From IDG.net 6/7/1999
Merced's advantage?
Multitasking
If the world seems less than
bowled over by Merced, there
may be good reason.
According to Computerworld's
technology analysis, servers
based on the forthcoming chip
will provide no performance
boost without applications that
take advantage of new
features.
Intel Corp. confirmed that
although virtually all existing
Pentium-based applications
and operating systems will run
on Merced systems,
performance for that software
will be approximately the
same as on a Pentium III.
And Hewlett-Packard Co. said
applications written for its own
PA-RISC-based servers will be
executed on Merced using
software emulation, though
the company insisted
performance will be
comparable to native
PA-RISC.
Then what's Merced's
advantage? In a
word,multitasking.
Merced's IA-64 architecture
includes eight times as many
registers as a Pentium. That
lets Merced quickly switch
among tasks without having to
save the register set's
contents for one task to
memory and reload the
registers for another task -- a
time-consuming process
known as "spill and fill."
The large register set and new
parallel-execution features
also allow much faster
performance of complex
floating-point calculations.
The result: For applications
tuned to use the new features,
Merced should dramatically
improve performance. But for
conventional Pentium-based
applications, those extra
registers will sit unused -- and
useless.
Other key Merced features
include the following:
DOS, NetWare and
Windows 3.x, 9x and
NT will run unmodified
as long as the
computer's firmware
(BIOS or boot ROM)
initially configures the
CPU for Pentium
compatibility.
Microsoft said it will
have a Merced-specific
version of Windows NT
ready when
Merced-based servers
ship next year.
Hewlett-Packard
HP-UX applications
compiled for HP's
PA-RISC CPU will run
under software
emulation only. Intel
and HP claim
performance is
comparable to native
PA-RISC.
Other expected
operating systems
support includes Sun
Solaris, Digital Unix
and The Santa Cruz
Operation Inc.'s Unix.
Intel claimed Merced will
perform 6 gigaflops (one billion
floating-point operations per
second), about three times
the speed of the current
Pentium III floating-point
performance, in IA-64 mode.
When running
Pentium-compatible
applications, Intel said,
performance will be equivalent
to a Pentium III.
-- Frank Hayes |
