Intel Takes RISC -- High-end users' interest could help chipmaker compete with
RISC vendors
Jan. 29, 1999 (InformationWeek - CMP via COMTEX) -- When will IT managers who run large customer
databases or zero-downtime transaction-processing applications turn to Intel CPUs to do those jobs? The
answer may be pretty soon. Sure, the chip manufacturer has delayed the delivery of Merced, its first 64-bit
processor that will compete with high-end RISC chips from Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun
Microsystems, until mid-2000. And yes, users don't believe they need Intel inside their high-end systems
the way they do for their company's desktop PCs. Nonetheless, many say they will forgo RISC if Intel's
64-bit processors can scale as high as their competitors' chips, or at least offer performance that comes
close at a much lower cost.
At Digital Insight Inc., a Calabasas, Calif., provider of home-banking software for community banks, VP of
software development Ole Eichhorn says the plan is to stick with IBM's PowerPC RISC CPU for high-end
tasks, as long as it offers competitive advantages. But he's clear about what matters most. "If a new
machine [with an Intel chip] came on the market with significant price/performance advantages, we'd look at
it," he says. "We've remained middle-of-the-road with our applications, so it wouldn't be impossible to move
our software. We're interested in fast, stable, and inexpensive servers."
Intel says it won't be long before reality equals Eichhorn's vision. "We feel confident Merced will have
comparable price/performance [to RISC chips] at introduction," says Michael Pope, Intel's director of
enterprise software programs. The chipmaker is counting on Merced to establish a low-cost hardware
architecture for commodity 64-bit servers across different platforms. Not only will the chip run Microsoft's first
64-bit operating system, also due by mid-2000, but Intel has won commitments from most Unix suppliers to
adapt their rock-solid operating systems for the IA-64 chip, including RISC vendors Hewlett-Packard, a
co-developer of Merced, and Compaq. IBM, the force behind AIX and the PowerPC, has stated its intention
to work with SCO and Sequent on a new "open" version of Unix for the IA-64 platform while Sun is
Merced-enabling its Solaris operating system, though it will continue to use only its own Sparc chips in its
branded servers and workstations.
Performance Advantage
But even with their support for Intel's IA-64 plans, most RISC chip vendors are also committed to their own CPUs for the foreseeable
future. And many say users who care about the highest performance should be more interested in these upcoming CPUs than Intel's
chips, as well. They say their chips in 2000 will significantly outperform Merced. They also expect their performance advantages to
continue, even against McKinley, Intel's next-generation 64-bit CPU due in late 2001. Ron Curry, director of marketing for Intel's
IA-64 processor division, counters that McKinley's clock speed of more than 1 GHz, combined with other enhancements, should
double Merced's performance.
In any case, the contest between RISC vendors and Intel is good for users: Competition usually spurs faster development cycles, lower
prices, or both. Compaq says it intends to drive Alpha as a 64-bit industry standard, for example. "At the time Intel has McKinley,
we're coming out with EV8 with simultaneous threading," says Jesse Lipcon, Compaq's VP of high-performance servers. "If EV8 beats
McKinley by a factor of two on single stream, it will beat it by a factor of four on multistream workloads."
And while Compaq's processor will still be more costly than McKinley, some Alpha users say they can never get enough raw power.
Blue Sky Studios in Harrison, N.Y., develops software that takes computer animation to a new level of realism by accounting for the
intricacies of lighting.
Last fall, Blue Sky used 10 servers at a Compaq testing facility in New Hampshire for work on a short animated film. Each server ran
16 Alpha processors, considerably faster than the servers at Blue Sky's premises. "All of our rendering took less than a month," says
Carl Ludwig, VP of research and development for the studio. "On our older machines, the rendering would have taken three or four
months."
Blue Sky is considering buying 20 of the 16-processor servers to help it expand into full-length animated feature films, Ludwig says.
Still, while he says Alpha-based servers beat all of the competing products he's looked at-both in performance and
price/performance-he says he would consider buying servers with high-end Intel chips at some point, if the systems are made by a
vendor with a reputation for high-performing, reliable systems. "The chip is not the issue," he says. "We're interested in the best
cost/performance, Unix support, and compiler support."
No Shift In Focus
At IBM, the processor focus will continue to be a PowerPC RISC architecture. "We already have people working and thinking about
iterations beyond the next generation of PowerPC, the Power4, which we expect will deliver gigahertz speeds by next year," says
Tony Befi, VP of RS/6000 product management. Intel will not specify Merced's projected speed, but industry analysts expect it to be
between 700 MHz and 800 MHz.
Eichhorn, of Digital Insight, says IBM's PowerPC multiprocessing system, which acts as a supercomputer by scaling up to hundreds of
nodes, already lets him run just 40 servers instead of the 60 servers he would need with other chips. He saves on the cost of 20 servers,
which could each cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. More important, he saves untold amounts annually on the
administration of 20 servers. "IBM delivers very fast contact switching between different processes which run on the machine, and it's a
much more efficient multiprocessing architecture than Intel," Eichhorn says.
For its part, Sun says the future is bright for the UltraSparc processor. The vendor is focused on new market opportunities for the CPU,
including the telecommunications market, where it expects to generate significant revenue. Mike Gallagher, group marketing
manager for Sun in the microelectronics group, says Intel will just begin to learn about the rigors of high-end computing when it ships
its 64-bit chips. "Intel is trying to get into the high end, where customers are running their businesses, and [customers] don't want
solutions that will disrupt that," Gallagher says. But while acknowledging that computers with Intel chips may be more prone to
crashing, analysts say problems are related to the Windows operating systems, which most Intel-based servers now run, and to server
designs, rather than the processor.
John Madsen, a network system manager for NWT, a drug-testing lab in Salt Lake City, says that Sun, with its Sparc-based Solaris
systems and high-end network services, does a good job meeting his needs for system uptime. But, like other IT managers, he also
likes the idea of lowering costs by using an industry-standard platform. "It's not about being pro-Sun or anti-Intel. I'm not sure I care
about the underlying processor," Madsen says. "Solaris on Sun hardware is what attracted us, and if they can duplicate [Solaris']
stability on Intel hardware, we'll look at it."
Some analysts aren't convinced of the longevity of high-end RISC chips. It will become increasingly difficult, they say, to justify
billions of dollars in expenses for any chip manufacturer not doing a large volume of business. Linley Gwennap, publisher of
Microprocessor Report, says Alpha could gain and even maintain a lead in very big servers for pure performance, but that will
represent a small share of the market. And, despite a joint venture between Compaq and Samsung to market the chip to other
vendors, he doesn't think it's likely other manufacturers will modify their architecture to accommodate it.
By the time Intel delivers the last of its three 64-bit follow-ups to Merced, in 2002, some of the RISC vendors may be out of the game.
HP has already said it will halt work on its PA-RISC chip in 2002, when the IA-64 should catch up. The company agrees that no
vendor with proprietary hardware can justify the cost of designing and building its own chips for the long haul. "Look at PA-RISC,
PowerPC, Sparc, and Alpha combined," says Jim Carlson, HP's director of marketing for IA-64 systems. "Intel manufactures 10 times
what we all do." Vendors must yield to the customer cry of "Do more for me next year, and do it for less money."
Though Intel's sales at the high end pale next to RISC chip vendors today, the high volume Intel can generate should quickly boost
its sale of 64-bit CPUs once they become available, Gwennap says. "I think Intel's market share for 64-bit processors in 2003 will be
easily 60% based on unit volume," he says. "And that's just based on vendors who are committed to it today."
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Intel's 64-Bit Enterprise Server Chips
2000: Merced, 700 MHz or higher
2001: McKinley, 1 GHz or higher
2002: Madison for high-end servers and Deerfield for lower-cost servers, 1.5-GHz (approx.)
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