DMN Interview: HP 64-Bit Itanium 2 Workstations Debut
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| HP's new zx6000 Itanium 2 workstation |
First, here's a bit of background on the Itanium 2 64-bit processors. They're not for everybody. The Itanium 2 chips are different from the new AMD Opteron processors and Apple's just-announced G5, in that they are not capable of running 32-bit code natively. In order to run 32-bit applications, the Itanium 2 processor processes them in emulation. For example, on the new 64-bit version of Windows XP, called "Windows on Windows 64" (WOW64) applications are run through a x86 emulation layer that is intended as a convenience function for those who are using 64-bit applications. Unfortunately, these applications will suffer a marked decrease in performance compared to 64-bit applications running on the same machine. But for technical users who must run native 64-bit applications, the Itanium 64 packs a powerful punch.
Who needs 64-bit computing? If you regularly need more than 2GB of memory in a single process, or use more than 4GB of system memory, then 64-bit computing is for you. The new bandwidth will be particularly useful for 2D and 3D animation and rendering, and some video editing and compositing with large datasets, such as HDTV and digital intermediate production. In addition to the expanded data path, there is also a significant increase in memory I/O speed. However, there is a lack of native 64-bit software for content creators at this point. Even so, according to HP the following developers have committed to creating 64-bit applications thus far for the digital content creation (DCC) space: Chrome Imaging, Discreet, DotC software, Eyeon, GeomWare, Inc., Global Information Group, In-Sync, Mental Images, Nothing Real, Photron, Side Effects Software, Silicon Grail, ToonBoom Technologies, and Volume Graphics.
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DMN: What kind of performance gains can users expect for this new line of Itanium 2 workstations?
McClary: From an overall perspective, the increase in clock speed that we're seeing in this generation is going to contribute a 36% performance improvement. So the chip speed, or the clock speed frequency scales almost linearly to true application performance. So we're seeing anywhere between 30% and 50% performance gains, which I think is phenomenal. In addition to that, there's the doubling of the cache -- we're moving from 3MB of cache to an amazing 6MB of cache on this 1.5GHz chip, and we're seeing incremental performance improvements on top of that, in the range of 30-50%.
DMN: What are some of the benefits of this platform?
McClary: Flexibility. Customers who have traditionally been on proprietary solutions, in a heterogeneous environment, are now starting to look more toward industry-standard, economies of scale, commoditized pricing structure. So there's a downward pressure on price, but the performance requirement is still there. Also, the chips are upgradeable. There's a pin-for-pin replacement. Also, users can get credit for an old processor. From an application perspective -- the number of applications that are available, we've more than doubled the number of applications that were available a year ago.
DMN: Can you use 32-bit applications with Windows 64?
McClary: Well, you can, but you're not going to take advantage of the performance that you would see. So any 32-bit application could run, technically, but you won't be able to take advantage of any substantial performance.
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