[Info-vax] The Future of Server Hardware?

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <k4em91$iuh$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist
<bqt at softjar.se> writes: 

> You know, you keep saying "mainfraime class x86". I'm not sure I know 
> what that is. In reality, when we talk about the CPUs themself, they are 
> pretty much the same in all machines. There isn't any faster ones in 
> "mainframe class" machines. 

I think this has been true for a long time.  30 years ago, maybe CPUs in 
mainframes were faster than in PCs, but today the opposite is probably 
true.  With VAX (at least the later models) and ALPHA, the same CPU was 
available from desktop to datacenter.  OK, maybe big machines had MORE 
CPUs, but not faster ones.  At least back then, the bigger machines had 
more internal storage, more slots for PCI cards, more memory etc.  Speed 
was not a reason to buy them.