[geeks] New Itanium machines from SGI

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, Joshua D Boyd wrote:

> These are maspar boxs though, based on the Origin line.
> http://www.sgi.com/servers/altix/

Well, if their NT boxes were beginning of the end, this is definitely
the beginning of the end of the end.  I -loathe- the idea of IRIX going
south in favor of Linux, almost as much as I loathe the idea of the
elegant R14k CPUs being replaced by Itanium.

> They claim it is a major performer, apparently per CPU faster than their
> MIPS chips.

Well, as much as they've been wanking about Itanium since it first came
out, it's not surprising that they're saying that.  However, if they'd
put all that effort into giving MIPS another shot in the arm, it'd be
just another stinky Intel chip by comparison.

However, I won't believe that Linux's SMP scalability can touch IRIX or
Solaris until I see it.  Linux over 64 CPUs?  That sounds painful,
unless things have improved -immensely- in the last year or so.

> My understanding is that supposedly Itanium2s are still hamstrung by
> poor compilers.  GCC absolutely sucks, and I'm told that Intel's own
> compiler isn't much better in this case (hence why they are sponsering a
> new free compiler being developed in China).

So, SGI is in the process of dumping a lean, elegant, and proven CPU
platform with lightning-fast compilers that they're "committed" to,
in favor of a newcomer CPU with approximately zero marketshare that
has previously flopped in the market and has no decent compilers, with
the hope that the single largest source of VBScript viruses and spam
will ride the cavalry home with the silver-bullet of a compiler that
will make everything okay?  Where to I sign up???!

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  *)  "everything i know about animals i learned from
Thorndale, TX      (*   ORA books."                  --alex j avriette