IBM... to Power or Not to Power, Opteron is the question.

[bloodline]

How odd... IBM has chosen the Opteron for it's new Super Computer project, even though the original plans were for a Power based one! :-?

Any thoughts?



Linq' IBM Like Opertons better

[takemehomegrandma]

bloodline wrote:

Any thoughts?

Yes ;-): Perhaps it's not IBM who likes Opterons better, perhaps it's the "Japanese Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology", the "customer" for this super computer?

[bloodline]

takemehomegrandma wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Any thoughts?

Yes ;-): Perhaps it's not IBM who likes Opterons better, perhaps it's the "Japanese Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology", the "customer" for this super computer?

Hadn't thought of that... but I wouldn't have thought that the "customer" would have had much input... unless they said we need the most power you can give us for the lowest price... don't worry about heat production.  :-P

[takemehomegrandma]

bloodline wrote:

... unless they said we need the most power you can give us for the lowest price... don't worry about heat production.  :-P

Perhaps they will connect the radiators in the building to the CPU coolers, and get the whole building heated up while playing CounterStrike in super speed?  :-o  :-)

[AmigaMac]

IBM is so 'BIG BLUE' that they really compete with themselves.

It's kinda funny.  Yesterday I went to a computer repair shop to buy some old RAM and I got in a conversation with the shop owner about Mac stuff (he had an old B&W G3 Power Mac sitting there) and he was talking about Apple not being 'IBM' compatible, and I had to think about it for a second before responding because I was thinking of 'PowerPC' and he was thinking of 'PC'!

Weird  :-o

[bloodline]

AmigaMac wrote:
IBM is so 'BIG BLUE' that they really compete with themselves.

It's kinda funny.  Yesterday I went to a computer repair shop to buy some old RAM and I got in a conversation with the shop owner about Mac stuff (he had an old B&W G3 Power Mac sitting there) and he was talking about Apple not being 'IBM' compatible, and I had to think about it for a second before responding because I was thinking of 'PowerPC' and he was thinking of 'PC'!

HAHAAHAHA, that's funny :-) PPC not IBM compatible :lol:

[olegil]

The customer ALWAYS tells the manufacturer what parts to use. The trick is to learn when to ignore the bastards ;-)

[Terminills]

AMD and IBM to Jointly Develop Advanced Chip Technologies

I wonder what else they may be working on together.   No matter it all looks like good news to me.  

[dammy]

by bloodline on 2003/7/31 7:15:02

adn't thought of that... but I wouldn't have thought that the "customer" would have had much input... unless they said we need the most power you can give us for the lowest price... don't worry about heat production.

If they wanted to heat the building, they would have gone with the Power4 chips.  };->

Dammy

[bloodline]

dammy wrote:
by bloodline on 2003/7/31 7:15:02

adn't thought of that... but I wouldn't have thought that the "customer" would have had much input... unless they said we need the most power you can give us for the lowest price... don't worry about heat production.

If they wanted to heat the building, they would have gone with the Power4 chips.  };->

Dammy

Yeah, but I said "At the lowest price"  :-P

:-D Peace

[iamaboringperson]

Any thoughts?

IBM have gone crazy!

[Hammer]

@bloodline

It may make business sense to support multiple ISAs e.g. Intel supports at least 4 ISAs i.e. i960, Strongarm/X-Scale, IA-64 and IA-32/X86-32.

[Gaidheal]

I still think the real reason is that they were getting chilly at night and like the thermal output of the AMD and Intel chips :¬)

[jamesm]

Considering that AMD and IBM have shared tech to produce the PowerPC hardware that us Amiga owners go raving nuts about, it's probably a logical step for them.

Hypertransport on PowerPC didn't come solely from IBM and Apple. Likewise, the Opteron didn't get a phenomenal FPU from AMD advances - that comes almost straight from the PowerPC. (But Mr. Lawyer, not *that* straight :>)

So, its kinda normal.

[jamesm]

How odd... IBM has chosen the Opteron for it's new Super Computer project, even though the original plans were for a Power based one!

Any thoughts?

Hmm.. IBM know what they are doing.

This isn't the IBM of 10 years ago - they know exactly where they want to be in the marketplace in a few years time, and they've realised that a lot of the server market will be opened up by AMD and the Opteron.

AMD are dying to get their server class CPUs into servers, and IBM are the ideal partners.

With the price/power ratio of the Opteron, their onto a winner.

Maybe one day, we'll see a native non-PowerPC based AmigaOS?