StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Bah, just get an Opteron and get 4+ GB of RAM . Of course cost is a problem, but you CAN get one. Then again, for your 20000x20000 you'll need 22GB ok nevermind. And RAID would need something like 100 disks(~8000$) (no redundancy, and would be horribly unreliable) to match 700MB/s (rough estimate based on copying 64MB file from one ramdisk to another(might need to be doubled), and my computer is 5 years old). How much RAM can you buy w/ 8000$ at today's prices? Probably a lot more than 22GB (whether or not you can put it in the computer is another issue)

Too bad photoshop doesn't run on Linux and Win64/AMD64 isn't out (is Photoshop available on Itanium?)

Of course, the REAL advantage of solid state will be durability and the fact that the HD won't require the use of CPU cycles.

I thought SCSI wasn't supposed to tax the CPU ?

What the hell is Itanium doing, anyway? Sinking?

???
Also, doesn't non-volatile memory wear out after a certain number of writes?

What I mean is that from last reports, Itanium is still doing dismally in terms of sales... even if they've released Itanium 2 (heck, I didn't even hear of its release).

Crayz9000 wrote:What I mean is that from last reports, Itanium is still doing dismally in terms of sales... even if they've released Itanium 2 (heck, I didn't even hear of its release).

Well, what would be a good reason to buy it? If you can't think of one right off the top of your head, that might explain its poor sales.

Pu-239 wrote:Bah, just get an Opteron and get 4+ GB of RAM . Of course cost is a problem, but you CAN get one. Then again, for your 20000x20000 you'll need 22GB ok nevermind.

Well, there are some memory tricks that Photoshop does in order to preserve your computer's sanity, but it is still a lot of space at 32bpp.

And RAID would need something like 100 disks(~8000$) (no redundancy, and would be horribly unreliable) to match 700MB/s (rough estimate based on copying 64MB file from one ramdisk to another(might need to be doubled), and my computer is 5 years old). How much RAM can you buy w/ 8000$ at today's prices? Probably a lot more than 22GB (whether or not you can put it in the computer is another issue)

I've heard of some crazy RAID 3-3-0 implementation for the old Crays that sustained over 300MB/sec ... and those drives are over ten years old. As for transfer rates, some Ultra320 15K drives can sustain over 60MB/sec alone.

Too bad photoshop doesn't run on Linux and Win64/AMD64 isn't out (is Photoshop available on Itanium?)

Photoshop runs on Linux via Crossover. I'm not sure how much memory it supports on OS X (which doesn't have the 4GB limitation). Photoshop is not on AMD64 or IA64, but I suspect that will change at least for the former.

I thought SCSI wasn't supposed to tax the CPU ?

SCSI doesn't, ATA hasn't since the ATA33 standard was out.

Darth Wong wrote:

Crayz9000 wrote:What I mean is that from last reports, Itanium is still doing dismally in terms of sales... even if they've released Itanium 2 (heck, I didn't even hear of its release).

Well, what would be a good reason to buy it? If you can't think of one right off the top of your head, that might explain its poor sales.

I've heard that IA64 does well in scientific computing and some server-related applications, but even for workstation use it's not that useful.

darthdavid wrote:Well that'll be one dead system after the ice melts.

Yeah but it'll be worth it.

When will we break 6?

Darth Wong wrote:

Crayz9000 wrote:What I mean is that from last reports, Itanium is still doing dismally in terms of sales... even if they've released Itanium 2 (heck, I didn't even hear of its release).

Well, what would be a good reason to buy it? If you can't think of one right off the top of your head, that might explain its poor sales.

IA-64 has a lot of potential at the moment and is a legitamate product in the HPC sector. It hasn't made nearly the progress towards x86 replacement that Intel wants it to be (although an Intel Windows compeitor that has been rumoured could change that drastically) Intel knew from the begining that IA-64 was going to take time in order to shine.

The problem right now with the current implmentation (Madison) is the lack of Out-of-Order Execution (which should be in a future version) and the relative infancy of the compiler design. Because of the way that the EPIC architecture bundles its instructions, there is a heavy dependency on the compiler and it is taking Intel a lot of R&D effort to develop a compiler that can generate high performance code for IA-64.

The Tanglewood core should be the breakthrough design for IA-64 that should provide compelling price/performance in a great deal more sectors then now. It is a multi-core design (a perfect fit for the Itanium bundled instructions and scalibility) and has OOO as well as a totally redesigned memory/cache architecture. Considering that IBM has been working with PPC for years and Itanium already blows away the rest of the RISC competitors in the price/performance equation (SPARC and MIPS are a joke by comparison) more time to develop the architecture should see some exciting new products down the line.

How does POWER compare to Itanium anyway?

PPC is much more mature than IA64, though I haven't seen many real-world comparisions, as they are rather difficult to come across.