Official SPEC scores for the Itanium 2 "Madison"

[Leon]

We should make a script for Eug that will automatically search AF for G5 +sucks +slow +"supercomputer".

That'll save him some time searching next time

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Leon
We should make a script for Eug that will automatically search AF for G5 +sucks +slow +"supercomputer".

That'll save him some time searching next time

Heh.

 

[Random Variable]

The most bizarre statistic is that the old G4 can achieve more GFlops than the Itanium 2 and the Power4. It can even achieve more GFlops than one of the vector processors used in the NEC "Earth Simulator" (SX-6).

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Vespasian
The most bizarre statistic is that the old G4 can achieve more GFlops than the Itanium 2 and the Power4. It can even achieve more GFlops than one of the vector processors used in the NEC "Earth Simulator" (SX-6).

Where did you read that? Are you sure it wasn't just the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (RDF®)?

There are real-life numbers, theoretical numbers, and then there's RDF® theoretical numbers.

 

[ViRGE]

If you really want to get a glimpse of the RDF, save this picture, and view it with Preview. Preview does in-image anti-aliasing, which cleans up the picture a lot.

 

[Random Variable]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Vespasian
The most bizarre statistic is that the old G4 can achieve more GFlops than the Itanium 2 and the Power4. It can even achieve more GFlops than one of the vector processors used in the NEC "Earth Simulator" (SX-6).

Where did you read that? Are you sure it wasn't just the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (RDF®)?

There are real-life numbers, theoretical numbers, and then there's RDF® theoretical numbers.

The numbers are theoretical. Nevertheless, the 1.42GHz G4 can achieve (theoretically) 11.36 GFLops.

 

[Random Variable]

Basically the difference comes from the fact that G4 can execute 8 floating-point operations per cycle, compared to 4 floating-point operations for the Power4 and Itanium 2.

Itanium 2 - (1.5GHz x 10^9 cycles /s )* (4 Flops / cycle) = 6 GFlops
Power4+ - (1.7 x 10^9 cycles / s) * (4 Flops / cycle) = 6.8 GFlops
G4 - (1.43 x 10^9 cycles / s) * (8 Flops / cycle) = 11.36 GFlops

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Sohcan

Originally posted by: Sunner
Wow, seriously kickasstastic SPECfp numbers, though Int leaves something to be desired.

Madison posts the highest SPECint score, nearly 65% higher performance than the 1-year-old McKinley (impressive given the industry average is 40% - 50% improvement per year), and you're still not impressed? What do you want us to do, Sunner?

In hindsight, I should have used different words, but hey, I was tired.
I was merely expecting a little bit more, though of course, 1322 puts the I2 at the top, though Prescott will probably overtake that position.

 

[Rand]

On a side note, The Power4+ recently took over the highest TPC-C crown 763,898 transactions/sec... it's about tiome someone has ousted HP from the lead, they held on for a remarkably long time.
The price/tpmC is only $8.31 also.

 

[Sunner]

Let's see how long it takes before HP ups the ante again, IBM and HP have been fighting for that top spot for a while now

It'll be interesting to see what POWER5 brings as well.
The high end market is almost starting to look like the consumer market now, with the heated competition, let's see how Sun responds as well.

 

[Random Variable]

Originally posted by: Rand
On a side note, The Power4+ recently took over the highest TPC-C crown 763,898 transactions/sec... it's about tiome someone has ousted HP from the lead, they held on for a remarkably long time.
The price/tpmC is only $8.31 also.

How did IBM manage to increase their result by 80,000 transactions? The eServer p690 that recorded that result is identical in every respect to the system that they tested a couple of months ago.

 

[Sunner]

They have 3 more frontends, that's the only difference I can see.

Database tuning?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Let's see how long it takes before HP ups the ante again, IBM and HP have been fighting for that top spot for a while now

It'll be interesting to see what POWER5 brings as well.
The high end market is almost starting to look like the consumer market now, with the heated competition, let's see how Sun responds as well.

Linux is partially responsable for that. (and yes I am biased)

Power4, Intanic (which so far doesn't sell jacks**t, hopefully that will change), Opteron and Sun Sparcs are competing for the workstation and mid-range server market. Dominating in that is like wining at F1 races for car manufactures, but for cpu manufactures. That's were the "real" work gets done and in turn it will lead to PC sales.

However in the past, if you used Sparc's you used Sun Solaris, IBM you used AIX, HP multi-xeon's you used Windows, etc etc. Once you got tied into one OS you basicly got stuck with it. Going from one platform to another was a pain in the a**, and basicly it was easier to stick with a slower computer if that's what IBM was using at the time or whatever. BTW this is the traditional "Unix" market area. And NT and W2k were designed to be Unix-killers, but it couldn't gain a foothold. All windows earned in the market was from small/mediums businesses that used PC's that grew into needing file servers, and stuck with windows to make corporate domains... But now Linux is making serious inroads..
It's easy to go from any Unix to Linux and guess what?

If I use Power4 machine, I can use Linux.
If I use a Sun machine, I can use linux.
If I use a Alpha/HP machine, I can use linux.
If I use a Intanic machine, I can use linux.
If I use a Opteron machine, I can use linux.
If I use a x86 machine, I can use linux.
If I use a AMD64 machine, I can use linux.
If I use a PowerPC (g4's, g5's), I can use linux.
If I use a IBM mainframe, I can use linux.
If I use a 240 node linux, I can use linux.

That's were some of the compitition is coming from. That and pissing rights. Isn't choice grand? If you noticed you could get opteron and intanic linux operating systems before you could get windows systems. (that run natively in 64bit mode) Those players are actually putting considurable work into linux. If they can optimize Linux to be faster on their hardware that's another thing they can use to prove the speed of their platform, and compare cost effectiveness.

Otherwise, why would Intel be care enough to compete with IBM and power4? If your a windows user you will never give a damn about power4's and If your a Unix user what are you going to use Intanium for? I doubt that Intel will create their own Unix OS, like HP's Hp-ux. (and you'd only care about x86 and unix if your a SCO user and have cash registers to run)

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Vespasian

Originally posted by: Rand
On a side note, The Power4+ recently took over the highest TPC-C crown 763,898 transactions/sec... it's about tiome someone has ousted HP from the lead, they held on for a remarkably long time.
The price/tpmC is only $8.31 also.

How did IBM manage to increase their result by 80,000 transactions? The eServer p690 that recorded that result is identical in every respect to the system that they tested a couple of months ago.

They claim database tuning... Which is likley, IBM can be pretty sloppy about stuff. I work nights a traditional mainframe database center (I pull tapes and submit jobs... monitoring their progress on the mainframe) There Idea of backward compatably is to simple run the old os ontop a new OS... We run about 3 OS's inside of each other, So if put in a corner I can see how IBM can increase performance that much if they carry their programming practices into their Unix server line of computers.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Eug

I don't get it. I correct a blatantly misleading statement and all h3ll breaks loose.

Ironically, I was pointing out after all that the G5 has nothing to do with Madison SPEC performance (or POWER4 SPEC performance), and furthermore agreed that the Itanium 2 is FAST.

First of all, my statement was in pure sarcasm, if you had a sense of humor you could relate that the Power4 is high end procesing chip, "supercomputer" chip. The G5 is derived from it, so I enthusiastically called it the "little supercomputer" with a big smiley face at the end. But no, you had to take it all seriously as if I hurt your only son.

But the fact of the matter is that the 1.5Ghz/6MB beats the G5's older brother and the 1.3Ghz/3MB is almost in the same price range as a high end 2Ghz G5, with the 900Mhz/3MB costing less.

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Eug

I don't get it. I correct a blatantly misleading statement and all h3ll breaks loose.

Ironically, I was pointing out after all that the G5 has nothing to do with Madison SPEC performance (or POWER4 SPEC performance), and furthermore agreed that the Itanium 2 is FAST.

First of all, my statement was in pure sarcasm, if you had a sense of humor you could relate that the Power4 is high end procesing chip, "supercomputer" chip. The G5 is derived from it, so I enthusiastically called it the "little supercomputer" with a big smiley face at the end. But no, you had to take it all seriously as if I hurt your only son.

But the fact of the matter is that the 1.5Ghz/6MB beats the G5's older brother and the 1.3Ghz/3MB is almost in the same price range as a high end 2Ghz G5, with the 900Mhz/3MB costing less.

Thats what I was going to post. Obvious the guy missed the smiley face and the seething sarcasm of the post. He was only defending mac because thats what Mr. Jobs has brainwashed him to do.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Eug

I don't get it. I correct a blatantly misleading statement and all h3ll breaks loose.

Ironically, I was pointing out after all that the G5 has nothing to do with Madison SPEC performance (or POWER4 SPEC performance), and furthermore agreed that the Itanium 2 is FAST.

First of all, my statement was in pure sarcasm, if you had a sense of humor you could relate that the Power4 is high end procesing chip, "supercomputer" chip. The G5 is derived from it, so I enthusiastically called it the "little supercomputer" with a big smiley face at the end. But no, you had to take it all seriously as if I hurt your only son.

But the fact of the matter is that the 1.5Ghz/6MB beats the G5's older brother and the 1.3Ghz/3MB is almost in the same price range as a high end 2Ghz G5, with the 900Mhz/3MB costing less.

Thats what I was going to post. Obvious the guy missed the smiley face and the seething sarcasm of the post. He was only defending mac because thats what Mr. Jobs has brainwashed him to do.

Penelty flag. Trolling, on the offense. 15 yard penelty, automatic first down.

 

[Eug]

First of all, my statement was in pure sarcasm, if you had a sense of humor you could relate that the Power4 is high end procesing chip, "supercomputer" chip.

Sarcasm yes, relevant and applicable, no. It's almost like saying the Athlon sucks because the Opteron isn't as fast as the Itanium 2. ie. Irrelevant.

He was only defending mac because thats what Mr. Jobs has brainwashed him to do.

Trolling doesn't become you.

Personally, I just think some people can't handle the fact that the G5 is a good platform. Sure the G4s designs of late sucked, but now that the G5 is competitive (in terms of speed, usability, and price), a few fanboys have their panties in a bunch.

But yes, this has nothing to do with Madison, which of course, was my original point.

 

[drag]

Look at this way. If one person says that the G5 sucks because it's not as powerful as the Intanium madison, your a idiot. That's like saying that the Pentium 4 sucks because it isn't as powerful as a Power4. The g5 may suck or not suck by the comparision of it to the Intanium OR Opteron is worthless, because they are in different classes.

Another example of a irrevelent comparision is the ATI fireGL vs a Geforce4 4200ti.

You see different customers expect different levels of performance and cost. Desktop users expect a cheap computer that can run games and do other simple things like compose power point presentations. You use cheap hardware to produce cheap computers. THat's how it works. It's usually cut-cost everything with a few exeptions here and there were advertisers are able to convince people to spend the extra few hundred dollars for the nicer stuff.

Then you have workstations. These are designed to be powerfull AND reliable. The cost per unit of performance is higher then a desktop, but you get with it persicion hardware that has been more thouroughly tested, is certified, and will last forever. It's for people that NEED a computer that will not fail and can be trusted, because how they make a living depends on it.

BTW a power4 is not supercomputer cpu. Although it can be, if used with a few hundred other power4's.

The trouble with discussing the G5 computer is that it is targeted at Desktop users, and RIGHT now there is no other desktop that is as powerful, uses the high-quality componates, and is well built and designed as the the G5 that is sold by companies like Dell. However, it's is able to produce these near workstation performance with a near workstation price. It's designed for a different group of users then what most of us are. If you want to compare computers accurately you can go ahead and take a look at the emacs and imacs and such which still far short of performance compared to the similar PC price range.

So give eug a break. He was just correcting a obviously inaccurate remark and now he has to defend his statements when you know he is right. He likes the Macs, he thinks their swell. Oh boy, watch out he is a heretic!

Seems like some people are just in this hell-if-know land were they get all defensive about their pet proccessor. For a long long time the Pentium4 was top dog in it's class, but it also cost more then the Athlon. Now the G5 with the dual proccessor design is top dog, but guess what? It's a bit more expensive then the Pentium4.

And you know what? AMD still is cheaper then both of them.

Wow.

Now if you can't handle that, maybe it's time to re-examine your obsession about a device that is nothing but a bunch of miniture transisters embedded in a little glob of ceramic and silicon. Because guess what? Pentium5's are going to whip the G5's butt... but maybe this new Intanium version will fail against IBM and HP and Sun workstations just like the Previous versions of Intanium proccessors and intel will begin to feel the pinch. Then maybe AMD will begin to pick up market share with it's AMD 64 like it did with the thunderbirds and early Althons. Who knows? Maybe then IBM will continue to try to compete in the desktop level with the power970 proccessor like intel is trying in the mid-sized server and workstation market and produce some more powerPC proccessors that will continue to raise the bar for performance. Or maybe this madison will finaly become accepted and Intel will be able to subsidize the prices on the pentium5 and make them cheaper then the AMD64 and will continue to dominate. And then IBM may cease to care about the power970 and it will go back to were the g4 was just a couple months ago.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: dragThe trouble with discussing the G5 computer is that it is targeted at Desktop users, and RIGHT now there is no other desktop that is as powerful, uses the high-quality componates, and is well built and designed as the the G5 that is sold by companies like Dell. However, it's is able to produce these near workstation performance with a near workstation price. It's designed for a different group of users then what most of us are.

Most of what you said is correct. Except for the quote above.

You said there are desktop, workstation, and server markets (the server part was implied from your post). Is the G5 truely marketed as a desktop computer? Go to apple.com and click on shop. Then click on desktop computers. The G5 isn't there. Why? Since the G5 is meant for and will be used by workstation users. Due to its capabilities, Apple's own product placement, its price, and its users - it is much more of a workstation than a desktop. Who buys a $3718 desktop anymore? ($3718 is the minimum dual G5 price with monitor and more than 90 day support when purchased from Apple.com - tax and shipping not included). Desktops pretty much top out at $1500 anymore and $717 was the average desktop price in Feb 2003. If the G5 is a desktop, then the dual 2.0 GHz is yes the fastest desktop in my opinion. But I truely think of it as a workstation.

As a workstation the G5 is a great step forward for Apple. It is quite a good chip. What if we compare it to places like Dell that you mentioned. The Dell Precision Workstation 450 (with as close a configuration as I could make) costs $3704 for dual 3.06 GHz Xeons. Note: I didn't bother with any of the common discounts for the Dell products but I could easilly have taken 10% to 15% off those numbers. Basically without any discounts, it is the same price as the minimum dual G5 configuration with the same components. Which will win in a battle depends on what is being done. There are programs where the dual Xeons will blow the dual G5s away, and vise versa. So it is quite a competitive product.

Note: however by choice Apple gives you very little flexibility in their products. I could take that same Dell Precision 450 and get just one 2.0 GHz Xeon from Dell for $1905, plop in two 2.8 GHz Xeon from NewEgg for $960 and get a wonderful computer for $2865. Now looking at it, and the G5 won't win many price/performance battles. That is why boards like this dislike the Apple products - the lack of freedom to suddenly make your computer $1000 cheaper by doing 30 minutes of work yourself in building it. It doesn't mean Apple's products are bad, but they will never jive with the do-it-yourself attitude around here.

As for the supercomputer statement - it is an old jab at Apple's commercials about 1 year ago. Those TV ads claimed that the G4 was a supercomputer, and since the G5 is so much faster, it gives the impression that the G5 is supposedly also a supercomputer. The problem is that the definition of a supercomputer is different now than it was in the past. It is time for Apple and Apple fans to stop claiming their chips are supercomputers and it is time for Apple haters to stop complaining about year old ads.

 

[drag]

As for the supercomputer statement - it is an old jab at Apple's commercials about 1 year ago.

hehe I guess that I don't pay that much attention. It was pretty obvious that the g4 was outclassed by the beginning of last year with the ghz races between amd and intel. I was much like what happened to the Alpha proccesor were it started off at speeds that were inconceviable by the x86 crowd (had 10 million transisters running at 300 to 600mhz back before 1998) but by the time you got the thunderbirds and stuff the Alpha was only going 800mhz or so and totally lost it's advantage.

That's when it was funny seing the Mac fans still trying to compare a dual 1ghz with the Pentiums and AMD's becuase it was just plainly obvious which was faster, the only thing that Apple had going it was OS X, which can make it worth it for the Artistic type because it's just so much easier to get work done in that enviroment, and that means more then absolute speed comparisions.

 

[Eug]

Hmmm... I don't think I've seen the supercomputer ads in about 3 years. Anyways, we're really straying off topic.

 

[addragyn]

There is a thread over @ Ars which discusses Apple and how they might fit into pro markets in the future.

The HP Zx6000 is discussed in this post.