Replies to post #27256 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

kpf, I think Linux will play an important role here.

A lot of value is in interoperability between system architectures. I was reading an article on RealWorldTech about the SGI Altix, and how Linux is delighting their customers in the scientific community because it's so much easier for them to port their tools and utilities between the current architectures and IPF. I think the same will play in the professional workstation market as well.

[HailMary]

If these programs are used now,
and are available in EPIC format,
and these programs behave like Spec-fp relations performancewise,
and the last 10% of performance do really matter,
and costs for Hard- and Software do not matter much,
then this would be my decision as well.

You forgot:

and other legacy application performance or even run-ability is not important to me.

A lot of workstations are running a whole bunch of different apps, and until all of them are running on IPF without sacrifice, willingness to switchover from another architecture workstation might be low. This is where AMD64 and now ia-32e have a distinct advantage. This advantage does dwindle over time as more applications get ported to IPF, but I don't think IPF has hit the critical mass yet. Until then IPF will be useful as a dedicated workstation or server running specialized applications, but not as a broad base workstation.