Re: Opinion question (Core2 Duo)
On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 03:51:34PM +0100, Jo Shields wrote:
> Let's assume I have large examples of both IA64 and AMD64. Plus further
> benchmark data we collected ourselves.
>
> IA64 is fast, for floating point code. On paper, it offers the same
> per-core-per-Hz FLOP count as Core (twice that of AMD64). And in
> practise, Altix scales, whilst the competition, well, doesn't. In our
> benchmarks, IA64 was not only faster per-GHz than POWER5 or AMD64, but
> faster in absolute terms too, with an 8-way test absolutely dominated by
> a 1.6-GHz-Montecito-based Altix, whilst AMD64 didn't even register a
> pulse.
>
> However, for IA64, compiler choice is key - using GCC to compile test
> code isn't just crippling the system, it's throwing away hundreds of
> thousands (if not more) of investment
>
> They've got SMP machines that don't choke at >4 cores. For some
> applications, that's of great interest.
Well if you need something to do floating point, then x86 isn't
generally where you want to be. And yes if performance matters gcc is
not what you want to use either.
For normal servers running databases and serving files, floating point
isn't really that interesting.
--
Len Sorensen
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