[geeks] New Itanium machines from SGI

[Dave McGuire]

On Wednesday, January 8, 2003, at 07:18 PM, David Passmore wrote:
>>    So, let's say you blow a metric buttload of money on a computer 
>> room
>> full of <processor xyz> and invest a bunch of money (perhaps an
>> imperial buttload) in software development for those processors.  When
>> process technology hits the laws-of-physics-imposed barrier of ~4GHz 
>> or
>> so (by the last estimates I read) who's gonna be faster?
>
> Wouldn't the complexity of a chip like, say, MIPS keep it from 
> reaching the
> same physical limit on clock speed with the same manufacturing process 
> as a
> simpler processor like x86? Otherwise, you would be seeing 3 Ghz 
> UltraSPARC
> IIIs.

   Have you looked at the overall design of a late-model x86 processor?  
I'd call that a hell of a lot more complex (though needlessly so) than 
a comparable-generation UltraSPARC or MIPS processor.

       -Dave

--
Dave McGuire           "She's a cheek pincher.  I have scars."
St. Petersburg, FL                          -Gary Nichols