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To: MONACO who wrote (100607)	3/9/2000 4:42:00 PM
From: Process Boy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

MONACO and Thread - Gwenapp on Itanium Sorry if this has alread been posted in advance. I don't seem to have time lately to effectively keep up with the thread. linleygroup.com Intel's Itanium and IA-64 Executive Summary By Linley Gwennap (3/6/00) Despite delays and problems in bringing the first implementation to market, IA-64 is already a devastating force in the microprocessor market. More than 20 major system vendors and six operating-system vendors are committed to delivering IA-64 products when Itanium (code-named Merced) begins shipping next year. If achieved, this would be the most successful rollout of a new computer processor architecture in history. Itanium Approaches Production After several slips, Itanium achieved first silicon in August 1999; prototypes are functioning well and are currently available. First production shipments will be in 2H00 at clock speeds of up to 800 MHz. The processor will be shipped on a module, similar to current Xeons but with a different interface, containing the external cache. With four integer ALUs and two FP MAC units, the chip will reach a peak rate of 3,200 MIPS or 6.4 GFLOPS (single precision) at 800 MHz. We have increased our projections of the chip's SPEC_base performance to 50 int and 80 fp. We expect it to achieve 45,000 tpmC on the TPC-C benchmark in a four-processor system based on Intel's 460GX chip set and Lion motherboard. These scores should give Itanium performance leadership when it is released, but its performance could be surpassed by Compaq's Alpha processors within a matter of months. Intel is pinning its hopes on McKinley, its second IA-64 processor, to establish the new architecture as the sole performance leader. We expect that chip, due in late 2001 at clock speeds exceeding 1 GHz, will open a performance gap of 20ð30% over the fastest RISC processors. In 2002, a 0.13-micron derivative of McKinley, code-named Madison, will take performance to greater levels. IA-64 Instruction Sets Boosts Performance All of these processors rely on the new features of the IA-64 instruction set to achieve high performance. The features that distinguish IA-64 from currently popular architectures include predication, speculation, and more registers. Register windowing reduces the state-save overhead of the large register file. Register rotation provides a simple alternative to register renaming. The virtual-addressing model provides a huge address space with flexible protection mechanisms to meet the needs of a variety of operating systems. The key concept behind IA-64 is to transfer more information from the compiler to the hardware, simplifying the hardware and making it more efficient. This danger is that this change makes the compiler more complex and challenging to develop. The initial compilers will not deliver the peak performance of the architecture and may require another year or two before they fully mature. All IA-64 processors will execute x86 instructions in hardware, providing full compatibility with existing applications. Performance in this mode will vary depending on the processor, the application, and how much time is spent in native-mode library code, but we estimate Itanium will deliver about 50% of native-mode performance on typical applications. PA-RISC compatibility will be achieved via a dynamic binary translator, which will deliver similar performance, according to our estimates. Applications must be recompiled to achieve full native performance. IA-64 to Dominate Market Even if IA-64 processors merely match the performance of their RISC competitors, they are likely to dominate the workstation and server markets, achieving a market share in excess of 60% by 2003. The new architecture solves many of x86's shortcomings?such as its limited register file, poor FP design, and 32-bit address limit?and allows Intel to compete on an even footing with other workstation- and server-processor vendors. Intel also has an opportunity to take IA-64 into the PC market, eventually replacing x86. Due to their architectural advantages, IA-64 processors should eventually be smaller (less expensive) and more powerful than their x86 contemporaries. The built-in x86 compatibility will ease the transition of x86 applications to IA-64 systems. We believe IA-64 could replace x86 as the leading PC instruction set as early as 2004. IA-64's entry into the market will cause significant changes to the system and microprocessor landscape. Both PA-RISC and MIPS will fade away as Hewlett-Packard and SGI convert their entire RISC lineups to IA-64. IBM and Compaq are taking a dual-track approach, but we expect most of their customers will favor IA-64 systems, reducing support for PowerPC and Alpha. Only Sun seems committed to a pure RISC strategy. As a result, IA-64 systems running Windows 2000, Linux, and Monterey Unix will be the dominant server and workstation platforms. <>