David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 2/5/09 wrote:
>
>This article talks about the catalyst for the delays, which
>was primarily a change in the platform, and the history and
>decisions that ultimately lead to the delay.

The much more interesting issue is if they fixed anything
else than the platform?

You compare to (very optimistic) POWER6 platform numbers,
and try to make it out to be the achilles heel of Itanium,
but look at Spec numbers, and realize that the weakest
point of Itanium was never the platform - it's the core.

SpecInt runs basically close-to-100% out of the cache, and
of all the architectures out there, Itanium is way way
behind the competition. Improving on the platform will do
absolutely nothing to that, since it isn't even
relevant.

Look at the SpecInt2006 numbers:
- Core i7-965: 36
- p570 (4.7Ghz): 21.7
- Itanium (1.66GHz/18MB): 17.0

Now, the Core i7 number is obviously much more recent than
the other two, but hey, that's what Tukwila will be facing.
(And quite frankly, you can find old Core 2 numbers that
are just under 30, so even if you want to go back to the
previous generation, you're really not changing the argument
at all).

And if Tukwila only improves on the platform, not the
core (and frequency), then it will be stuck at roughly
the same performance. Don't tell me that the platform
matters that much for SpecInt when you have a 18MB L3. I
just don't believe you.

Btw, the numbers aren't that different on the SpecFP side
either. Itanium does fractionally better, but not by much.

Yes, by comparing to only POWER6 you can make the race
look much closer, and can make the argument that POWER
has the better interconnect, but that's almost as absurd
as comparing Itanium to Sparc (which you also did).

What's the real competition again?

Oh yeah - it's those Core i7 Xeon chips with eight cores
and HT. They're not out yet, but neither is Tukwila.

Linus