AMD - Sun Relationship Expected to Blossom *UPDATED*

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AGodspeed

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Jul 26, 2001
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Now the AMD-Cobalt relationship was already in an advanced state of courtship before Sun's acquisition of the appliance company. The Cobalt Raq3 and Raq4 used AMD processors, and Hammer has been touted as a candidate for the most recent Raqs.

AMD has SMP to boast about in its 64-bit Hammer range, and it's not an SMP that Sun will feel threatened by just yet. Initial samples will be 2-way only. However Sun has the potential to be the biggest OEM of AMD chips in what, for the chip veteran, are two new markets: SMP and servers. When you're trying to make a splash, it's nice to have an OEM who can guarantee large volumes. And Sun's x86 strategy effectively means that a friendly, Tier One PC manufacturer has materialized in front of AMD's Sunnyvale HQ overnight.

*UPDATE*:

EBNS just reported on Sun's recent x86 support and The Inquirer has some news up as well.

From EBNS:

?We will now offer our customers an incredible value proposition by delivering our binary-compatible, industry-leading system family running on the Sparc platform and Solaris software system ... along with our new Sun Linux low-end servers and Sun Cobalt appliances for emerging edge services applications.?
 
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AluminumStudios

Senior member
Sep 7, 2001
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Wow, cool! I'ts not surprising seeing how modern x86 chips give many risc chips like Sun's UltraSparc2 a thorough but whoopin!

I've been wondering how Sun is continuing to sell it's low to midrage systems based on Ultrasparc2s because they have NO power. I have a Sun Enterprise 250 (single 400 mhz) here at work and it is NOTHING. My PIII-500 @ 585 outdoes it on all tasks. We also have a dual CPU Enterprise 250 that does datamining on about 10,000 text records a day and that this is floored non-stop. It will be nice to see Sun take their high-end methodology and put a little real hoarspower into it!

 
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sipre

Junior Member
May 4, 2001
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thats just funny... hopefully though............ummmm.... most likely a unix shell of some sort
 
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AA0

Golden Member
Sep 5, 2001
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seeing as sun does make solaris, you'll probably see something similar, except more geared to a AMD chip.
 
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Howard

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
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Hmmm... I've gotten so used to your kinds of posts that just by reading the thread title I knew you were the poster. :)
 
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MGMorden

Diamond Member
Jul 4, 2000
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Likely Linux. Many of the big vendors have been moving towards Linux (and Sun has cancelled it's latest x86 port of Solaris).
 
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ST4RCUTTER

Platinum Member
Feb 13, 2001
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Sun will use Linux for some of its product lines along with AMD's 7th and 8th generation processors. It does make sense. Sun isn't happy with Intel pulling out of the project to port Solaris to the Itanium, preferring Sun's competitors instead. Linux has already been ported to X86-64 so creating product lines around Linux should prove more time efficient. This could be a boon to AMD. I'm pretty sure Sun is an OEM willing to ship much larger volume than say Gateway or IBM combined...
 
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Willoughbyva

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2001
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If Sun does the hammer chips do you think that Microsoft will or will not be more willing to make an operating system for it(hammer), or how do you think microsoft will handle that or think about it? Do you think that making a windows for hammer will ensure desktop acceptance of windows os, or do you think that Microsoft will say that since its competitors are using different things with it (hammer) MS wont try to support it and try to relagate it to desktop obscurity?

Will
 
MadRat

MadRat

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
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I was figuring Solaris is not really an x86 O/S, therefore they'd have to use a different O/S from which to operate. Linux does make sense, especially if the Hammer works as advertised. With Microsoft trying to force their multiprocessor licensing on everyone for SMP/CMP architecture, Linux may be the new "Windows" fad by 2004.
 
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AGodspeed

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2001
3,353
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EBNS just reported on Sun's recent x86 support and The Inquirer has some news up as well.

From EBNS:

?We will now offer our customers an incredible value proposition by delivering our binary-compatible, industry-leading system family running on the Sparc platform and Solaris software system ... along with our new Sun Linux low-end servers and Sun Cobalt appliances for emerging edge services applications.?

Several versions of Linux have already been ported over to x86-64, and a ClawHammer or SledgeHammer does seem to fit into Sun's plans for low-end server platforms, especially since Sun is aiming for some type of availability to occur during "mid-year", which is exactly when AMD says they will have samples sent to their "OEM partners" for assembling.

Interestingly enough, McKinley's official release is also aimed at mid-year. However, I think it would be wrong to think that Sun would want McKinley in low-end servers (can McKinley even run Linux?). McKinley is more suited for the very high-end server market more than anything else....
 
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AGodspeed

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2001
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It's also interesting to note that Sun Microsystems has, quote:

...leapfrogged ahead of IBM in one part of a contest to see whose top-end Unix server is more powerful.

LINK
 
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x86

Banned
Oct 12, 2001
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This will definitely NOT happen!!! There will be no x86 relationship with Sun Micro and any other company. Did you forget that Sun canceled their Intel Solaris OS? That means that there will not be any Solaris for any X86 processor. Why would Sun want to use x86 chips when they will directly compete with their SPARC CPUs?

Think about it

-x86
 
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Noriaki

Lifer
Jun 3, 2000
13,640
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<< This will definitely NOT happen!!! There will be no x86 relationship with Sun Micro and any other company. Did you forget that Sun canceled their Intel Solaris OS? That means that there will not be any Solaris for any X86 processor. Why would Sun want to use x86 chips when they will directly compete with their SPARC CPUs?

Think about it

-x86 >>

Indeed. Do think about it. Sun's hardware is comparitively weak, even related to modern x86. Sun's strength is in the scalability of their systems. If they can introduce a cheaper, faster, larger quanity processor to the mix, I don't see how they can lose.

Not saying it will or won't. I don't know...and if I did I'd be buying a bunch of AMD stock ;)

But Sun's CPUs aren't all that impressive really. Their infrastructure and OS design makes their scalability impressive, but individually it's nothing great.
 
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AluminumStudios

Senior member
Sep 7, 2001
628
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It may be a survival tacktic on Sun's part. Who is going to spend $30,000 on a midrange Sun server when a dual Athlon would kick it's butt? Here at work we have a fully decked out Sun Enterprise 250 that was like $26,000. It does data mining and algorithmic analysis of medical records. It's CPUs are pegged non-stop meanwhile the $2,000 dual PIII-933 sitting next to it doing a far better job of the same thing.

x86 is eating into Sun's low-mid range market.

It's not gonna happen, but wouldn't it be cool if Sun went crazy and built a 32 way Athlon system ....... I can dream can't I?



 
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AluminumStudios

Senior member
Sep 7, 2001
628
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Quoted from: http://www.sun.com/2002-0206/linux/;$sessionid$3TOQOWBMN2JAXAMTA1LU5YQ

Sun will ship for the first time a full implementation of Linux on a new line of general-purpose servers aimed at providing "edge" services to environments such as workgroups and remote offices. New single- and multiprocessor systems, to be announced mid-year, will use the x86 architecture and be capable of running thousands of Linux applications natively.

Multiprocessor? Looks like Sun is going to be doing Dual Athlons! I wonder if the prices will be horrendous like their other products?

 
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