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To: Tony Viola who wrote (142082)	8/21/2001 10:43:35 AM
From: Joseph Pareti	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

McKinley chipset available before McKinley ------------------------------------------- Source: Computergram International Date: August 21, 2001 Number: 4233 By Timothy Prickett Morgan Back in May, just before the first-generation "Merced" Itanium processors were formally launched, Hewlett-Packard Co began to divulge some of its plans for supporting Intel Corp, third-party and its own chipsets in workstations and servers employing 64-bit Itanium processors. Last week, IBM Corp was touting the fact that Intel Corp is using its 16-way "Summit" chipset to stress-test its forthcoming "Foster" 32-bit Pentium 4 Xeon server processors (CI No 4,231), and now HP is reminding everyone that Intel has been using an HP-developed chipset code-named "Pluto" to stress-test the second-generation "McKinley" Itanium processors. According to Jim Carlson, marketing manager for Itanium systems at HP, Intel actually demonstrated the Pluto chipset running in McKinley-based servers at the Intel Developer Forum in late February. The Pluto chipset, which Carlson said is based on chipsets already developed by HP for its 9000 series of Unix servers and its Visualize workstations. Carlson reiterated something he told ComputerWire back in May: that the only rule when it comes to chipsets at HP is that the company will endorse whatever products that allow it to shorten the time to market while filling out its product catalog. HP's intention with the Pluto chipset design is to offer a clean upgrade to companies with L-class low-end HP 9000 Unix servers to McKinley-based machines. The L-class servers come in two-way and four-way versions using PA-RISC processors running at 360MHz, 440MHz or 550MHz. "It is interesting that IBM is linking into the IA-32 world with Summit," said Carlson, "while HP is linking into the HP 9000 installed base to ensure customers a clean upgrade." Pluto will be available in uniprocessor McKinley workstations, dual processor McKinley workstations and servers, and quad processor McKinley servers. He said that like IBM's Summit chipset, the Pluto chipset is ahead of Intel's roll-out of the McKinley chip. However, unlike the Summit chipset, which supports both Foster and McKinley chips, Pluto only supports McKinley - and presumably later - Itanium chips. The word on the street is that Intel will not be able to deliver the McKinley chips until sometime in the third quarter of 2002, which is considerably later than the late 2001 debut that Intel had been shooting for. Carlson said that the Pluto chipset could be extended beyond four-way SMP support up to eight-way or maybe even 16-way SMP configurations. But HP apparently does not currently have plans for this. HP will probably adopt the Intel i870 chipset for eight-way "Gallatin" servers next year (Gallatin is the kicker to the Fosters), and will also probably stick with the "AzuzA" 16- way chipset from NEC Corp, announced in may as the rx9610, for its high-end Merced and McKinley servers. HP does not have any plans to support Merced or McKinley Itanium processors in existing L-class low-end or N-class midrange servers in the HP 9000 line. But it will probably offer customers the option of upgrading to McKinley-based servers with HP-UX if they want to. HP expects to provide more details on the Pluto chipset in early 2002. It is unclear if the basic design of the Pluto chipset is a two-way motherboard, like the HyperTransport clustering developed by Advanced Micro Devices. With HyperTransport, one, two, three or four two-way AMD server boards can be glued together to create two-way to eight-way servers. The Pluto chipset will not, apparently, use NUMA technologies for clustering, judging from the scorn that Carlson heaped on the idea of non-uniform memory access in discussing the Pluto chipset. Odds are that HP will develop another Itanium chipset based on the N-class chipset to support larger Unix, Windows and Linux customers, particularly if the AzuzA chipset does not perform as expected or have the features that HP needs for its bigger customers. And if push came to shove, HP might even license IBM's Summit chipset, or create something very much like it, if Intel has continuing delays with its 64-bit processor line and forces customers to rely on its 32- bit server chips. timpm@computerwire.com

To: Tony Viola who wrote (142082)	8/21/2001 12:23:52 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 186894

Tony, RE:"I wonder if IDC has trend data for the big OEMs vs. the small guys WRT percentage of share in the overall PC market." Interesting to know whether "other" is shrinking share.

To: Tony Viola who wrote (142082)	8/21/2001 1:14:54 PM
From: herb will	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Tony,"can't compete with Dell anymore" My point is the effect of AMD pricing on companies such as Gateway, etc from the time AMD cut prices last year. With low cost computers and motherboards screwdriver shops have had an impact on computer prices. If the Raging Bull guy represents a screwdriver shop then it seems he is caught up in the competition he helped to create and Dell is not his only competition. It was AMD that started cutting prices to gain market share. That was brilliant strategy according to the AMD Moderated thread. Dan 3 said AMD would make tons of money with $100 ASPs. Hasn’t turned out that way though. Looks like AMD’s pricing strategy is starting to unravel. Anyway McMania can rant all he wants about Dell sweet deals while Jerry has a hand in his pockets. Herb ore"