Interesting read about upcoming K9 processors

On Tue, 03 Aug 2004 08:37:54 +0200, Jan Vorbrüggen wrote:

I have an MS simulator around here
somewhere that I would certainly become annoyed if it was broken by
hardware. ...though I'm not sure who I'd be most annoyed at. M$ for
using unarchitected "feechurs" or Intel for breaking (promised) backward
compatability.

That's the whole point: that backward compatibility wasn't promised by
Intel, but Microsoft's market position and the market's de facto demand
for backward compatibility at all costs was so strong that a minor
implementation detail of a new chip needed Microsoft's go-ahead.

Then Intel doesn't truely care about backwards compatability (which was
my point).

....like security? ;-) Face it, they don't care squat about security.

If Microsoft is good at anything, it's marketing. And that's why they
now care about security.

Are you really buying that crap?

--
Keith

"Tony Hill" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 03 Aug 2004 08:56:53 +0200, Ketil Malde

Definitely! At least publicly Intel is STRONGLY saying that IA64 is
the one true path for the future, customers be damned!

They have publicly stated that x86 is here for a long time. Show me one
public statement anywhere from Intel, anywhere, that says IA64 is the only
future processor, whether strong or weak.

OTOH, virtually all OEMs but one are offering IA64 systems, and that one is
'looking at it'. As far as dollars, I believe that IA64 systems accounted
for a significantly larger amount of system revenues than Opteron. That
may change, but to imply that customers don't want IA64 is disingenuous at
best...


Now you've got it!

Actually it all seems to tie back in to the fact that MS decided to
push all their future OSes back until they get WinXP SP2 out, and that
seems to be taking forever! Each time SP2 gets pushed back everything
else gets pushed back behind it.

The explanation is most likely that the Windows OS is likely a huge pile of
spaghetti code that is a nightmare to maintain - including full 64-bit
operation. For those who have never worked on a commercial product of any
size, all it takes is a few customers complaining about a bug that 95% will
never encounter to extend a beta - and that 95% will scratch their heads and
claim that the product is *so* stable. Sure, you can get the 'core'
features to work fine, but the corner cases can be a major bitch... :-).

Regards,
Dean

"Rob Stow" wrote in message
...

I think Intel could cut off the flow of Itanics right now and
HP would hardly notice. HP has had a couple of years now to
recognize that Itanic is never going to be anything more than
a niche market. They are not all idiots over there - they
began dealing with the fact that they will never come remotely
close to recovering their Itanic investment a long time ago.

For those in .chips, since the reference was already made - this sounds an
awful lot like a certain individual claiming "DDR is dead, Dead, DEAD".

Some people should look in the mirror more often. :-).

Regards,
Dean

"Tony Hill" wrote in message
...

I'm not sure that would be very different from where they stand now.
From what I understand HP and SGI make up well over 90% of all Itanium
server revenues. Everyone else (IBM, Dell, Unisys, Bull and whoever
else) are mostly fighting for a few scraps.

That, by itself, is not an indication of the success or failure of Itanium.
First you have to provide the revenue numbers, and market percentage.
Otherwise you could state that because Intel gets almost 85% of all x86
revenues, that x86 is a failure...

Regards,
Dean

"Dean Kent" wrote in message
.. .
OTOH, virtually all OEMs but one are offering IA64 systems, and that one
is
'looking at it'. As far as dollars, I believe that IA64 systems
accounted
for a significantly larger amount of system revenues than Opteron.

Now that I think about it, I believe Itanium may have outshipped Operton in
units for all of 2003 as well. Intel claimed over 100,000 units shipped
(most at the end of the year), but I don't think AMD disclosed the Opteron
numbers. If they had outshipped Intel, I would think that they would have
made a comment to that effect, since JSIII had all but guaranteed it at the
beginning of the year...

Regards,
Dean

Dean Kent wrote:

"Rob Stow" wrote in message
...

I think Intel could cut off the flow of Itanics right now and
HP would hardly notice. HP has had a couple of years now to
recognize that Itanic is never going to be anything more than
a niche market. They are not all idiots over there - they
began dealing with the fact that they will never come remotely
close to recovering their Itanic investment a long time ago.


For those in .chips, since the reference was already made - this sounds an
awful lot like a certain individual claiming "DDR is dead, Dead, DEAD".


I think the similarity is a *lot* stronger to the
"Rambus is dead, Dead, DEAD." that far more people
subscribed to.

The first Google hit on "opteron shipments" is xbitlabs:

| A report over InformationWeek web-site cites analyst Dean McCarron for
| Mercury Research who claims that AMD supplied about 70 000 of AMD
| Opteron microprocessors in the first quarter this year. By contrast,
| the Sunnyvale, California-based microprocessor maker supplied about 65
| 000 of its server microprocessors in 2003. According to some other
| estimates, AMD only sold 40 000 of AMD Opteron products last year.

So if the 100000 units figure is correct for Itanium, you seem to be
right. What was the "end of year" thing, though? It was hardly
Christmas shoppers, was it?

While (of course) Intel never committed to terminating x86, it
is clear that they wanted IA64 to be vastly more mainstream than it
seems to be. That, or the press were victim of the greatest
mass-misunderstanding I've seen. Randomly Googling around brings me
to e.g. http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_s.../102041601.asp, with a
nice chart showing an estimated 1.5-2 million IPF server shipments in
2003 -- and the article is dated early 2002. FWIW, I don't think it's
likely that they will exceed IA32 servers in 2005 either, but we'll
see.

-kzm
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

Then Intel doesn't truely care about backwards compatability (which was
my point).

Humbug. They don't want to be held back by _accidental_ backward
compatibility, which is a big difference.

Are you really buying that crap?

MS's marketing? No. But I can read about the effects of their recent
patches, not only to the base operating system.

Jan

HP, on the other hand, could easily afford to just ditch their
Integrity group altogether and keep going with the rest of their
businesses. It might hurt a bit, but all their Itanium servers
combined only make up a relatively small portion of the companies
total market. Their Xeon-based Proliant servers still bring in a LOT
more revenue.

Who cares about revenue? It's EBIT or one of its variations that's relevant,
and EBIT/revenue is perhaps even more important. I'd rather have a company
with a tenth of the revenue and solid earnings than a company with high
revenue and bleeding red ink, wouldn't you?

Jan

"Ketil Malde" wrote in message
...

The first Google hit on "opteron shipments" is xbitlabs:

| A report over InformationWeek web-site cites analyst Dean McCarron for
| Mercury Research who claims that AMD supplied about 70 000 of AMD
| Opteron microprocessors in the first quarter this year. By contrast,
| the Sunnyvale, California-based microprocessor maker supplied about 65
| 000 of its server microprocessors in 2003. According to some other
| estimates, AMD only sold 40 000 of AMD Opteron products last year.

So if the 100000 units figure is correct for Itanium, you seem to be
right. What was the "end of year" thing, though? It was hardly
Christmas shoppers, was it?

No, just that Intel stated that the shipments were 'back end loaded',
meaning that most of the shipments had occurred at the end of the year (I
believe that came from the earnings conference call). I have absolutely no
idea what it means, but there had been much noise made earlier in the year
about how Opteron would outsell Itanium in Opteron's first year of sales
because the first couple of quarters were pretty dismal for Itanium.


While (of course) Intel never committed to terminating x86, it
is clear that they wanted IA64 to be vastly more mainstream than it
seems to be. That, or the press were victim of the greatest
mass-misunderstanding I've seen. Randomly Googling around brings me
to e.g. http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_s.../102041601.asp, with a
nice chart showing an estimated 1.5-2 million IPF server shipments in
2003 -- and the article is dated early 2002. FWIW, I don't think it's
likely that they will exceed IA32 servers in 2005 either, but we'll
see.

I believe that Itanium is far less ubiquitous than Intel desired, but the
evidence seems to indicate it is far less than the total disaster that some
wish to spin. In fact, as the technologies mature (both hardware and
software), it could be argued that the momentum is starting to build.

Now, I know that there are some who claim that Intel wanted IA64 to replace
x86 very early on, but...

1) The NY Times quoted Andy Grove in 1998: "I don't see Merced appearing on
a mainstream desktop inside of a decade." -ANDY GROVE, Ex-CEO, Intel (New
York Times, 5 April 98)

2) In 1997, the now infamous Bob Colwell was scheduled to give a talk at the
Microprocessor Forum about the IA32 enhancements "beyond the end of the
decade", so it was obviously not the intent at that time to replace IA32
anytime really soon:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archi...s/sp100997.HTM

3) Gordon Moore, in late 1996/early 1997, in an interview with PC Magazine
stated: "GORDON MOO Oh yeah, sure, 64 bits means new instructions. But it
will still run the older software compatibly. You know, that's one thing we
have, is the idea of carrying a compatible family along--even if we have to
put two processors on the chip, one 32-bit and one 64-bit, it's going to run
that old software effectively."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,35750,00.asp

So, it would appear that even in 1996 the concept was not to eliminate x86
entirely, in 1997 it was publicly stated that IA32 would be around for some
time after Y2K, and in 1998 it was publicly stated that IA64 would not be on
the desktop for at least another 3.5 years from *today*. This despite the
recollections of a few who are certain that Intel had more nefarious plans
early on...

Regards,
Dean



-kzm
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants