Computex 2003 - Day 4: XGI, Motherboards, and cheap Itaniums
by Evan Lieb & Andrew Ku on September 26, 2003 7:54 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Cheap Itanium 2's?
As you may or may not have heard, Intel recently released two low-priced Itanium 2 processors on Monday. The first of these two I2 processors runs at 1.0GHz and comes with 1.5MB of L3 cache, at the very attractive price of $744. This is the low voltage version of I2, previously codenamed Deerfield, and the one and only one Intel plans on releasing for a few months. The other low-priced I2 runs at 1.4GHz and also comes with 1.5MB of L3 cache. This is not a low voltage processor, but it is low-priced at just $1,172. All prices are in lots of 1000.
By the way, we’re not being sarcastic when we call these processors “low-priced”; the cost of entry for 64-bit processing has really never been this low for such a legitimate 64-bit architecture. Of course, Opteron prices are very competitive with these prices, and on the average noticeably cheaper actually. I2’s 32-bit performance is no where near as fast as Opteron series processors, but depending on the 64-bit application, I2 is much faster, and could be much faster in the future when more applications are developed specifically for IA-64.
After considerable searching, we were finally able to track down some of these low-priced, low-voltage I2 processors at Computex. The one and only manufacturer that had these I2 processors was Supermicro, who displayed two I2 processors in a 1U rackmount. This dual CPU setup can be ordered with I2 processors of up to 6MB, and of course can be ordered with the 1GHz low voltage I2 and 1.4GHz I2 with 1.5MB L3 cache each.
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Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
#9 My point is: Where are the Benchmarks?
The only place where I can compare the Itanium2's is SPEC.org (www.spec.org)
SPEC int 2000
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/cint2000.html)
Itanium 2 1500Mhz, 6Mb L3 cache 12Gb RAM
base 1322 peak 1322
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q3/cpu2...
Itanium 2 1400Mhz, 4Mb L3 cache 8Gb RAM
base 926 peak 926
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q3/cpu2...
I know that clock speed is not the same but is the closest i can get. The clock speed of 1400Mhz itanium2 is 93% of the 1500 itanium2. It has less cache. SPEC result of 1400 itanium2 is 70%
of 1500Mhz itanium2. I wonder how a 1400Mhz, 1,5Mb L3 cache itanium2 would do in SPEC.
The article talks about "cheap itaniums", and by cheap they mean $744 for 1.0Ghz and $1,172 for 1.4Ghz.
For about the same price you could buy an Athlon FX-51.
Before you talk about the 1400 itanium2 had less RAM look at these SPEC results, with 1Gb RAM
Athlon FX-51 2200Mhz, 1Gb RAM
base 1376 peak 1447
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q3/cpu2...
Andrew Ku - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
#7 Typo, we fixed it. Thanks for being patient.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
#8, it's not a difficult concept to comprehend. If you really think that the extra 4.5MB of L3 are going to make a huge difference in widely used 64-bit applications, you have a lot to learn about modern MPUs.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
'quote' "I2’s 32-bit performance is no where near as fast as Opteron series processors, but depending on the 64-bit application, I2 is much faster, and could be much faster in the future when more applications are developed specifically for IA-64." '/quote'This is nonsense. Where are the performance numbers of an Itanium running at 1.0Ghz and 1.4Ghz with only 1.5Mb L3 cache? the only numbers I'am aware of are the 1.5Ghz with 6Mb L3 cache and they should not be the same.
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
umm...what happened to Computex Day #4? it went from day 1, 2,3,5 ?didnt anything happen of the 4th day??
Anonymous User - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
I'm also looking forward to the XGI cards... Wasn't there a blurb on AT a few days ago about how the Volari 8 offered 6000+ 3dMarks?Of course, I'm not one of those extreme money-wasters who'd sink $500 on a single component (maybe the CPU, and the RAM), so I'd be looking more at the performance of their mid-range card (the V5?). Considering nVidia's weak overall performance in DX9, XGI only really has to compete with the 9500/9600 from ATI in the mid-range, and if its high end can compete with ATI's high end pretty easily (using beta drivers, no less), I don't see why the V5 couldn't penetrate the market and become a contender in the mid-range market. Here's hoping it doesn't turn into a Phantom or any of the other many attempts to break into graphics cards and failing miserably...
Xelloss - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
A desktop Itanium2 would be pretty damn useless at this point anyhow. Yeah, you could run linux on it, but I'd imagine you'd have some trouble compiling a lot of software for it. I don't think Itanium is currently a high priority target architecture for desktop software.You could probably run apache, etc., but then why buy a desktop machine?
AgaBooga - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
Yeah, don't expect Itanium 2 for desktop anytime soon.Anonymous User - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
Until they replace some of those Xeons with the I2 line, I doubt you'll be seeing it at all in desktops.jliechty - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
Well, now we have some half-reasonably-priced Itanium 2s. The big question is if the "Average Joe" will ever be able to purchase one from Newegg.