Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 20:32:27 03/02/03
Go up one level in this thread
On March 02, 2003 at 22:29:27, Jeremiah Penery wrote: >On March 02, 2003 at 10:22:07, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On March 02, 2003 at 02:39:08, Jeremiah Penery wrote: >> >>>On March 01, 2003 at 20:17:14, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On March 01, 2003 at 11:48:50, Jeremiah Penery wrote: >>>> >>>>>On March 01, 2003 at 10:11:13, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>>> >>>>Sun doesn't sell more than a single million-dollar computer a year. They >>> >>>I couldn't find specific numbers on this, but I really doubt that. How else >>>could they get to $5 billion in SPARC _server_ sales last year? Do you have any >>>actual data you can give? I'd be interested to see it. >> >>I'll look. Several "trade journals" quote such market shares frequently, I'll >>see what I can dig up. > >I already gave market shares. You made a specific claim that Sun didn't sell >more than one multi-million dollar machine last year. I want proof of that >claim. That is what I was talking about. > >>>>are hopeless in that market, because that is SGI Challenge territory and the >>> >>>I'd say SGI sells less big boxes than SPARC these days. SGI is poised to have >>>_total_ revenue of only $1 billion in fiscal 2003. That's counting the Itanium >>>machines they will begin selling soon. >>> >>>>SGI eats the sparc in any benchmark ever created... As will the big >>> >>>Care to back that up with some actual data? I can't find a single benchmark >>>where a MIPS chip is above the newest SPARC chips. Nor can I find a MIPS-based >>>machine faster than any SPARC machine. >> >>I'm not sure where you are looking. We just bought a batch of (I think) 900mhz >>ultra-sparcs (6). They are 1/4 the raw computing speed of our best intel box >>and I am not talking about SMP, just raw CPU power. I can post a crafty bench >>if you want to compare. They are _dog_ slow. > >Are you not talking about MIPS machines? I already know the Intel processors >are a lot faster. I'm talking about sparcs. They lag behind _every_ processor being sold, unless you buy the slowest Inte/MIPS/PPC4 and compare it to the fastest sparc. The sparc _might_ be fairly close to the very bottom end, but nothing beyond. > >>>>itanium boxes. Hell, even a multi-xeon will eat any sparc on a cpu for cpu >>>>basis without even using SMT. :) >>> >>>I believe you there. But as you pointed out before, processor speed doesn't >>>matter much in the server world. >> >>No, but when you start designing high-performance busses, multiple I/O channels, >>ultra-high memory bandwidth, it is likely that top-end processor chips will be >>used as well, particularly 64 bit... > >Regardless of what you say, SPARC is selling a lot more than MIPS is in that >market segment. In the high-end servers? Our supercomputer center has SGI power challenges. Not a sparc server to be found up there, where performance is the issue. Sun sells a fair number of workstations, and webserver-type machines (although why I have no idea). But not high-end servers that are used for computation and ultra-large applications. The SPARC rep is _well-known_ which is why it is about to die... Sun might survive when they move to a non-sparc platform. They might not. Folks are _not_ going to be happy when they get to dump their existing sparc software and purchase compilers and applications for a different chip. This almost killed them when they moved from the M680x0 to the sparc. I wonder if they will survive this move, but I really don't care since I don't think much of their hardware.
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