Server technology:
anandtech.com
I found anand's article on his Servers and Database machines one of the best and most interesting computer technology articles I've read in recent memory. I didn't realize the huge degree to which modern (dynamic content creation) web servers are CPU intensive, as opposed to needing a large L2, or a fast disk drive. This bodes well for AMD which makes single high speed CPU's, as opposed to companies whose tech edge is more SCSI and SMP. Furthermore, I didn't realize that Intel's 815 chipset only supports up to 512Megs of memory. As Anand said, in order to flee Rambus, he was forced to go to a via chipset. Once he made that jump, it was easy to dump Intel all the way and go for the Athlon.
Distributed web servers are the wave of the web server technology future. (many "cheap" single CPU boxes each serving part of a web site, as opposed to one monster 8 way 2 megs each L2 cache box) Database, file, and data-mining servers will still be better off as monster boxes though. As I repeat like a parrot now, the web server apps which suck up all that CPU power are scripting type programs: ASP, JSP (all polymorphic code). Having many unpredictable branches, these types of programs fundementally will not run well on EPIC type archetectures. Furthermore, Willy will run such highly branched code very slowly also.
I expect to see benchmarks soon showing that Athlon (Mustang) is the best perfoming chip for web servers. I believe Anand's decision could be the beginging of an industry trend. Once OEMS start advertising system figures like "web pages served per dollar spent," AMD will have sucessfully ambushed another Intel stronghold. Willy's (Foster's) high clock speed won't offer a defence. |
