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"AMD would not have lost overall market share if their mobile shipments were up 72% and "
What's the problem here?
AMD's mobile shipments in Q2 could have been a paltry number - say, 11,000 units.
They would only have had to increase this in Q3 to 18,920 and they would have increased their shipments by 72% and still had a lousy paltry number.
Be careful when you take statistics at face value without looking at the uderlying real numbers.
"Athlon 64 motherboards are considerably less expensive than Canterwood boards, like $30 cheaper, and don't require buying two memory DIMMs."
So, Petz, how does AMD bring you the promise of a large address space with an Athlon 64 and a single DIMM memory stick?
Maybe AMD provides single DIMMs with > 4 GigaBytes?
Or is this a tacit admission that AMD's "64 bit solution" is merely a marketing charade?
"what part of the "64-bit market" AMD could possibly have in 2004. "
The market AMD will have all to themselves is the 64 bit market without 64 bit software.
"Consider the cost of the fab the chip is built in,"
AMD's wafer fabs cost them nothing to build - they are built for free.
The German government provides most of the money and AMD sells paper in the form of bonds to investors to provide the rest of the money.
AMD doesn't have to put up a cent of their own money, nor earn one thin dime, yet they can put up fully configured fabs.
What a racket they have going.
"They aren't about to go to war against 64-bit Linux or 64-bit Solaris x86 with a 32-bit Windows.
Especially for databases. That would really suck."
So true.
So very true.
That's why Microsoft has 64 bit SQL Server 64 running on Intel Itanium hardware.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/apr03/04-24WSLaunchBenchmarkPR.asp
Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 (64-Bit) Deliver World-Record-Breaking Performance
Microsoft, Intel and HP Partner to Deliver World-Record 658,277 tpmC Benchmark Result
SAN FRANCISCO -- April 24, 2003 -- Microsoft Corp., Intel and HP announced today the world's first single-system TPC-C* benchmark result to surpass the 600,000 tpmC mark. This record-breaking performance benchmark of 658,277 represents enterprise transaction order handling performance that surpasses all competing platform results and sets a new standard for price/performance on 64-processor systems of $9.80/tpmC.** Today's announcement with Windows Server (TM) 2003 and SQL Server (TM) 2000 (64-bit) represents the crowning achievement of years in research and engineering to develop a high-performance server platform that delivers the highest tpmC performance in the world. Continued performance leadership, across all workloads, provides customers of every size with exceptional price/performance at a lower total cost of ownership than proprietary systems. Performance increases across a wide variety of workloads are evidenced in recent public benchmark results, including the Transaction Processing Performance Council's TPC-C and TPC-H, placing Windows Server 2003 with SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) in the top 10 of the leading industry benchmarks, consistently ranking them at the top for price/performance.
About Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a comprehensive, integrated and secure infrastructure designed to help customers reduce costs and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations. Building on Windows® 2000 family strengths, the new server platform helps customers extend existing resources while laying the foundation for building a new generation of connected applications that improve business productivity. Windows Server 2003 is the foundation for the Microsoft® Windows Server System (TM) , an integrated server infrastructure for building, deploying and operating agile business solutions.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device.
* TPC-C is one of the Transaction Processing Performance Council's benchmarks for measuring computer system performance. Performance is evaluated based on a model of online transaction processing. Benchmark results are expressed in terms of how many new-order transactions are performed per minute (tpmC).
** HP Superdome with 64 Intel Itanium 2 6M 1.5GHz Processors (code-named "Madison"), Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition and SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) 658,277 tpmC, $9.80/tpmC, available Oct. 23, 2003. Source: http://www.tpc.org/.
Microsoft, Windows Server, Windows and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft's corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.asp.
" It's so obvious that a blind man could see it."
"Little Stevie Wonder" is one blind man who can't see it.
How is this for starters?
To:niceguy767 who wrote (41139)
From: DRBES Friday, May 25, 2001 1:10 PM
View Replies (1) / Respond to 41147 of 41251
re: "I have been known to be outrageously optimistic on occasion and current period is one of those occasions..."
Pray do not take this the wrong way ( ...And, I suspect that there is very little chance that you will. ) ; however, when it comes to being "outrageously optimistic" as many of the "ELDERS" on this thread will probably eagerly give witness, you are an amateur next to me. Several years ago I proposed a GUB ( Greatest Upper Bound ) for the pre-split stock of $500 to $1,000 per share. I took a lot of abuse at that time from many of the skeptics that infested the predecessor to this thread.
I can still see a possible GUB for the stock of another factor of ten or so, if everything works out ( and all of the possible best cases probably will not ) so...my current GUB works out to $300 to $1,000 per share with a time horizon of three to six years from now.
SO, WHO IS THE OUTRAGEOUS OPTIMIST?
My most significant differences with you are the issues of time scale and potential high end targets.
I HAVE NEVER, IN OVER THIRTY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN THESE MARKETS OF STOCKS, IDENTIFIED SUCH POTENTIAL AS I SUSPECT THAT AMD REPRESENTS !
My two greatest fears are:
1. That I will seek gratification prematurely and miss the "BIG MOVES".
2. That I will fail to realize, in time, that the situation at AMD has changed profoundly for the worst case and that I will sink financially with them.
You see events on a much shorter time scale than I do. I hope, if the best case scenarios do play out, that you are still around for them.
PATIENT and Elderly Regards,
DARBES
"if it turns out later that you might want to run some "Other" Application that you hadn't initially planned on, does that mean that maybe you're screwed? "
It sure does.
And just what IT manager wants to screw themselves by switching from Intel-based systems which have worked perfectly fine for 6 or 7 years to an AMD solution just because some AMD fan boys publishes their benchmark-flavor-of-the-month that shows some 4-way Opteron system is indeed 15% faster than a 2-way Xeon system.
Far better to go add another Xeon system than to risk bringing your entire operation to a screeching halt with a bargain-basement AMD system.
Remember - caveat emptor and "You get what you pay for"
AMD was going to be delayed a few more months on 90nm.
http://www.overclockers.com/articles880/
Delays and Debt
Ed Stroligo - 11/23/03
Asleep At The Wheel?
A number of places announced a couple days ago that AMD was going to be delayed a few months on 90nm.
Well, we told you that a couple weeks ago.
That's not due to any great investigative journalism on our part; as you can see from the link, AMD said so during their analyst meeting a few weeks ago. They didn't say so too loudly, but they made it clear enough to anyone listening. Guess some didn't.
More importantly, how significant is the delay? Hard to say, given two other tidbits at Comdex.
First, AMD had a dual 90nm Opteron setup at Comdex, but refused to disclose the speed at which they were running. You might recall the last time they did that, they were trying to hide the fact that they only had 800MHz Opterons available.
Sorry, guys, but a few of us have memories. When the news is good, you blare it out; when it's not so good, you duck and cover.
Second, the biggest news (at least for this audience) wasn't what was at Comdex, but what wasn't: socket 939 boards. There wasn't even mention of them, as best as I can determine.
Given that AMD was supposed to make a few hundred thousand of them in the first quarter of 2004; that's a pretty notable absence, and a strong indicator we're not going to see them anytime soon.
Is the apparent delay in socket 939 related to the delay in 90nm? Maybe, maybe not, but a delay in socket 939 all by itself will hurt AMD sales early next year.
In for a Penny, In For A Euro...
Delays and Debt"
Ed Stroligo - 11/3/03
page 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In For A Penny, In For A Euro
AMD announced this week that it will build a 65nm fab plant in Dresden.
The fab plant is made possible mostly due to the national German and regional Saxony governments. They will give AMD about 20% of the (suspiciously low) projected cost of the fab.
The regional Saxony government and some private investors will invest in AMD to the tune of about 13% of the cost of the fab. The exact terms of the equity financing aren't known yet.
About 30% of the cost will be covered by loans, most of which will be guaranteed by the German/Saxony governments.
This leaves AMD to come up with a bit less than 40% of the cost to come out of their (or at least somebody's) pocket.
Why should you care about this? You should care about this because the most likely pocket AMD is going to get that $900 million from is yours.
Not that there's anything wrong with this or that this should come as a shock to you. Eventually, the customers always pay for all the expenses of a company (where else are they going to get them from, the Fab Fairy?)
What is important to note is that if AMD has to come up with around $900 million out of 2004-2006 revenues. They can't wait until the fab is finished, then pay off the $900 million with the new fab's production. They'll have to pay that $900 million from current production, and they can't do that if current production loses money.
AMD is going to be under a lot of pressure to keep CPU prices over the next few years a good deal higher than if they got loans for that $900 million.
What is most intriguing about all this, again, is not what's there, but what isn't in this whole transaction. Where's IBM in all this? You'd think they'd want AMD to use their fabs.
At the least, AMD apparently doesn't want to get that close to IBM, or vice versa. Keep that in mind when people consider IBM to be AMD's Fairy Godmother.
Ed
"Do you maintain a bullish equity position in AMD as Elmer does?"
How much AMD do you own?
Please post all your purchases over the past 10 years.
"That's why they always believe the next promise..."
Like the chestnut "This time its different".
Well, it sure was different when AMD launched the Athlon.
They actually made money for one year - then lost it all back and twice as much more in the next two years.
Good thing the Germans are their new masters.
"Servers are first sold on reliability"
This is probably why AMD's Opteron is not receiving much acceptance from corporate IT types:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1402695,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532
"On the other hand, we encountered more stability problems with the MSI motherboard than with the Asus dual Xeon board. It's hard to pin this down – is it a BIOS issue, a memory problem, or chipset behavior? In this case, if you're interested in a dual Opteron system, it may be worth your while to buy one from a workstation supplier who has qualified their system with the application you plan to run. "
"He's been recommending AMD from $5. Now, it's $15"
He's been touting AMD since it was $48 - and now its $15.
Funny how you only remember what you want to remember.
"754 infrastructure being ready, and 939"
754 pin saockets ----939 pin sockets-----940 pin sockets....
When Intel makes an occasional change to their sockets, the Droids yell at th etop of their longs about how Intel doesn't provide for "upgradability" - how they screw their customers by offering a confusing array of new formats.
When AMD does exactly the same, the Droids are just so overjoyed at AMD's creative genius.
"just because it's rated at 3000+ doesn't mean it's not
capable of much more"
Sure. It's probably capable of 4000+ perfromance - or 5000+ performance.
Which makes the 3200+ perform at....well, you get the picture.
"So they pick their battles wisely, "
Sure they do.
And AMD's "wiseness" has caused them to miss the one market that is adding significant growth to the PC industry - Mobile/Notebook computers with integrated WiFi connectivity.
Perhaps you AMD sycophants should be railing about Hector's $50,000,000 boondoggle in buying Alchemy and having no products to show for it, and especially providing no synergy with AMD's mobile offerings - which it doesn't even have - except for some underclocked Athlon XPs.
Trading off 2 million mobile CPUs per quarter for a mere 10,000 server chips/quarter isn't going to help AMD in its quest for profitability.
"are you just throwing a bunch of stuff out to see what sticks on the wall?"
I'm watching your lame WalMart Linux toys sliding down the wall, leaving greasy streaks.
WalMart - Linux- 64 bit AThlon notebooks.
You folks are living in your own fantasy land.
Tell me - do you own a Linux PC that you bought at Wal Mart?
"Minor correction: I believe the official name of what we call Germany is the "Federal Republic of Germany." The "German Democratic Republic" was the official name of what we used to call East Germany."
Thanks for the correction.
I used the German Democratic Republic because the Saxony government is located in the old "East Germany", as is Dresden and the German owned and AMD-operated fab 30.
If AMD defaults, the Banks will just "restructure" their loan - loan them new money to pay off the old money. It keeps the bankrupt firms afloat until the debt holders can fob off their AMD to another sucker.
AMD has all of its Fabs (except one in Austin) in Germany and Japan.
Looks like AMD has joined the Axis powers.
AMD has taken to pay IBM for fab R & D.
AMD can barely be considered an American company anymore.
-SZ
"And all the ubergeeks shop at Walmart"
You think that is where Mr. American Businessman buys his mobile laptop?
Walmart serves the cheap six-pack-types that read the menu from right to left.
"How about a 1.3GHz Banias chip that's faster than an XP-M 2400+?"
Wow!
That was a great bit of research, wbmw.
It really shows what a slug the AMD notebook processors are.
No wonder AMD is all but non-existent in the laptop/mobile market place.
AMD's go-for-the-gold strategy is once again chopping their own legs out from under them.
"These efforts would be better used answering AMD's successes."
Like 9 consecutive quarters of financial losses and market share erosion?
Not to mention becoming a subsidiary and debtor-in-service of the German Democratic Republic.
"Maybe you haven't heard yet, but Windows XP 64 is now
supposed to be released in Q1"
Petz, I heard it was going to be introduced in Q1 2003 - then Q2 2003 - then late 2003.
Microsoft has long ago wised up to AMD - and Microsoft is not putting any more priorities in helping SUN Microsystems and Scotty "Profits are so Yesterday" McNealy's new buddy - AMD.
Why haven't you AMD fan boys realized that Microsoft knows all about AMD's duplicity?
"Show me where a 1.7 GHz Banias chip is shown to be faster than an XP-M 2500+ LV, a 1.25v chip? Note of the reviews ever compared them to anything faster than a 1700+."
Probably because nobody had an XP-M 2500+ laptop to compare it to.
After all, Banias based laptops are ubiquitous.
AMD-based laptops are approaching non-existence.
"Same place as the desktop ones, under Linux..."
Oh, that's a funny one, alright.
I'm sure your average businessman who needs a great laptop for his frequent travels is just dying to give Linux a spin - figuring out how to grep and grok and rebuild his kernel everey time the system hiccups.
Not to mention waiting until he grows old to get some drivers for the 802.11xx WiFi chips inside his laptop.
Now there's a market which AMD may be able to service with their low yielding Athlon 64 chips.
"I'm convinced Dothan will lose every 64 bit benchmark against the Athlon64"
And where are all these 64 bit benchmarks for the Athlon 64 - in notebook computers, of course - since that's where the Dothan goes.
"Can't wait to get an Athlon 64 and the free upgrade to give it a whirl."
Let us know what 64 bit OS you run your Athlon 64 on.
That will be some trick setup - a new expensive Athlon 64 CPU, a new expensive AMD64 motherboard, a new 64 bit OS - all to burn a few CDs or DVDs with Nero Burning.
Funny - I can do all that now on my 32 bit system.
"The Pentium M roadmap here http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20031211124114.html looks disastrous."
In a way, you are correct.
The Pentium M roadmap is disastrous for AMD - becasue Intel's Pentium M has zippo competition from AMD.
Instead of going after the lucrative high ASP 2 million mobile CPUs per month business, AMD is chasing a bottle rocket for the 10,000 unit/month Opteron business - which is chewing up all of AMD's fab capacity with their huge 193 sq. mm. chip.
Remember AMD's inverted pyramid slide that Dirk laid on the analysts?
"I don't recall any press release regarding the sale of just a single Opteron system. I agree, that is pretty ominous"
Yep.
The SUN announcement - or shall I say "preannouncement" - is all that AMD seems to have garnered in a long while.
Too bad SUN won't have Opteron systems for 3 or 4 more months - and even worse, they won't have 64 bit Solaris until the latter part of next year.
By the way, why nonody sqawking about Microsoft's failure to deliver Windwows 64 for AMD's products?
"Wonders never cease! A post of yours I actually agree with!! ;)"
Thank you.
"I remember working at 3Com in 1986 when they were pushing their 3+ network operation system (NOS). They issued press releases highlighting individual company adoptions of the software all the time"
3COM did the same thing for their NIC business.
It was another charade - wasn't it?
"Why does Intel need to issue these press releases? "
For the same reason that AMD chose to issue press releases on their Opteron design wins. (Which seem to have dried up over the past few months.)
Why is it perfectly OK for AMD to do it and not Intel?
Intel is trying to promote their product in a competitive marketplace. What better way than to announce Itanium 2 design wins by key customers?
Remember, Intel had a very small presence in the enterprise server market place two years ago. With the economy in the toilet during the past few years, and IT spending only recently showing signs of an uptrend, Intel is exploiting one of their strengths - marketing - to help spread their technology .
It's called "Good Business Accumen".
Here's some 64 bit software to run on those Itanium 2 systems at WD:
December 11, 2003 22:45
Sybase Announces Availability of Sybase ASE on HP-UX and Red Hat Linux Operating Systems on Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2-Based Platform
Sybase to Deliver High Performance, High Value Platform for Data Management SYNOPSIS: Sybase, Inc. announced today the availability of Sybase's enterprise-class, relational database management system, Adaptive Server(R) Enterprise (ASE), powered by Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processor. -- Sybase(R) ASE is now available on HP-UX and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems powered by the Intel Itanium 2 processor. -- Customers get a high-performance, high-value data management solution. -- Executives from key Financial Services companies will have the opportunity to learn more about this technology from Sybase, Intel, HP, Red Hat and the TowerGroup on Thursday, December 11, at the "Strategies for Migrating to Linux" seminar being held at the Sybase New York Linux Competency Center.
DUBLIN, Calif., Dec 11, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via Comtex/ -- Sybase, Inc. (NYSE: SY), a leading provider of enterprise infrastructure and mobile software, today announced the availability of Sybase ASE on HP-UX and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems, powered by the Intel Itanium 2 processor. Enterprises will now have greater choice for implementing a high-performance, high-value solution for the management and delivery of business-critical data in heavy transaction volume environments.
"By extending Sybase's relationships with Intel and companies such as HP and Red Hat, our goal is to provide customers the latest technological advances to enhance the efficient management and delivery of enterprise data, a critical component of today's Unwired Enterprise," said Dr. Raj Nathan, senior vice president and general manager, Sybase Infrastructure Platform Group. "ASE running on HP-UX and Linux operating systems powered by the Intel Itanium 2 processor provides our customers with the high-performance and high-value data management solution they've come to expect from Sybase."
According to Dushyant Shahrawat, senior analyst, Securities and Capital Markets, for TowerGroup, "Businesses continue to look for ways to trim costs, without sacrificing performance, flexibility and scalability. As such, the Linux platform is gaining market share across industries despite the economic slowdown."
"Intel's Itanium architecture delivers the performance, scalability, cost-effectiveness and competitive edge that companies need for the success of their business today and in the future," said David L. Brown, general manager, Solutions Enabling Division, Intel Corporation. "We are pleased to be working closely with Sybase to develop and deliver solid technologies and products that give their customers a competitive edge."
Penoles, a mining group with integrated businesses in smelting and refining non-ferrous metal products and inorganic chemicals, is the world's top producer of silver, metallic bismuth and sodium sulfate, the leading Latin American producer of lead and zinc, and Mexico's top refined gold producer. "Sybase ASE's early support for Linux initially attracted us and we have since relied upon its high availability and performance to meet our business needs. In fact, Sybase ASE and Linux enabled us to lower our IT costs by 70 percent and improve performance by 400 percent," said Pedro Luis Sanchez Armas, technology manager for Penoles. "Now with ASE support for Itanium, we'll be able to easily port applications across different hardware platforms, providing us with even more flexibility."
Financial Services customers attending a seminar entitled "Strategies for Migrating to Linux," hosted by Sybase on Thursday, December 11 at the company's Linux Competency Center in New York will have the opportunity to gather technical and business information on the performance advantages of Linux for transaction-intensive trading environments. Analyst firm TowerGroup will speak on the benefits of Linux in the Financial Services market segment. Additionally technology experts from Sybase, Intel and HP will be on hand to discuss product and release roadmaps, and provide product demonstrations for solutions that support Linux.
About Sybase, Inc.
Sybase enables the Unwired Enterprise by delivering enterprise and mobile infrastructure, integration and application development software solutions. Organizations can attain maximum value from their data assets by getting the right information to the right people at the right time and place. The world's most critical data in commerce, finance, government, healthcare and defense runs on Sybase. For more information, visit the Sybase Web site: http://www.sybase.com.
NOTE: Sybase and Adaptive Server Enterprise are registered trademarks of Sybase, Inc. or its subsidiaries. Linux is a registered trademark of the Open Group. All other company and product names mentioned may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
Special Note: Statements concerning Sybase's new product releases are by nature forward-looking statements that involve a number of uncertainties and risks and cannot be guaranteed. Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially include shifts in customer demand, rapid technology changes, competitive factors and unanticipated delays in scheduled product availability. These and other risks are detailed from time to time in Sybase's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including but not limited to its annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q (copies of which can be viewed on Sybase's Web site).
SOURCE Sybase, Inc.
Julie Connolly of Sybase, Inc., +1-925-236-8696, or
julie.connolly@sybase.com; or Jenny White of Citigate Cunningham,
+1-916-984-6039, or jwhite@citigatecunningham.com, for Sybase, Inc.
http://www.prnewswire.com
Copyright (C) 2003 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
"That makes what? At least 54 this week!"
Yep.
And counting.
Slow steady progress.
Why have the Opteron adoption press releases dried up completely?
"AMD 64-bit support and Hyper-Threading. "
Support for AMD and Intel.
How refreshing.
I wonder what 64 bit OS the AMD64 support requires?
I'll venture that the Intel HyperThreading support works well with Windows.
"the necessity for a wind hood over the processor is an abomination."
Nearly every Pentium 4 system shipped by Dell has just such a "hood" or plenum. And Dell has probably sold tens of millions of these in the past 3 years.
The plenum, as implemented by Dell, is straightforward and effective - it exhausts the heat from the CPU through the plenum duct to a vent in the case at the other end of the plenum, removing the heat from the chassis.
The alternative with a simple fan/heat sink on top the CPU is to just blow the hot air around inside the chassis and hope that another fan manages to exhaust some of the heat.
"How fast Dothan will be?"
It only has to be faster than the competition.
And the only competition for "Dothan" is its predecessor, Banias.
AMD has no competitive product, as they neglected the high volume, high ASP mobile market in favor of the very low volume server market that takes years to nurture and grow.
Hence, Intel's Dothan, like the Banias before it, can be introduced at very modest clock speeds, with only occasional, modest speed bumps (as the AMD folks like to call 'em !) because AMD, Transmeta, and VIA have nothing close to compete with this product.
And we can't ignore Intel's fantastic marketing for this product line [CENTRINO] - wrapping it up in the Mobile Wireless Communications trend that is sweeping the notebook market.
Extraordinarily successful - no?
Here's 32 more Itanium 2 sales that you can choose to "diss".
December 09, 2003 09:10
Wichita State University Sciences, Math and Engineering Researchers Benefit From Integrated SGI Altix 3000 Solution
High-Performance Computing Center Commits to SGI Technologies
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec 09, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via Comtex/ -- Wichita State University sciences, math and engineering researchers now have access to the most powerful computing architecture available today with the installation of a SGI(R) Altix(TM) 3000 supercluster.
More than 130 faculty members, research associates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in such fields as computational fluid dynamics, structural and design engineering, and chemistry currently use the system installed in the university's High-Performance Computing Center.
Planned research projects using the center's new computing power vary widely, depending on the academic interests of participating faculty members:
-- Elizabeth Behrman of the physics faculty is leading a group mapping how
quantum computing could one day bring about faster, more powerful
computers-up to a million times faster than any currently existing
computer
-- Robert Carper of the chemistry department is heading a group
investigating the molecular structure of ionized liquids, which has
important applications for many manufacturing industries
-- In a study that reflects the high interest in aerospace engineering and
aircraft design issues in the Wichita region, which is an important
industry hub, Klaus Hoffmann of the aerospace engineering department is
investigating a computational fluid dynamics application showing flow
fields under the influence of magnetic fields
The new system complements a 24-processor SGI(R) Origin(R) 2000 server that remains in production. As John Matrow, a system administrator/trainer at the center, puts it, "Compared to the previous system, the new processors are seven times faster, and the capacity is four times greater. It's like a highway with a speed limit seven times faster than it used to be and with four times the number of lanes, creating a factor of 28 times the improvement."
The system is built on the open source Linux(R) operating system using the latest Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors. A customized feature of the system, installed in July in the university's High-Performance Computing Center, is the integration of the 32-processor Altix system for large-scale, complex computational jobs with two 32-processor Intel Architecture 32-bit clusters for jobs requiring a simple distributed computing model. It's the equivalent of a car with two speeds, one for intensive challenges and the other for everyday driving.
SGI Professional Services has integrated yet a third component, a front-end file server dedicated as an easy-to-use interface for the supercluster. Users needn't make decisions about which subsystem will work best for any individual task and can instead concentrate on scientific research tasks.
"Most of our users haven't used resources at big supercomputing centers," explains the university's David Alexander, director, High Performance Computing Center, and project manager, Enterprise Resource Planning. "So our design criteria for this mixed environment was a system as transparent and flexible as possible from the users' point of view, and we've accomplished that. SGI did an excellent job of providing an integrated system that's easy for users to work with."
"The university's High Performance Computing Center is quickly developing a national profile as a model for successful campus-wide shared computing, as reflected in its ever-increasing government and related funding," says Bill Bartling, Senior Director, Market Strategy, SGI. "It's gratifying to know that the center has reinforced its long-time commitment to an SGI infrastructure with its purchase of this latest system. We very much look forward to working with center staff for many years to come."
SGI Professional Services provided the expertise to integrate third-party hardware, software, and services with SGI compute platforms, including an SGI storage component, to create a fully integrated solution that addressed the customer's diverse system requirements.
"Most of our users are using third-party software, such as Gaussian," explains Alexander, referring to a widely used software package for computational chemistry. "We're not experts in tuning Gaussian, so having access to SGI engineers who can make sure Gaussian is running effectively is important to us. In fact, an important consideration in our buying decision was the extent to which the vendor could provide service for software we were planning to run."
Wild Open Source, Inc., a Linux and Open Source Professional Services company based in Burlington, Mass., worked closely with SGI to implement the cluster solution. "It was great to work with the combined teams from WSU and SGI," remarked Jim Lieb, Wild Open Source's Engineering Consultant. "The overall result was a great architecture that proves the value of SGI products, our combined services, and Linux technology."
To learn more about SGI Professional Services, visit www.sgi.com/services/, and for information about SGI's involvement with universities and research labs around the world, visit www.sgi.com/go/research.
About Wild Open Source
Wild Open Source Inc. (www.wildopensource.com) is one of the world's leading experts in building Open Source solutions for enterprise and supercomputing applications. Our global professional services team is comprised of IT veterans from Compaq, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Linuxcare, SGI and pioneering Open Source software and services companies. We specialize in Linux development and migration strategies that include systems architecture, customized device drivers, cluster migration and deployment, application porting and server consolidation.
SILICON GRAPHICS / The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. SGI was named on FORTUNE magazine's 2003 list of "Top 100 Companies to Work For." With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.
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media, Marla Robinson of SGI, +1-256-864-3426, or
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+1-650-933-0283; or Lonn Johnston of Page One PR, +1-650-473-0600, ext. 102,
or logg@pageonepr.com, for Wild Open Source
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Intel Itanium 2 to power Western Digital lines
Western Digital's Itanium 2 processor system deployment comprises seven units of HP Integrity 8-way, 4-way and 2-way servers running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server Database.
KUALA LUMPUR: Intel Electronics (M) Sdn Bhd said that Western Digital, a manufacturer of hard drives for PCs and home entertainment equipment, has deployed Itanium 2 processor-based HP Integrity servers to boost the performance of its production line at its assembly and testing site in Malaysia.
Western Digital's high volume facility needed a server environment that provides stability, speed, ease of use, and low maintenance costs to deliver error-free manufacturing processes, Intel said in a statement.
The financial terms of the deployment were not disclosed.
"Western Digital's manufacturing facilities are operating round the clock, seven days a week. The availability of its mission-critical operations cannot be compromised," said C.P. Sin, senior director of IT at Western Digital's Asian operations.
"This deployment capitalises on Western Digital's own high performance Enterprise Serial ATA (ESATA) hard drive technology. Together, ESATA and our new Itanium 2 processor-based system provide the high-volume at low-cost benefit that meets the demands of our enterprise environment," he said.
The Itanium 2 processor delivers the agility and accountability needed by Western Digital's internally-developed MITECS Manufacturing Execution System (MES) application and supporting database cluster.
"MITECS MES manages the production floor according to plan. Hard drives move through the production line by the thousands, simultaneously.
"Response must occur within seconds of one another. We cannot afford any error. The Intel Itanium 2 processor-based system ensures that this critical requirement is met and gives us peace of mind as it allows us to efficiently and effectively monitor and manage the production tracking applications," said Sin.
Western Digital said it expects performance gains of up to 60%.
Western Digital's Itanium 2 processor system deployment comprises seven units of HP Integrity 8-way, 4-way and 2-way servers running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server Database.
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2003/12/10/technology/6881356&sec=technology
"You could just acknowledge Dan's point that extra layers make for a more compact design?"
A compact design?
You are referring to AMD's 193 sq. mm. Atlhon 64/Opteron as a compact design?
They throw SOI and 9 layers of metal at this process and come up with a chip that is 193 sq. mm vs Intel's NON-COMPACT 135 sq. mm. Pentium 4 Northwood with only 6 metal layers.
Have you decided to redefine the meaning of compact?
By the way - do you think AMD's manufacturing costs for their 193 sq, mm. 9 metal layer SOI Opterons are lower than Intel's 135 sq. mm. 6 layer metal P4 Northwood?
Or Intel's 95 sq. mm Banias with 1 Meg L2 cache?
"Prescott delay - 5 months and counting. But never announced!"
I don't see you dumping in your drawers becasue AMD's 90 nM products have been delayed for 18 months - they were originally scheduled for H2 2002.
Why is that an ignorable fact for you?