Steven -
The Merced schedule, and what the chip will really be, is up in the air. The compiler technology did not yield the benefits that Intel had predicted, so Merced will not have the targeted performance. Intel may never bring it to market as a volume part. They are now trying a comprehensive re-design for McKinley. I would assume that they are going to use the smaller process which will be available in 2001 to get more of the parallel pieces onto the chip, which should help with performance. There has been a fair amount of discussion about this on the Intel thread and elsewhere in the last few months.
I don't think that Intel's 64 bit processors will be a performance match for Alpha any time soon, certainly not in the next 5 years. But Intel only has to get close. In today's world, the 500MHz Alpha chips are about twice as fast as 450 MHz Xeon. But guess what, people buy Xeon anyway.
I expect the same will happen when McKinley comes out, and that CPQ will want to be in first place in that market as well. They have the only 64 bit processor for NT at the moment, and they have several years to maintain and solidify control of the 64 bit industry standard space in anticipation of Intel's entry into that market. I expect them to take advantage of that position. |
