Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 19:35:28 07/06/99
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On July 06, 1999 at 19:35:26, Andrew Slough wrote: >On July 06, 1999 at 19:01:02, Zachariah Amela wrote: > >>One other posters referred me to an Alpha system when I asked about >>multiprocessor machines. I also have a friend who swears by the Alpha because >>he says it's integer crunchy is bar-none. >> >>So tell me about the Alpha? > >Alphas are high performance RISC processors designed by digital to have as lower >clock cycle time (higher speed) as possible. Compaq recently showed a normally >cooled 1000 Mhz Alpha processor whereas I think the fastest normally cooled x86 >processor is K7 at 600Mhz. An Alpha should be quite a bit faster per-cycle than >an Intel processor too - Alpha 21164 & 21264 are quad out of order issue 64-bit >processors. Although P2/3 can issue 3 instructions per cycle, the registers are >only dual ported, which in practice limits it to two. P2/K6/K7 are 32 bit >processors, which make them slightly worse for programs that use bitboards. They >also 32 64-bit general purpose registers compared to x86's paltry 4 32-bit. > >>I understand it will run Unix and NT. But what >>makes it better? >>What is the cost? > >I would think you would be talking about $2000-$3000 minimum. > >>How much horsepower are we talking? > >SpecInt95 >Digital Alphaserver 6/575 (575Mhz) - 30.3 >Intel Pentium III/500 (500Mhz) - 20.6 I think that this particular machine is probably fantastically expensive. When I checked a couple of years ago I couldn't find any Alpha machine made by Digital that was less than $10,000. Have their prices come down? It used to be possible to get a nice Alpha clone for a sane price, but I don't know of anyone selling the new 21264 in a clone. If someone has a 21264 in a clone it could be worth checking out. bruce
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