AMD’s $389 big iron
For the past year, I’ve been immersed in research on server microprocessor and system architectures. There have been genuine breakthroughs on so many fronts. IBM’s POWER6 is built around 4.7 GHz processor cores that outpace the latest Itanium in single-core performance, while advancing POWER simultaneously toward power efficiency and mainframe functionality. POWER6 is able to adjust the power utilization of CPU and core sub-components with each clock cycle, and it does so based on its own analysis of computing and I/O load rather than the operating system’s. Sun’s UltraSPARC T2 proves that by focusing on total throughput, a one-socket server with a comparatively low clock speed can rival, and even outperform larger, more costly, more power hungry servers. IBM and Sun put the lie to notions about RISC having run its course. I’ve never seen as much new, exciting and remarkable technology emerge from microprocessor chipmakers as I’ve seen in the past twelve months. I’ve never seen computing’s goalposts moved so far in such a short span of time. For most of a year, I’ve also been deep in learning about AMD’s new server CPU architecture, Barcelona, which makes its debut today, 9/10/07, as quad-core Opteron. I’ve experienced Barcelona… READ MORE