Going Itanium 2? 17
Marcel Turcotte asks: "I am buying equipments for a new lab. Last year, when we applied for funding, we included an Itanium based server in our budget. Now that the money has arrived, I am not so sure that Itanium is the way to go. Although there are great machines, such as the HP rx5670 running Linux, people don't seem enthusiast about the chip. I am wondering how the acceptance of the IA-64 compares with the acceptance of other chips."
Go For It. (Score:1)
Depends... (Score:3, Insightful)
Itanium will likely end up filling the markes previously occupied by Alpha, PA-RISC, and some MIPS-64 platforms. They seem to be using the same design and marketing paradigm. (Proprietary platform. High performace. High price.) The types of people that you are probably thinking of when you say "enthusiast" aren't going to be able to afford one of these.
Can't rule out AMD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can't rule out AMD (Score:1)
Usage details required (Score:5, Informative)
If the server is going to be needed for tasks that a 64 bit processor would help with, then an Itanium might not be a bad idea. However, I'd be surprised if it would be worth the cost unless you have very specific applications planned for the machine. I'd suggest that using the extra money to invest in a larger multiprocessor server might be more flexible and useful in the wide range of tasks that a server in a University lab is bound to be exposed to.
Of course, since I'm at Carleton, I'll say anything to try to stop U of Ottawa from having hardware I can't get my hands on. ;)
Re:Usage details required (Score:2, Insightful)
If you need real 64 bit pointers, consider Sun or IBM, SGI, etc. Some information about what you want to do or how much money you have to spend would be more useful.
If you absolutely need 64 bit data types, and less than 3 gb of ram, use PPC's. They have a 64bit/32bit split. 32bit address space, 64 bit data types.
Remember, 64 bit processors are not inherantly faster than 32 bit ones. In fact, if you have no real dependency on 64 bit processors, then get a bunch of 32 bit processors. Get extra for redundancy, parralel processing, or as a spare space warmer.
Remember, the more established options are generally a better idea. They're mass-produced, cheaper, more supported, more spares, etc.
I doubt there's any application that specifically requires an Itanium. Evaluate what you need, and purchase appropriately.
Depends on what you're doing with the server (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Have you looked at clustering? This might be a good alternative too if you have a lot of number-crunching to do.
3) If you're looking at databases, I'd suggest looking at "a 64 bit proc", not necessarily the Itanium.
to cut a long story short - what you REALLY want to look is if you really do need a 64 bit proc and if you do, don't necessarily look at Intel - check out the competition too and go for the one that gives you the best performance for your particular application- I'm assuming price doesn't matter that much here.
Re:Depends on what you're doing with the server (Score:2)
How much cash are we talking about? (Score:1)
Now if we are talking about the $50,000 on up price range for a single box - let us clarify this and start the conversations anew.
Re:How much cash are we talking about? (Score:1)
Indeed, we are planning on running quite large
jobs on these servers, and therefore 64 bit
processors are required.
At the moment, the most likely scenario is:
- 1 x Sun V880, 8 x 900 MHz, 32 Gb RAM, 6 x 73G disks
- 1 x Sun V480, 4 x 900 MHz, 24 Gb RAM, 2 x 73 G disks
- 15 x Sun Blade 150, 1 x 550 MHz, 640 Mb RAM
We are considering the HP rx5670 as a possible
replacement for the V480, pricewise the two
machines are comparable, however, it seems that
Sun machine is considerable slower but runs
all the applications that we need (ILOG CPLEX,
MATLAB,
Thanks for all the comments
How about UltraSPARC? (Score:3, Interesting)
How can you compare Hammer w/ Itanium? (Score:1)
Re:How can you compare Hammer w/ Itanium? (Score:2)
wait.... (Score:1)
i would suggest you wait til hammer, not necessarily to buy one but the market will react to it, meaning the price will drop on most other compeeting chips. AND the Itanic may just be a bit faster.
when Hammer comes out, you should be able to get 4way Hammer systems running @ 2+Ghz(3200+ rating) and Hammer is a much better SMP chip than most others you may know of.