And just so you know, I am aware of how over-optimistic I was with Eddas. By the time I'd gotten the design down, the needs changed, so redesign, again, needs changed, and before I knew it, 28 revisions to the design, and still it would not be enough. I learned a very big lesson with that, timing is everything, and don't over-estimate your own skill at something. I look over the sketches on rev 29 from time to time, and realize, yes, I could finish it. But then what, you know? Being over optimistic, wanting to take down the goliaths as some cyber-daniel is a game for the young.
>What's more, file server performance involves many things other than the CPU. It's usually more about I/O >performance than anything else. You're comparing a workstation or server which was designed for really solid >I/O performance to (I'm guessing) some random cheapass P3 motherboard designed to run Windows.
In the end, what you say here is really the only point I was trying to make here, that the CPU is not the end-all-be-all for a systems performance for a particular task. So thank you for reinforcing that. I'm not trying to proclaim that the SPARC or any other CPU is an ultimate processor, I've grown past that stage. Instead, I'd rather focus on getting the right part for the job. And yes, I do enjoy playing devils advocate, to try and bring a different view to the table.
On one hand, scary to imagine the world with warfare robots.
On the other hand, dude, I built RC planes in high school and designed my own jet powered drone which could theoretically carry weapons while in college. How do I submit my proposals to the USAF?
You know, I tried to verify this, but I could not get any Nehalem Xeon setups able to match the T2 setups. Even remotely capable of matching one. The closest I got was an Apple XServe, w/ 3GB of RAM vs the T5130 w/ 4GB of RAM, and the XServe came up only $2k less than the SPARC while also consuming more electicity. But this is comparing with an Apple, so we all know the markups there. Once there are more Nehalem's out there we'll get a better idea as to cost comparison.
I wonder which CPU the supercomputer will be using. Could be Opterons, or SPARC. I could easily imagine 12000 out of a SPARC Niagra or SPARC VIIfx (8 cores per-die) and would use less wattage than the same number of cores in Opteron. Plus, if they're doing dual or quad-precision, the SPARCs will hold their own.
I own two SPARCS (3 MIPS, a PPC, an Alpha, but I digress). I use them for heavy IO tasks, in my cases one is a NAS (a job which it does admirably) and the other is my router/firewall (a task which it also does admirably). In my testing, the SPARC can be used for other tasks very well. My guess is that both Sun and Fuji fail to see outside of the head-of-the-class server market in order to broaden the demand. It's like they can only see the big boss, without realizing that the key into the office is through the secretary.
The router is the funniest thing to see in action. Dual 32-bit HyperSPARC CPU's, 9 NIC ports, and a wireless, all run by OpenBSD. And it performs admirably for my 12-system network, handling all of their needs without even a murmur of a hiccup, something my old Linksys never could.
Yes indeed. I was impressed when they turned to the old II design for the Niagra chips, similar to how Intel turned to P3 for the Core series development.
I'm also speaking "feel" when it comes to the US2 vs P3 comparison, I had a 1Ghz P3 as a NAS, which consistantly choked on high access loads. I when picked up an old USII I put it in the same place, controlling my networked hard drive, the difference was night and day. Same Adaptec SCSI controller, but I was getting far faster responses from my network requests of data. Now the same machine sports a SATA HDD controller and a much larger drive, still purring happily.
Just checked, I was mistaken tho, it's a 250Mhz USII, so would be 4x P3. My mistake.
For some odd reason you seem to rate integer and fpu as the measurement of performance. By that measurement, Itanium is a speed demon. As the rest of the world seems to know, there is more to speed than just benchmarks, unless you run benchmarks for a living. I speak of personal observations, "finding" things, rather than hard numbers because, frankly, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. I compared my 200Mhz US II to my 1Ghz Pentium 3, and it responds faster, smoother, slicker. Both running Solaris 10, mind you. Now, for things like compiling, yes, my old NAS host here is bog slow. However, for the job I have it doing, it definately fits my bill.
I'd also make note that I never claimed a US II FPU beats a C2D FPU, but that a SPARC FPU does. Did not specify, because I was discussing architectures. If you insist on numbers, let's look at your SPEC2006 for the 2.66Ghz C2D E6700, 16.9 fp. Now let's compare that to a SPARC FPU, 28.8 by the SPARC 64 VII running at 2.5Ghz, slower than the C2D.
Now, with that said would I use the SPARC for a gaming solution? Hardly, it's not ideal for the job. I'd sooner use a MIPS or x86 for that. But for repeated remote file access, the SPARC is one of the kings of the field, handling peak loads that my old P3 never could.
And being that you like looking like an AC fool, might I remind you, SPARC's not even my preferred architecture.
I've found the SPARC FPU to perform better than the Core 2's, a lot more reliably if nothing else. In addition, the SPARC's threads complete in less cycles, enabling a slower per-thread CPU to keep up.
Funny thing is, I run an US II and find it's faster than a Pentium III of almost 5x the Mhz. You classify this as the platform, I spot it for what I and a lot of others recognize as a weakness of the US III. The III was Sun's P4, a high-priced pretty poor CPU.
Scale. x86 cannot scale up anywhere near as far as SPARC (or even MIPS for that matter) can. You realize that the cheapest SPARC can handle more threads per cycle than a dual-quad Xeon, and do it while using less electricity, right? As for the big-iron chips, they handle databases on a scale that dwarfs the address range of x86, relying on more registers than even exists in the x86 architecture.
People want more viruses? As a virus is targeted at an architecture and api, and if you combine into a single chain, you wind up with a perfect storm for virus spreading. Witness the Irish Potato Famine.
I say we need more diversity of architectures, OS's, platforms and API's to prevent a Pandemic of computer malware. I still laugh at the memory of witnessing conficker trying desperately to install itself on my SPARC Kubuntu machine.
It is more likely that Sun compared the Rock to Fuji's new SPARC CPU and realized that it could not compare for the price/performance. Frankly, looking at the two, Sun made the wise move, killed off a weaker chip, and will likely push forward the SPARC64 VVIfx, which is further along in development and will be ready sooner.
Sure, of course this also requires no access to tax subsidized water, the use of tax sponsored roadways or bridges, or the eating of tax funded food safety programs. Oh, and don't forget that tax sponsored air purity testing programs. So, simple, don't drink, eat, breathe, or travel anywhere.
You use corporate tax rates for other countries, then the personal tax rate inside the US??? Talk about disingenuous. The peak US corporate tax rate is 35.2% and can only be achieved by companies not issuing dividends.
Now, an individual operating as a self-employed might theoretically hit your peak, but tell me, who would make $18.3 million a year without some kind of liability tax structure in place?
First mistake I always find in these courses is to focus on the language, and not on the skills necesary to make full use of them. I would actually focus the course on your existing schematic and know-how, and bring in the languages used later on, preferably both presented alongside such as SystemC. But that know-how will be far more valuable than any single language possibly can be.
My sons computer has a Sound Blaster 128 and PowerVR KyroII video card. Neither of which are supported by Vista. Both worked out of the box with Ubuntu 8.04.
> You are wrong. There is an end state where no one figures out a way for the model to work. Newspapers go the >way of the buffalo just like drive in theaters. You have done yourself and your kind a great disservice by >theorizing this false safety net and are only further lulling them into inaction and unemployment. I am not >in your business but I see it from the outside and as a customer, use this advice....and I just came back from watching Star Trek at the drive in while munching on a Buffalo Burger. (true story)
Dr Cheikh Modibo Diarra, stated 'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.' This is very misleading, as the "cost" is a combination of this, plus the support. You are then at the mercy of Microsofts schedule for repairs, updates, and if they consider your problem worth the effort to correct. This can be very costly in direct dollars in downtime and productivity. I can imagine an office going down due to a language package error, actually I don't have to. I have seen a language pack that broke an entire office due to a system update which was incompatible with some element within. And you then sit waiting for a week for someone, somewhere to apply a fix. This is not an issue with open source, as you then have access to every bit of the system, including the source code. A weeks downtime, for a "one time cost" or back up in an hour for a variable cost, your choice.
One common outcome in such situations is that the Distributor winds up with full development rights to the game, which they can then shop around to another party for completion.
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And just so you know, I am aware of how over-optimistic I was with Eddas. By the time I'd gotten the design down, the needs changed, so redesign, again, needs changed, and before I knew it, 28 revisions to the design, and still it would not be enough. I learned a very big lesson with that, timing is everything, and don't over-estimate your own skill at something. I look over the sketches on rev 29 from time to time, and realize, yes, I could finish it. But then what, you know? Being over optimistic, wanting to take down the goliaths as some cyber-daniel is a game for the young.
>What's more, file server performance involves many things other than the CPU. It's usually more about I/O
>performance than anything else. You're comparing a workstation or server which was designed for really solid
>I/O performance to (I'm guessing) some random cheapass P3 motherboard designed to run Windows.
In the end, what you say here is really the only point I was trying to make here, that the CPU is not the end-all-be-all for a systems performance for a particular task. So thank you for reinforcing that. I'm not trying to proclaim that the SPARC or any other CPU is an ultimate processor, I've grown past that stage. Instead, I'd rather focus on getting the right part for the job. And yes, I do enjoy playing devils advocate, to try and bring a different view to the table.
On one hand, scary to imagine the world with warfare robots.
On the other hand, dude, I built RC planes in high school and designed my own jet powered drone which could theoretically carry weapons while in college. How do I submit my proposals to the USAF?
A ha, the Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series is the Nehalem, did not have the model number handy in my search. TYVM for putting in the missing pieces.
You know, I tried to verify this, but I could not get any Nehalem Xeon setups able to match the T2 setups. Even remotely capable of matching one. The closest I got was an Apple XServe, w/ 3GB of RAM vs the T5130 w/ 4GB of RAM, and the XServe came up only $2k less than the SPARC while also consuming more electicity. But this is comparing with an Apple, so we all know the markups there. Once there are more Nehalem's out there we'll get a better idea as to cost comparison.
That's why I mentioned the dual or quad precision, the only math-area that the SPARCs are still pretty competitive in.
I wonder which CPU the supercomputer will be using. Could be Opterons, or SPARC. I could easily imagine 12000 out of a SPARC Niagra or SPARC VIIfx (8 cores per-die) and would use less wattage than the same number of cores in Opteron. Plus, if they're doing dual or quad-precision, the SPARCs will hold their own.
I own two SPARCS (3 MIPS, a PPC, an Alpha, but I digress). I use them for heavy IO tasks, in my cases one is a NAS (a job which it does admirably) and the other is my router/firewall (a task which it also does admirably). In my testing, the SPARC can be used for other tasks very well. My guess is that both Sun and Fuji fail to see outside of the head-of-the-class server market in order to broaden the demand. It's like they can only see the big boss, without realizing that the key into the office is through the secretary.
The router is the funniest thing to see in action. Dual 32-bit HyperSPARC CPU's, 9 NIC ports, and a wireless, all run by OpenBSD. And it performs admirably for my 12-system network, handling all of their needs without even a murmur of a hiccup, something my old Linksys never could.
Yes indeed. I was impressed when they turned to the old II design for the Niagra chips, similar to how Intel turned to P3 for the Core series development.
I'm also speaking "feel" when it comes to the US2 vs P3 comparison, I had a 1Ghz P3 as a NAS, which consistantly choked on high access loads. I when picked up an old USII I put it in the same place, controlling my networked hard drive, the difference was night and day. Same Adaptec SCSI controller, but I was getting far faster responses from my network requests of data. Now the same machine sports a SATA HDD controller and a much larger drive, still purring happily.
Just checked, I was mistaken tho, it's a 250Mhz USII, so would be 4x P3. My mistake.
For some odd reason you seem to rate integer and fpu as the measurement of performance. By that measurement, Itanium is a speed demon. As the rest of the world seems to know, there is more to speed than just benchmarks, unless you run benchmarks for a living. I speak of personal observations, "finding" things, rather than hard numbers because, frankly, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. I compared my 200Mhz US II to my 1Ghz Pentium 3, and it responds faster, smoother, slicker. Both running Solaris 10, mind you. Now, for things like compiling, yes, my old NAS host here is bog slow. However, for the job I have it doing, it definately fits my bill.
I'd also make note that I never claimed a US II FPU beats a C2D FPU, but that a SPARC FPU does. Did not specify, because I was discussing architectures. If you insist on numbers, let's look at your SPEC2006 for the 2.66Ghz C2D E6700, 16.9 fp. Now let's compare that to a SPARC FPU, 28.8 by the SPARC 64 VII running at 2.5Ghz, slower than the C2D.
Now, with that said would I use the SPARC for a gaming solution? Hardly, it's not ideal for the job. I'd sooner use a MIPS or x86 for that. But for repeated remote file access, the SPARC is one of the kings of the field, handling peak loads that my old P3 never could.
And being that you like looking like an AC fool, might I remind you, SPARC's not even my preferred architecture.
I've found the SPARC FPU to perform better than the Core 2's, a lot more reliably if nothing else. In addition, the SPARC's threads complete in less cycles, enabling a slower per-thread CPU to keep up.
Funny thing is, I run an US II and find it's faster than a Pentium III of almost 5x the Mhz. You classify this as the platform, I spot it for what I and a lot of others recognize as a weakness of the US III. The III was Sun's P4, a high-priced pretty poor CPU.
Scale. x86 cannot scale up anywhere near as far as SPARC (or even MIPS for that matter) can. You realize that the cheapest SPARC can handle more threads per cycle than a dual-quad Xeon, and do it while using less electricity, right? As for the big-iron chips, they handle databases on a scale that dwarfs the address range of x86, relying on more registers than even exists in the x86 architecture.
People want more viruses? As a virus is targeted at an architecture and api, and if you combine into a single chain, you wind up with a perfect storm for virus spreading. Witness the Irish Potato Famine.
I say we need more diversity of architectures, OS's, platforms and API's to prevent a Pandemic of computer malware. I still laugh at the memory of witnessing conficker trying desperately to install itself on my SPARC Kubuntu machine.
It is more likely that Sun compared the Rock to Fuji's new SPARC CPU and realized that it could not compare for the price/performance. Frankly, looking at the two, Sun made the wise move, killed off a weaker chip, and will likely push forward the SPARC64 VVIfx, which is further along in development and will be ready sooner.
Sure, of course this also requires no access to tax subsidized water, the use of tax sponsored roadways or bridges, or the eating of tax funded food safety programs. Oh, and don't forget that tax sponsored air purity testing programs. So, simple, don't drink, eat, breathe, or travel anywhere.
You use corporate tax rates for other countries, then the personal tax rate inside the US??? Talk about disingenuous. The peak US corporate tax rate is 35.2% and can only be achieved by companies not issuing dividends.
Now, an individual operating as a self-employed might theoretically hit your peak, but tell me, who would make $18.3 million a year without some kind of liability tax structure in place?
First mistake I always find in these courses is to focus on the language, and not on the skills necesary to make full use of them. I would actually focus the course on your existing schematic and know-how, and bring in the languages used later on, preferably both presented alongside such as SystemC. But that know-how will be far more valuable than any single language possibly can be.
Oldest equipment I have on the internet would have to be my 1983 Commodore 64, which is a terminal off of my Linux box. Basic RS232 connection.
I rememember my first distro, Slackware 3.0. The fustrations, the joys, ah, the memories. When 13 ships with 64-bit support, I'll have to take a look.
I counter your anctedote with my own:
My sons computer has a Sound Blaster 128 and PowerVR KyroII video card. Neither of which are supported by Vista. Both worked out of the box with Ubuntu 8.04.
> You are wrong. There is an end state where no one figures out a way for the model to work. Newspapers go the ...and I just came back from watching Star Trek at the drive in while munching on a Buffalo Burger. (true story)
>way of the buffalo just like drive in theaters. You have done yourself and your kind a great disservice by
>theorizing this false safety net and are only further lulling them into inaction and unemployment. I am not >in your business but I see it from the outside and as a customer, use this advice.
One to burn, one to keep on a shelf to then sell to some eccentric collector in 50 years. Retirement, here I come!
Dr Cheikh Modibo Diarra, stated 'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.' This is very misleading, as the "cost" is a combination of this, plus the support. You are then at the mercy of Microsofts schedule for repairs, updates, and if they consider your problem worth the effort to correct. This can be very costly in direct dollars in downtime and productivity. I can imagine an office going down due to a language package error, actually I don't have to. I have seen a language pack that broke an entire office due to a system update which was incompatible with some element within. And you then sit waiting for a week for someone, somewhere to apply a fix. This is not an issue with open source, as you then have access to every bit of the system, including the source code. A weeks downtime, for a "one time cost" or back up in an hour for a variable cost, your choice.
One common outcome in such situations is that the Distributor winds up with full development rights to the game, which they can then shop around to another party for completion.