Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 11:39:31 11/15/97
Go up one level in this thread
On November 15, 1997 at 04:40:15, Keith Ian Price wrote: >On November 14, 1997 at 22:23:20, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>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. > >I can get a very nice PII-300 for $2499 from Quantex right now, with 8.4 >gig 9ms hard drive and 64 MB. The new LX chipset and AGP card are also >included with 17-in.monitor. And weren't you talking about the 21264? > Depends. If you are talking about a PII/300, then I'm talking about a 21164, which I can buy for not quite 2x what you paid, and which is more than twice as fast. But you also mentioned a PII/450 next year, and for that I'd compare it to the 21264/1000, or maybe even only /800, which will likely be available at less than 2x the cost atain, and provide more like 3x the speed. Poing being Intel isn't the only company. I love the P6. I'll love the P6 when it is re-released to replace the PII, early next year. But they don't come anywhere near the alpha. And when you factor price/performance, the alpha still looks real good. IE 2x the PII/300 performance at less than 2X the cost. >>And running Crafty, that >>533 mhz alpha would be about twice as fast. > >The 533 Mhz Alpha would definitely not be twice as fast as the PII-300 >running anything but Crafty, and I was pretty sure I heard you tell >Chris Whittington that it was only 20-25% faster than his PII-300, not >twice as fast. Sorry, but we got better data. Here are the *real* numbers, just for discussion: our "benchmark" suite of 6 positions, 2 each from opening, middlegame and endgame, averages 80K nodes per second on our P6/200's. On the 500mhz alpha, this same test suite runs at 250K nodes per second average. which is 3.1X faster. The PII/300 we have here (running both linux and NT) is not quite 1.5X faster than my P6/200, which is about what is expected. But this *still* leaves the alpha at 2x faster. The first numbers we discussed were numbers Bruce provided (/533 = 1.75X faster than his P6/200) but were based on a program that does almost everything in 32bit mode, while crafty does almost everything with 64bit words. I get a lot more. > > >>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. > >Is this what you told Chris? I thought Bruce said that it was 1.5-1.75 >times as fast as the P6-200, running Ferret. this is correct. I didn't have the /500 numbers at the time. Jason ran these tests after getting to Paris and playing around with compiler options on our 500 mhz alpha over there. the 533 should be 5% faster than this or so, based on clock speed... > >>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. > >I think the PII-450 will be faster than the Alpha 600 running most chess >programs, probably even Crafty. The 2MB of L2 cache at 450 Mhz is more >important than the extra 150 Mhz. If the Alpha is slightly faster >(running the one chess program I will be able to compile >natively-Crafty), it won't be noticeable, but the software >non-compatibility will be. I disagree, but we'll have to wait to see. But the PII/300 is less than 1/2 as fast as the 500mhz alpha. So it has a ways to catch up... > >>And it won't be >>long, >>after the 1ghz alphas come out, that the 750mhz version will be >>price-competitive with Intel. > >And when Merced comes out, the PII-300 will be entry level for $1000 >bucks, so what? > > >>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... > >The G3 has a better shot than the Alpha. But it's still a long shot. I'm >not an Intel supporter. I've been programming computers since 1968, and >the first Intel machine I bought was a 486. I've always been a >value-for-money person, and right now, Intel or K6 is it. I'd love it if >Digital could come out with a machine that blows the doors off anything >else. I used to love the old PDP-11 I had, and I used to run Checkmo, a >DECUS program that played horrible chess on a PDP-8, but it was fun to >watch. I'll buy whatever I think represents the best value. > >kp They have the machine you describe, because nothing Intel has is even close to the alpha. But it is pricier. Of course part of this is caused by the fact that the intel products (at present) pump 64 bits over the bus to feed 32bit superscalar execution units. The alpha pumps 128 and 256 bits over the buss to feed 64bit superscalar units. Merced is not going to be a linear increase in cost. Doubling the buss width to feed a real 64bit processor is not going to come cheap, and will narrow the gap between intel and digital pricing I suspect. How much it closes the performance gap (if any) is unknown at present of course...
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