Dan, Re: "Did you notice that Microsoft is adding memory locality logic to Windows 64?"
I saw the announcement, but they didn't reveal which version of Windows that this will appear in, or if it will even favor Hammer's topology. Since I know that adding ccNUMA support to any OS is a difficult task, I wouldn't expect anything too soon from Microsoft. Maybe in the 2004 or 2005 time frame, though.
Re: "That doesn't do anything for Itanium, with its single memory path to 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 processors."
Uhh... you're wrong about a single memory path. That's only applicable for up to 4 processors. After that, things branch out to independent nodes hooked up to a high speed crossbar. Since McKinley will have 6.4GB/s of bandwidth on each 4 processor bus, that should be more than enough for excellent scalability.
Re: "A 4 way Hammer system will usually beat an 8 way hammer system."
Negative scalability? Now there's a novel idea! ;-)
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