[Info-vax] ITIC 2014 - 2015 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report (was Re: BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution)

[David Froble]

JF Mezei wrote:
> On 15-05-31 21:43, David Froble wrote:
> 
>> VAX isn't available, or 64 bits, or capable ...
>>
>> Do you have any other options I don't know about?
> 
> Just out of curiosity here.
> 
> If one were to take Alpha EV7 designs, instruction/pipelining etc, and
> do a process shrink to make it work on the latest process, would it be
> competitive to current chips on a per core basis ?
> 
> In other words, apart from process shrinks and clock boosts in the alst
> 10 years, what else has Alpha missed out on since EV7 ?
> 
> Obviously, one would want at least quadcore Alpha today if it wsere
> resurrected, so that involves some caching and memory systenm redesign.
> But from an instruction processing point of view, is EV7's logic still
> considered state of the art today ?

Actually, I think this is an interesting question.  You got to wonder 
just what new features might have been developed that EV7 didn't have.

Also, it's been a while since single core performance got much better, 
other than process shrinks.  There is a hard limit.  Something like 
186,000 miles per second, or something like that.

With the shrinks you'd definitely want multi-core chips.  Not sure what 
memory the Alpha on-chip controller supported.  Might need some updates 
there too.  Oh, wait, you wanted to limit it to process shrinks?

The real problem would be to find someone to fund the work.  I don't 
think that's going to happen.