MacOS X / Linux.
I think that google engineers have studied several tools for developing this program for multiple operating systems and decided that QT was the best toolkit
Nowadays, one of the hottest components in a computer (and consoles) is the GPU.
Most of the XBox 360 problems come from a very hot GPU situated under the DVD drive.
I think taht the GPU used in the PlayStation3 is a 90nm derivative from the GeForce 7800 (a quite hungry GPU) (you can see it in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer' ). I think that this GPU should be shrink into another process before creating a "Slim & Lite" PS3...
If I develop an application following the MVC model: - Model: data accessed through standard SQL - View: web based. - Controller: J2EE standard I can change: - Model: the OS of my clients - View: I only need a J2EE application server (jboss / websphere / whatever) - Database: I only need an standard database (Oracle / SQLServer / Postgresql)
I'll use whatever product is the best to solve my problems. For example, if suddenly Oracle wants to charge lots of money for a database instance, I'll try to move to another database (this is the "commoditization" of the market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity )
You cand find several test about the scalability of MySQL vs PostgreSQL in tweakers.net:
http://tweakers.net/reviews/649/9 MySQL vs PostgreSQL / Solaris vs Linux "In contrast to all MySQL versions that we tried, PostgreSQL scales almost perfectly. With a load of ten simultaneous users, the step from one to two cores yields on average an performance increase of 114%, going to four cores improves things by 96%, and the increase to eight cores adds another 77%. This means that eight cores deliver 7.4 times as much as a single core. Another relief in comparison to MySQL comes in the form of stable performance after the maximum is reached: collapses as we saw in MySQL when the loads exceed the servers capacities do not occur. When we only take the heavy loads at the end of the graph into consideration, the lines appear to flatten out, which means that the scaling behaviour is even better: the gains of the core doublings to 2, 4, and 8 are respectively 122%, 104% and 98%, in other words, the performance between one and eight cores differs on average by a factor of nine."
http://tweakers.net/reviews/657/6 MySQL 4.1 vs MySQL 5.0 vs PostgreSQL 8.2dev / Linux Kernel 2.6.15 vs. 2.6.18 Scaling from 1xcore to 2xdual_core: * My SQL 4.1: +56% * My SQL 5.0: +40% (this is NOT an errata, 5.0 scales worse than 4.1) * PostgreSQL 8.2dev: +224%
What happens now with Oracle and PostgtreSQL?
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Sun Buys MySQL
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Right now Sun supports PostgreSQL on Solaris (http://www.sun.com/software/products/postgresql/index.jsp) and Oracle is one of the main applications used in Solaris.
I think this is a move to sell support to their customers, like asking: "Do you need an Oracle Database?" - If the answer is "YES", then we will sell you our servers and OS support - If the answer is "NO", then we will sell you our servers and OS support AND MySQL / PostgreSQL support
The conclusion is (more or less): yes, the scalability of Intel Core Processors is worse than AMD Opteron Processors. However, the price/performance ratio of the Intel Core 2 Quad Processors is great.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.youtube.com/xl is an easy way to access youtube content from your wii
Works perfectly in mine with the OLDER version of the internet channel
http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t5440/specs.xml
4 UltraSparc T2 processors with 4 processors x 8 cores per processor x 8 threads per core = 256 threars
Press "Get it". Prices start from $91,995.00 with 256 threads and $51,795.00 with 128 threads
From http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-T2/features.xml
"Features and Benefits
With eight cores and 64 threads on one chip, integrated 10 GbE networking, crypto, and PCI-Express expansion, you have the jump on anything else on the market. The opportunities for system consolidation and virtualization are here like never before. Consumes less power per core and thread than any processor in its class - without compromising on performance. The UltraSPARC T2 processor gives OEMs a massively threaded, multi-core alternative to more power-hungry, less threaded processors from competing vendors."
http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3571
Includes information about virtualization performance: http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3571&p=9
Conclusion:
"The six-core Opteron is not an alternative to the mighty Xeons in every application. The Xeons are more versatile thanks to the higher clockspeeds, higher IPC, Hyperthreading and higher bandwidth to memory. The Xeon 55xx series is clearly the better choice in OLTP, ERP, webserving, rendering and there is little doubt that it will continue to reign in the bandwidth intensive HPC workloads. There are two types of applications where we feel that the AMD six-core deserves your attention: decision support databases and virtualization."
Interesting opinions from the ArsTechnica editors: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/25-years-of-macintosh.ars
The spanish organization ONCE (Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles - Blind Spanish Men Organization) has a group that also develops applications for blind people.
Website (in spanish) http://cidat.once.es/
Some applications (which you can download trial versions):
MOBILE SPEAK POCKET
http://cidat.once.es/home.cfm?id=184&nivel=2
You can hear the text of the text in a windows mobile pda
You don't want Linux. You want an operating system which should be able to run Windows applications.
Give a try (in a VM, of course) to ReactOS
Why there isn't a suite of speed tests that are automatically done by Canonical about the speed of several usual operations? (maybe there is this kind of test and Phoronix test suite is very different)
...with the same findings.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/atom-nano-review.ars
Think about nVidia CUDA or OpenCL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL)
Or about physics in your graphics card
You should take a look at http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-1.htm
This is the main information:
Power Consumption in Games
PS3: 185.9 Watt average
XBox360: 176,54
PC (see link for more information): 156,6
Wii: 16.8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I
It's a crash between a Volvo 940 (big car: 4.80m, but bad Euroncap rating) and a Renault Modus (small european car: 3.90m and great Euroncap rating: 5/5 stars)
The result? A driver in the Renault could go out on his own from the car. The Volvo driver...well, would have several damages in his legs and would need some help to get out of the car.
You can take a look at the power dissipation of both of the chips at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080529-via-takes-the-wraps-off-isaiah-meet-the-nano.html
More info and benchmarks at http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3321
Dear Microsoft
Thank you for yor Windows 7 demo.
If you have success we'll sell millions of new computers to allow multitouch.
Regards
HW vendors
-------------------
Dear Microsoft
Thank you for yor Windows 7 demo.
Actually there are very few computers which can run Multitouch. If you don't have success we'll sell millions of copys of our software.
Regards
Linux SW vendors
How much do you want to spend on it? In my opinion, I think that the new MSI Wind is a very good alternative.. if you want to spend 399$ in the Linux version and upgrade the battery to get 5.5h.
More info at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_PC
Google Earth is based on QT and it's avalaible for Windows / MacOS X / Linux.
I think that google engineers have studied several tools for developing this program for multiple operating systems and decided that QT was the best toolkit
Nowadays, one of the hottest components in a computer (and consoles) is the GPU.
Most of the XBox 360 problems come from a very hot GPU situated under the DVD drive.
I think taht the GPU used in the PlayStation3 is a 90nm derivative from the GeForce 7800 (a quite hungry GPU) (you can see it in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer' ). I think that this GPU should be shrink into another process before creating a "Slim & Lite" PS3...
That is why we have standards.
If I develop an application following the MVC model:
- Model: data accessed through standard SQL
- View: web based.
- Controller: J2EE standard
I can change:
- Model: the OS of my clients
- View: I only need a J2EE application server (jboss / websphere / whatever)
- Database: I only need an standard database (Oracle / SQLServer / Postgresql)
I'll use whatever product is the best to solve my problems. For example, if suddenly Oracle wants to charge lots of money for a database instance, I'll try to move to another database (this is the "commoditization" of the market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity )
...and I think that Solaris users are right.
You cand find several test about the scalability of MySQL vs PostgreSQL in tweakers.net:
http://tweakers.net/reviews/649/9
MySQL vs PostgreSQL / Solaris vs Linux
"In contrast to all MySQL versions that we tried, PostgreSQL scales almost perfectly. With a load of ten simultaneous users, the step from one to two cores yields on average an performance increase of 114%, going to four cores improves things by 96%, and the increase to eight cores adds another 77%. This means that eight cores deliver 7.4 times as much as a single core. Another relief in comparison to MySQL comes in the form of stable performance after the maximum is reached: collapses as we saw in MySQL when the loads exceed the servers capacities do not occur. When we only take the heavy loads at the end of the graph into consideration, the lines appear to flatten out, which means that the scaling behaviour is even better: the gains of the core doublings to 2, 4, and 8 are respectively 122%, 104% and 98%, in other words, the performance between one and eight cores differs on average by a factor of nine."
http://tweakers.net/reviews/657/6
MySQL 4.1 vs MySQL 5.0 vs PostgreSQL 8.2dev / Linux Kernel 2.6.15 vs. 2.6.18
Scaling from 1xcore to 2xdual_core:
* My SQL 4.1: +56%
* My SQL 5.0: +40% (this is NOT an errata, 5.0 scales worse than 4.1)
* PostgreSQL 8.2dev: +224%
Right now Sun supports PostgreSQL on Solaris (http://www.sun.com/software/products/postgresql/index.jsp) and Oracle is one of the main applications used in Solaris.
I think this is a move to sell support to their customers, like asking: "Do you need an Oracle Database?"
- If the answer is "YES", then we will sell you our servers and OS support
- If the answer is "NO", then we will sell you our servers and OS support AND MySQL / PostgreSQL support
There is a very good entry on a Sun blog about the cost of propietary databases and the "commodization" of this market:
http://blogs.sun.com/jkshah/entry/cost_of_proprietary_database
You can find articles about the use of x86 in embedded devices at arstechnica, from Jon Stokes:
Return of the Son of Pentium in 2008? Intel's new ultramobile processors
Intel's low-cost "Diamondville" CPU to power OLPC/Eee PC mobile category
And a very interesting article why processor makers want to extend their architecture to other realms: Beyond the BlackBerry crowd: life in a post-32nm world
The crash test that is linked in the subject belongs to the first version of the Smart Car. You can find the Euroncap test information at http://www.euroncap.com/tests/smart_city_coupe_200 0/29.aspx (3 stars out of 5)
The 2008 version hasn't been tested yet, but hopefully it will get 4 stars in the same test.
Yes, NUMA is not avalaible in Intel Core processors.
1 406114244
But Intel has processors with four cores avalaible. 2P motherboards with 4Core processors are cheaper than 4P motherboards with 2Core processors.
You can find a review with more information at:
http://anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=2897
and in:
http://realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT11
The conclusion is (more or less): yes, the scalability of Intel Core Processors is worse than AMD Opteron Processors. However, the price/performance ratio of the Intel Core 2 Quad Processors is great.
...But most of the time irrelevant.
Anandtech has two good reviews here (lower power) and here (lower performance)
The main reason is the increase of L2 Cache Latency from 12 cycles to 20. But in most of the benchmarks the difference is very low.