[Info-vax] rx2660 & 1.6 GHz CPU with 24 MB Cache (Itanium 9050)

[Eberhard Heuser]

Am 28.06.2016 um 13:53 schrieb MG via Info-vax:
> Op 27-jun-2016 om 12:40 schreef Eberhard Heuser:
>> for those who want to use the most powerful Itanium CPU in a rx2660 box
>> here's some info:
>> Though you'll find that only a 9040 CPU is supported (1.6 GHz 18MB
>> Cache), but the more powerful 9050 CPU
>> (1.6 GHz 24 MB Cache) runs OK, too (at least with the latest available
>> firmware):
>
> Looks good and glad to hear it worked out!  (Especially if you
> had to pay a fair amount for these officially 'unsupported'
> processors.)
>
> What actually surprised me more, especially because it wasn't
> documented too well (apart from being listed as 'compatible'
> in one or more upgrade guides), was the fact that the rather
> dated rx2620 (then already, now needless to say even more so)
> could take dual-core "Montecito" CPUs.  I upgraded my rx2620s
> of mine two be equipped with dual dual-core "Montecito" CPUs
> which I found in a bargain, all the way in Australia, at the
> other side of the world for me, at the time.  (Years ago now.)
> It was in fact so affordable, even with the fairly prohibiting
> shipping costs it was still easily more than three times as
> cheap as what sellers were offering in Europe and North America.
> So, I couldn't resist.
>
> I ended up with the same amount of logical CPUs as your
> rx2660 has (plus with hyperthreading support), but naturally
> with a slower bus and the maximum RAM limit of the zx6000/
> rx2600/rx2620 systems (although you could, supposedly, with
> rare and very expensive 4-Gbyte DIMMs go higher).  I never
> saw any rx2620s on auction sites or anywhere else 'in the
> wild'.  (I assume, but maybe wrongly, that it wasn't too
> terribly common.)
>
> The heat dissipation from a 'dual dual-core' "Montecito" is
> not a laughing matter, however... especially during a warm
> summer period.  I also remember I needed a replacement airflow
> baffle, different power connector cables and such for the
> upgrade to "Montecito" processors.  (Was the rx2660 upgrade
> more 'plug-and-play' in that regard?)

The rx2660 upgrade was a 'plug-and-play' procedure.

>
> Performance-wise, though, in my recollection a faster CPU did
> not always make too huge of a difference for me, when running
> VMS.  I didn't notice too much of a significant difference in
> boot times between my DS10s, rx2600s w/"Madison" or even
> rx2620s w/"Montecito" (dual-core)...  I began to notice a more
> significant performance boost when I began booting off RAID-0/
> striped volumes, like from my DS10s with a hardware RAID SCSI
> HBA, 'ironically' also with VMS as a HPIVM guest hosted on a
> large VxVM/OnlineJFS striped volume under HP-UX.  That was
> when VMS truly began to fly.  (I guess VMS benefits greatly
> from both large sequential and maybe also random performance.
> But possibly the former, because so much is record/database-
> structured.)
>

If you want I/O-performamance you'll need fibre channel.

My equipment:
Qlogic Fibre Channel adaptor<=> Brocade Switch<=> MSA1500<=>MSA20 with
SATA-drives (partially SSD Crucial MX100 512 GB).

Eberhard