[Info-vax] HP Users Hope Whitman Can Persuade Oracle to Change Itanium Decision

[Michael S]

On Oct 1, 9:33 pm, MG <marcog... at SPAMxs4all.nl> wrote:
> On 1-10-2011 19:36, JF Mezei wrote:
>
> > Considering that the 8086 shares the same memory subsystem as IA64, does
> > IA64 have any advantage over the 8086 ?
>
> > Just because HP has decided to not build "mainframe" class 8086s does
> > not mean that the current chips are not able to scale to that size. This
> > could be a business decision as opposed to a technical one.
>
> The SGI, let alone under its current ownership (with a very favourable
> attitude towards x86/-64), never made that "business decision".  Yet,
> their IA-64 "Altix" line still scales way beyond the x86/-64 systems
> that they're selling at the moment.  So, how do you explain that?
>
> Let's compare SGI's current NUMAlink-based server annex supercomputer
> offerings:
>
>         - SGI Altix 4700 (Itanium, i.e. 9000)
>         Capable of scaling up to maximum of 512 processor sockets
>         and 128 terabytes(!) of memory.
>

In fact, 256 blades * 32GB/blade = 8 TB. 128 TB is an address space,
not the real memory you could plug into it.


>         - SGI Altix UV (Xeon, i.e. E7)
>         Capable of scaling up to maximum of 256 processor sockets
>         and 16 terabytes of memory.
>

256 sockets, 16 TB  is a limitation for directly addressable memory in
a single system image.
256 sockets = 2560 cores, 2.5 times more than 1024 cores in SGI Altix
4700. And each core in UV is way faster than that of 4700.
SpecFp_rate(base):
Altix UV - 128 sockets/1280 cores - 20500, 16/core
Altix 4700 (bandwidth nodes) - 128 sockets/256 cores - 3420, 13.4/core
Altix 4700 (density nodes)  - 64 sockets/128 cores - 1460, 11.4/core
Now, take into account that 512 sockets in Altix 4700 are only
possible with density nodes. Bandwidth nodes are limited to 256
sockets.

It is possible to hook several Altix UV systems together with the same
NUMAlink interconnects that are used within a single system and have
up to 1 PB of non-cache coherent globally-addressable memory. I don't
understand that tech sufficiently well to say more.

Bottom line:
Altix 4700 is not just dead, it's starting to get cold in the grave.
If you don't believe me - ask SGI.