[rescue] pursuing a VAX

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 03:36:31PM -0800, Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez wrote:
> > > Again, we come to another full circle in the computer industry. A decade
> > > ago there was the same debate: Speed Demons (MIPS, Alpha, HP-PA) vs.
> > > brainiacs (POWER, 88K).....
> >
> > It seems that MIPS in in the brainiacs camp now.
> 
> PA-RISC also went that route with their 8X00 series, even Alpha after the
> 21164 is really a brainiac. Once the submicron processes became more
> common in the 90's the amount of transistors on die just skirocketed so
> you could just add more logic at the processor. Which makes more sense
> than just ramp up the speed of the processor, since memory is not likely
> to speed up by that much, and that will always be your bottlenect. So
> instead of having a narrow memory interfaced with a fast processor, just
> have a wider memory with a wider/slower processor. And booom, all of the
> sudden you processor utilization skyrockets....
> 
> If you look at the actual utilization % for a P4 it is quite scary....

Scary good, or scary bad?

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd