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Subject: Re: Samsung Plans Alpha Motherboard Screamers For PC Prices

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 19:23:20 11/14/97

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On November 14, 1997 at 21:22:36, Keith Ian Price wrote:

>On November 14, 1997 at 08:18:06, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On November 14, 1997 at 01:52:31, Keith Ian Price wrote:
>>
>>>On November 13, 1997 at 12:19:31, Chris Carson wrote:
>>>
>>>>see article: http://www.currents.net/newstoday/97/11/11/news5.html
>>>>
>>>>Interesting article.   Lots of power 400 to 700 MHZ,
>>>>Lots of RAM (up to 3 gigabytes).
>>>>128 bit cache (up to 4 megabytes L3)
>>>>64 bit power
>>>>Native Windows NT 5.0, no translation needed.
>>>>
>>>>I hope this puts pressure on Intel!!  :)
>>>>
>>>>Looks like 1998 might bring some competition.
>>>>
>>>>Best Regards,
>>>>Chris Carson
>>>
>>>Intel plans to have a 450 Mhz Pentium II by the end of 1998 with a
>>>100Mhz bus and 2MB of 450 MHz L2 cache. With this size and speed of
>>>cache, I think that for computer chess, this Intel machine will easily
>>>outdistance a 600Mhz cheap Alpha, and would be price competitive with
>>>the 600 Mhz Alphas from DEC at that time. Which should be half the price
>>>they are today. Merced--IA64--due in 1999, should reach 1 Ghz by the end
>>>of 2000. This is, of course, still an unknown player. I think they feel
>>>the pressure.
>>>
>>>kp
>>
>>
>>Of course, within the year DEC's 21264 will be out, so comparing with
>>the
>>PII/450 is a poor comparison.  How would a PII/450 compare to a 21264 at
>>one gigahertz?
>
>I thought we were talking about cheap Alphas. Not $10,000+ Alphas. With
>price and compatibility taken into consideration, I'd take the PII 450,
>which will be more than half the speed, most likely. Almost doubling
>speed for an additional $5000-8000 is not an option for me. Which is why
>600 Mhz Alphas don't really compare to a $2500 PII-300 today.
>
>kp
>

Notice that you can go buy a 533 mhz alpha for under 5,000 bucks right
now,
which is about what you'd pay for a good PII/300.  And running Crafty,
that
533 mhz alpha would be about twice as fast.

IE the PII/300 is not quite 1.5X faster than the P6/200 due to the poor
L2 cache clock speed.  The alpha/500 is 3.1 times faster than the P6/200
running Crafty.

By the time you can buy a PII/450, you will certainly be able to buy an
alpha/600 for the same price-level, and run faster.  And it won't be
long,
after the 1ghz alphas come out, that the 750mhz version will be
price-competitive with Intel.

And then there are the PPC's which are already faster than the pentium
machines, unfortunately, and getting faster.  They will be at 1ghz
before
the alpha apparently...



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