http://www.theinquirer.net/25050202.htm
Pentium III SMP Xeons faster than P4 SMP Xeons
Intel messes up on four way systems
By Mike Magee, 25/05/2002 08:25:19 BST
SOURCES TELL us that Intel has once more made a gaffe in its plans for four way servers and that has caused many PC manufacturers to put their plans on ice until the chip giant fixes everything again.
This time PC manufacturers are upset because Pentium 4 Xeons in a four way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) configuration are thoroughly thrashed by a chip that Intel wants to consign to the microprocessor gulag.
The Pentium III Xeon 900MHz with 2MB of cache the so called Cascades processor easily thrashes a Pentium 4 in a four way configuration but Intel wants the manufacturers to go with the current Xeon.
Xeons with big caches codenamed Gallatin are not due to be released until the third or fourth quarter of this year, as exclusively revealed here.
One manufacturer told the INQUIRER. "Intel blithely assumed that a higher clock speed meant better performance, while in actuality it cut the cache size in half and moved it from level 2, at half clock speed, to level three at a quarter clock speed."
That, he said, degraded performance by such a factor that the big PC manufacturers couldn't really see how they could foist such machines on their customers.
"Most manufacturers are giving the current chip a pass waiting for Q1 2003," he said.
By then, they will have tested the Gallatin processors and hopefully they will pass their tests with flying colours.
Pentium III SMP Xeons faster than P4 SMP Xeons
Intel messes up on four way systems
By Mike Magee, 25/05/2002 08:25:19 BST
SOURCES TELL us that Intel has once more made a gaffe in its plans for four way servers and that has caused many PC manufacturers to put their plans on ice until the chip giant fixes everything again.
This time PC manufacturers are upset because Pentium 4 Xeons in a four way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) configuration are thoroughly thrashed by a chip that Intel wants to consign to the microprocessor gulag.
The Pentium III Xeon 900MHz with 2MB of cache the so called Cascades processor easily thrashes a Pentium 4 in a four way configuration but Intel wants the manufacturers to go with the current Xeon.
Xeons with big caches codenamed Gallatin are not due to be released until the third or fourth quarter of this year, as exclusively revealed here.
One manufacturer told the INQUIRER. "Intel blithely assumed that a higher clock speed meant better performance, while in actuality it cut the cache size in half and moved it from level 2, at half clock speed, to level three at a quarter clock speed."
That, he said, degraded performance by such a factor that the big PC manufacturers couldn't really see how they could foist such machines on their customers.
"Most manufacturers are giving the current chip a pass waiting for Q1 2003," he said.
By then, they will have tested the Gallatin processors and hopefully they will pass their tests with flying colours.
