what is the deal with the itanium?

[MrDudeMan]

i remember reading about it a long time ago, but it kinda was swept under the rug i guess....but i heard someone in my school saying it was a 64bit chip, but then i thought, what the hell is he talking about? i was pretty sure there was not one released yet, but he insisted and almost had an intelligent arguement, so i was convinced a LITTLE bit


i cant find any info on it at all...so what is the itanium? what are the specs? uses? why isnt it advertised more? i want to know about it...thanks

 

[Stiganator]

Ah the Itanium, or Itanic. It was a flop. Intel spent milllions and some say billions on development only to sell roughly 5,000 units, but at a hefty price of between 20K to 1 million. It was the first 64-bit processor, running at 500-800 MHz. It never caught on so Intel dumped it. It also had no legacy support only 64 bit compiled programs so it wasn't very useful. It helped get AMD going on Clawhammer though which is a bonus, hammer will rock.

 

[bozo1]

<< a hefty price of between 20K to 1 million >>


naaa, they run 3-7K depending on speed.

 

[MagnetStone]

look here (at Intel-Itanium ) for more info on Intel's Itanium and go here (at AMD-Hammer ) for more info on AMD's Hammer processor.

 

[MagnetStone]

Some info on Itanium's next/successor "McKinley" is here ( at
AticoTech-Processor ).
. Probably poor integer performace (even with superior floating point performance) made it flop.

 

[Rand]

<< It was the first 64-bit processor >>



I presume you must mean first EPIC processor, or first Intel designed 64bit processor.... as there have been numerous 64bit processors available for years before Intel even conceived of designing the IA/64 EPIC architecture. 64bit processors have been available for over a decade now.

 

[MrDudeMan]

rand, then why havnt they caught on? what are the pro's, con's, differences, or anything with the 64-bit chips?

i dont understand why we dont all use them then......

 

[MrDudeMan]

im not asking benchmark crap really...im asking real world differences (and some specs would be nice, like mem bandwith, etc.)


didnt mean for that to be rude-sounding

 

[poppasp1ce]

<< i dont understand why we dont all use them then...... >>



we need 64bit software.

 

[charlie21]

Itanium is a whole new design. This is both a pro and a con. For apps to perform well, they need to be recompiled specifically for the Itanium platform. Itanium's 32 bit performance is about on par with a P3.

As Rand said, IBM and Sun have had 64-bit chips out for years. One of the main reasons to use 64-bit processors is the ability to address memory above 4 GB. Everyday users have absolutely no use for this, that's why we're not all using 64-bit processors.

 

[MrDudeMan]

charlie, thats the kind of info i was looking for


so why does anyone else need to use it? what needs more than 4gb of mem addressing?

 

[bozo1]

Servers running big databases.

 

[Rand]

<< rand, then why havnt they caught on? >>



They have caught on.
In certain segments of the market Intel has but a very small foothold. High-end servers and clusters are pretty much sheerly dominated by Alpha, Sparc, IBM etc.
Those are the areas in which you'll see systems sporting 64GB+ of main memory, 64-128 or more processors clustered together. Uniprocessor performance means little there, it's all about expandability and reliability.

We're not all running 64bit microprocessors because they mainstream has precious little to gain from it, and from the software side of things the move to a new architecture is never an easy prospect.
The primary use of 64bit microprocessing is Support for 64-bit integers, and Flat 64-bit addressing... the mainstream simply doesnt need it. And the average home consumer definitely doesnt.



<< Itanium's 32 bit performance is about on par with a P3. >>



Actually when running classic 32bit X86 code the Itanium generally performs similarly to the Intel 486 DX2 66MHz to Intel Pentium 75MHz. Even a PII would invariably hammer an Itanium in terms of 32bit X86 performance straight across the board.
All that is needed for the Itanium is it's intended market is a bare minimum of compatibility with X86 code, performance under it is relatively unimportant.

 

[Degenerate]

I think the Itanium is probably Inte's first step in that segment of the market. They proably learn more from making it than from selling it.

 

[MrDudeMan]

wow, comparable to a 486? must be a piece of crap in windows then

what is an example of something that needs 128 processors with 64gb+ of main memory...


what if i could run a counterstrike or UT server off of that... :Q


anyone have a pic of something like that? that would be amazing to me to see a server with 128 processors...does it even have a motherboard? how does that work?


thanks



im learning a lot from this thread...thanks for the input so far

 

[pm]

<< Actually when running classic 32bit X86 code the Itanium generally performs similarly to the Intel 486 DX2 66MHz to Intel Pentium 75MHz. >>

Rand, this isn't true. On it's native OS's (Windows 64 and Linux) it is substantially faster than your example and runs 32-bit applications with a performance range approximately equal to a Pentium III in my experience. Where did you see it running at a speed equivalent to a 486 and what OS/application was it running? Having used a lot of Itaniums running a variety of code, the example you cite does not equate to my experience.

This (news item at Yahoo) is an example of a system that has 1,400 future Itanium CPU's (McKinley). More details here (HP's press release).

I have been working with Itanium and McKinley workstations and servers for a while now and have been very impressed with them. The floating point performance is very high, and they make very capable high-end workstation CPUs. You may take whatever I say with a grain of salt, or three, but I honestly can say that it's very nice to be running a 64-OS on a workstation and receive a spreadsheet from my manager by email, edit it in Excel, and spit it back at him again. Anyone who has worked on AIX, HP-UX or Solaris workstations and has a manager in love with Powerpoint and Excel will understand how much of a pain those things are under other Unix OS's. Being able to pull in existing Linux apps and run them as-is under 64-bit Linux makes the hunt for apps a lot easier as well. Personally, I can't wait until we completely switch over.


Patrick Mahoney
IPF Microprocessor Design (McKinley)
Intel Corp.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Unobtainium

 

[dexvx]

wow... i see there are lot of misconceptions here.

Itanium is going for a niche market dominated by Sun, IBM, HP and the like. Not only are these niche markets, but their software is very niche too... 100% Sun optimized software wont run well on their competitors machines, so its no surprise that Intel choose a very specified platform too.

It is true that Itanium isnt selling very well, I think at the rate of 5000 a MONTH, not 5000 total... i mean, IBM and HP have been building 1000+ processor Itanium servers for awhile now, which add up to 5000 easily. At college, I've also sat through some microsoft conferences, and one of the developers for Visual Studio.NET said that he was very impressed about the McKinley and it had some interesting stuff going for it.

On ebay, a 700Mhz Itanium can be had for around $1000, but good lucky finding other components for it.