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Intel Dumps Iitanium's x86 Hardware Compatibility
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Jan 19, 2006 07:13 PM
from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.
from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.
Spinlock_1977 writes "C|Net is running a story that Intel is going back to software x86 emulation on Itanium in order to reclaim chip real estate. (room for another 9MB of cache?)
One notable quote about x86 emulation: 'Basically, no one ever used hardware-based IA-32 execution, so better to use the silicon for something else,' said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. 'Of course, basically no one uses software-based emulation either, but at least that doesn't cost chip real estate.'"
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Better use for sillicon? (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the days of it mattering what the exact instruction set is are pretty much over.
Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:5, Funny)
So that's why it takes two friggen minutes to turn on my cell phone!
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Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:5, Informative)
The CPUs of a modern mobile phone are the same that are in modern gameboys: ARM9 (or sometimes lower)
The only difference are the added chips for multimeda and other stuff in gameboys.
As someone who actually *wrote* a game engine and other apps for mobile phones in java i can tell you that it IS java's fault!
The best proof is that apps compiled directly for the chip run at least three times faster without doing anything better.
So it can't be the chip.
Even with the libs of the phone manufacturer it does not become much better, because additionally to still bein slow as crap it does not run everywhere anymore. Even if you automated the different screen sizes, performances, buttons, and so on...
But at least you don't have to stick with the extremely minimal functionality of MIDP 1 or 2.
At least for me i can say that I will never write a program for a virtual machine ever again!
If you *have* to compile a different version for every phone out there, you at least don't want it to be slow.
Parent
Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:3, Interesting)
I tried to run 64 bit Linux with Ubuntu. It wasn't worth it. I spent a week screwing around with it and trying to be able to just reliably play a video, or to eve
Re:Shouldn't matter with modern software. (Score:3, Insightful)
Still doesn't matter, because in 2006 recompiling a program with a native-code compiler targeted to a random ISA (for a given operating system) is practically free—especially if the program was written in a reasonable modern language.
If the Java VM is your beef, check out gcj [gnu.org]. Sure, it still has a runtime system. But its performance overhead relative to compiled C code is almost always negligible or better.
Intel is continuing development? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted, the Itanium is not the fastest enterprise-focused processor out there, but at least they are trying to reduce the overall power consumption and heat generation of the next-gen Itaniums.
For the workload I deal with everyday, the Opteron and US-T1 are better suited.
Parent
Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:5, Informative)
>Sheesh, the Itanic wasn't exactly a success story. How does it fit into their new roadmap with cooler chips that eat less power? That processor was a goddamn space heater.
See: http://www.ideasinternational.com/benchmark/bench
Make special note of the SPECint2000 page and SPECfp2000 pages and also make note of the TPC-C scores.
The Itanium 2 takes the top three SPECint_rate_base2000 spots (128 cores), the top SPECfp_base2000 (single core) and the top two SPECfp_rate_base2000 spots (128 cores). The 64-way HP Superdome (by now they're all Itaniums, so they don't bother noting PA vs Intel) is in four of the top eight nonclustered TPC spots.
In short, the Itanium 2 is the best scientific computing chip on the market, as proven by the SPEC_int_base2000 and SPECfp_rate_base2000 stats (beating out the Power5). Also, it's not too shabby on the TPC numbers, only being edged by the IBM Power 5.
If you don't work with a 16+ core Itanium 2 or Power5, please STFU about them being market failures. They're not marketed at you.
Parent
Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Ham!"
Don't even TRY to critisize it.
It's not FOR you.
Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intel is continuing development? (Score:5, Interesting)
THe Itanium has an impressive FPU set to make it fast in certain situations like scientific apps but other than that its been subpar and expensive compared to cheaper Xeon's and other risc processors like IBM's Power.
The Mercedes was supposed to be the new Xeon for servers and workstations and NT with its portable HAL was supposed to eventually migrate to the chip and would overtake the desktop market after teh apps appeared. It was all teh rage at Zdnet computer magazines and was termed the next big thing by Intel.
Mercedes (Itanium) was Intel's kneejerk reaction the Powerpc which was a threat in the early to mid 1990's.
Mercedes was supposed to be here by 1997 and it still hasn't delivered its promise as the next platform out of x86. I get modded down every time I talk about the Itanium but the engineering specs and things that just went wrong are stunning. The first version never came out because it was too slow which delayed it for another 2 years for its next version. The next one(first publically released) had to be overclocked and require a 1 pound heatsink with a fan that sounded like a jet engine just to be nominal. Intel loaded it with huge cache to make it go faster in certain benchmarks which brought up the price and size of the chip. HP killed teh alpha next to make it look like the Itanium wasn't as slow in comparison.
Carly Fiona did alot of strange things in terms of arm struggling Intel and forcing the cancellation of the Alpha in favor of the ITanium because she lacked the concept of "sunkin costs" or bad investments. Itanium does not make HP or Intel really any money. I am not talking about its technolical abilities but from a business standpoint.
Switching to an alpha would have been better and cheaper with stronger performance. Windows2k was out in beta3 on it at the same time as x86 and Linux and BSD support was already strong. Not to mention HP already had VMS ported to it.
The premise behind VLIW was that as chip says limits things you can do with hardware there needs to be a shift to software and leave the fast ram (cache) on the chip. Turns out huge improvements in fabrication made this argument false and somethings like branch predictions just can't be done in software. Fast dedicated hardware is faster than software. Who came up with this idea of moving optimization to software?
If I were Intel I would can Itanium and start over. Transmeta had something interesting and the new PentiumM's are rumored to be designed by a small Isreali firm bought by Intel with similiar technology. I think that is the next big thing.
Of course a newer Alpha would rock. Sigh
Parent
Just one thing (Score:3, Informative)
As noted elsewhere (Score:5, Interesting)
The die space reclaimed was somewhat significant, and the software emulation is faster than the hardware emulation.
What he meant to say was.. (Score:5, Funny)
why not Alpha (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why not Alpha (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn shame, that. If they'd poured as much money into Alpha as they did into Itanic, they'd have a platform that would whomp all over everything currently in the marketplace.
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Re:why not Alpha (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know that I agree. The alpha was a particular set of optimizations. Dual register files, branch-prediction hints. pure 32bit (sub-32 bit data access had to be emulated through a multi-step process). Deep pipeline (for it's day).
But at the same time, they purposefully witheld adding out-of-order execution (plays havoc w/ their highly optimized register configuration). Sparc had similar problems with their rolling register-stack.
I studied the alpha prior to the announcement that their new version would have out-of-order, so I don't know if they ever did go that route.
The point is that by adding all of the techniques that were employed by modern CPUs (aside from slightly higher speed memory), they would not have maintained much of an advantage. Their performance would be comparable to the AMD-64, but not much faster.
I'd still love to see the alpha kept alive, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, except it's price (for general work-station use).
Parent
Re:why not Alpha (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, with the 21264 - aggresively out-of-order CPU. The 21064 and 21164 might not have executed instructions out-of-order, however they were highly speculative. AXP arch was designed for out-of-order from the beginning, the two early CPUs did memory IO out-of-order. 21064 had a 32 entry register file it seems, not 2, btw, according to a paperp on the AXP 21064 [upc.edu] I found on google written by a DECy.
Their performance would be comparable to the AMD-64, but not much faster.
Agreed, cause guess what: AMD64 is Alpha's progeny-in-spirit.
The AMD K7 is very alpha-like (hence so is the K8). Highly speculative, out-of-order, wide multiple issue CPUs like the 21264. Not co-incidentally given that Dirk Meyer, co-architect of the 21264, led the AMD K7 design [eet.com] team. K7 used the 21164/21264 EV6 PtP interconnect too. K8 made it routable with HyperTransport - just as DEC^WCompaq did with EV6 in the 21364. You would still expect this mythical equivalently developed Alpha to beat AMD64 though, given it'd be able to use the die-space 'wasted' on x86-decoding for something more productive (cache or somesuch).
Parent
not invented here? (Score:3, Informative)
Extend the logic (Score:3, Funny)
Why not extend that logic? No one really used the Itanium chip anyway so why not use the silicon to make Yohan's for Apple?
Re:Extend the logic (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, there is a whole family, and I think they sold like 2 units last year. I kid, I kid. However:
For 2004: Intel misses Itanium sales mark by $26.6bn [theregister.co.uk]
And this is biased, but more current: Reality Check: Itanium - A Sound Bet for the Future? [sun.com]
From that article's sidebar:
Granted, Sun is pretty well biased, but itanic looks like it's long since sunk to me.
Parent
Irony .... somewhere (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, hang on.
Dave
A sign of pressure? (Score:3, Insightful)
About time (Score:3, Interesting)
as soon as... (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they just make it for the supercomputer folks... a niche market which is probably 10x larger and 100x more profitable than the propeller-beanie AMD fanboy crowd that trolls around here, scoffing at neon-illumiation-free chassis.
Re:as soon as... (Score:3, Informative)
Who Cares? (Score:3, Funny)
Where have all the good designers gone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Was there a generation change at the design offices? What else could have caused the most prominent chip design firm to lose its ability to do solid engineering? Granted even the golden boys created a dead end (i960) architecture, it wasn't quite as expensive a mistake as Itanium...
I remember that in the nineties new chip generations would be popping up left and right, each of them offering some really unique and cool innovation in terms of memory management, execution streamlining or heat management. But Transmeta was the last memorable innovation, and since then everyone seems to be exclusively focused on cache megabytes and transistor sizes. I would love to see real experimentation and innovation reintroduced in the CPU arena...
Re:Where have all the good designers gone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the day when new architectures were popping up like mushrooms, there just was not as much software out there. Therefore, it would be easier for somebody to come up with a workable system based on a new architecture. But more and more software is being created and the users are getting higher expectations in terms of the software they expect to have running on their systems. It is getting harder and harder to provide the ammount of software sufficient to make users happy.
It seems that free software is a good solution to this problem -- all you have to do is compile a bunch of free software to our new architecture and viola -- you have an operational system. If I were Intel I would compile and provide official Itanic support for every major OS piece of software. This way the major problem Itanic has -- lack of software would be solved.
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Re:Where have all the good designers gone? (Score:3, Insightful)
We hit the wall in single-threaded performance that was remarkably similar for all the various architechtures. I imagine the Pentium Pro architechture appeared at a time when it was possible to incorpo
Re:Where have all the good designers gone? (Score:4, Interesting)
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x86 is *needed* on Itanium (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure ist was ( and I assume is ) used - for the firmware. IIRC, the EFI-firmware of the Itanium boxen was entirely x86. They use the x86-ISA for running the x86-based firmware of add-on cards. That way, Itanium boxen are able to use about any PCI-card out there, without
them having any special firmware.
Alphas did that in software, which mostly worked but far from working with everthing.
SPARCs and the PowerPC-based Apples have PCI, but neither is able to handle standard
PCI-cards for exacty that reason, which is why you have to shrug off $$$ to get the same
PCI-hardware with their native firmware support.
Ok, any PCI-card stuffed in an Itanium box would need decent OS-drivers, but at least
that is in the realm of the OS-vendor and drivers can be ported. Only very few
PCI HW-manufacturers ever did anything but x86 firmware, geared towards BIOS.
EFI, the firmware that ships with Itaniums, is quite good at handling that crappy
PC-BIOS type firmware. Need a decent RAID-controller ? Just stuff it in.
I'd call that a big plus. There are and have been numerous misconceptions about Itanium
from the very beginning, but saying "Nobody needs on-chip x86" is utterly stupid.
IIRC, the chip "real-estate" needed for x86 was in the lowish single-digit percentage
of the total chip-real estate. And it was a good investment, since it saves $$$ for
anybody running Itaniums. It was there for exactly that purpose, until some marketing
freak obviously decided to sell that as "backwards compatibility". x86 on Itanium was
and is dead slow, but for POST/Init purposes, it is sufficient.
Please, intel, keep it. If Itanium is ever going to be a success, users will happily
welcome the ability to extend systems using standard off-the-shelf components.
And, while we are at it, start shipping EFI for the "x86-crowd" now. I think, i am not
alone with the perception, that hitting "CTRL-S", "ESC whatsoever" at the right moment
during POST to enter some firmware configuration tool of some card, just plain sucks.
I want a firmware shell. I want x86-style SRM. EFI is close to that. Intel even
open-sourced major parts of EFI ( www.tianocore.org ). AFAIK, the Intel-based Apples
will use it. I want it too.
For gods sake, keep x86 in Itaniums.
Regards
Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:3, Informative)
Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:3, Informative)
Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:3, Funny)
Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:x86: Intel's biggest mistake (Score:3, Insightful)
People who buy pc's do so because its what everyone else buys.
Its a mess and I am glad I am not Intel. I bet HP has a contract forcing Intel to keep making the Itanium too. They killed the alpha for Itanium and its just astounding after what a few billion in sunkin costs can do to make sure you wont leave for somet
Re:What is Itanium good for, anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have personally had a dual itanium workstation sit under my desk for around 9 months. It was ok I suppose. I was doing Finite Element mechanical simulations on it and it did fairly well at it (it helped that it had 8 Gigs of RAM). I also got Gentoo compiled on it (this was before it was really supported) and it worked fairly well as a desktop (had an nvidia quadro card in it).
Personally, I think intel should just give up... they obviously lost the fight. But who knows, maybe it is actually making them _some_ money (although it can't be much).
Friedmud
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Re:What is Itanium good for, anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
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