----- Original Message -----
From: Matt Stegman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 08, 1999 9:03 AM
Subject: Re: [newbie] Choose Pentium? OR 586?
> On 8 Nov, Darin Martin wrote:
> > There have also been cache changes.. The P-Pro had cache on the die that
ran
> > at the speed of the CPU and came in 256k, 512k, and 1 meg varieties.
>
> We're talking about L2 cache here, right? I didn't know that P-Pros
> had full speed cache. I always thought that was only on Celerons. Was
> this on all P-Pros?
>
Yes.. This is all dealing with L2 cache.. All P-Pro versions had full speed
cache on the chip. Thats the primary reason the P-Pro was so expensive when
it was released. Today, even the 1 meg P-Pro chips are still pretty
expensive.. Around $350 each. One other advantage the P-Pro had was its
scalability. The chipsets for the P-Pro could easily support 4 way SMP.
And 6 and 8 way SMP were attainable with minor modifications as well. The
P-II couldnt scale beyond 2 way until the Xeon came out, and even then could
only scale to 4 way until just very recently.
The on-chip L2 cache gave the P-Pro a serious advantage over early P-II
chips too.. Before I added the second CPU to my P-Pro system, I could
easily get higher framerates in Quake, Unreal, etc.. than my friends that
had P-II 233 systems.
> > Intel's 7th generation processor is supposed to be released 4th quarter
> > 2000. It has been code named Merced for the last 4 years or so.. The
actual
> > product name "Itanium" was recently announced. It will be a true 64 bit
> > processor and completely incompatible with all x86 code, unless someone
> > decides to create an emulator for it.
>
> I've heard about Merced (sorry, I mean Itanium- couldn't they come up
> with a better name?), but haven't been following it as much as the
> Athlon. I suppose I'm more of an AMD guy than an Intel fellow. Plus,
> buying an Athlon will let me reap the benefits of a mature x86 chip
> while waiting for Merced (whoops again, but "Itanium" doesn't roll off
> the tongue as easily as "Merced") to bloom.
>
> Also, what is Intel supposed to do with Merced that Digital (um...
> Compaq... I'm not good with names this morning) hasn't put into the
> Alpha processor? I suppose it's always good to have competition, but
> does Intel really expect to dent this market?
>
> I suppose if Microsoft puts NT on Merced, that will help a lot.
> Especially since they no longer support Alpha. Is this their plan all
> along?
>
MS is reportedly working on Win2k for the Merced/Itanium. From what I've
heard, they will not have anything ready for at least a year or two *after*
the Itanium is released. However, Linux will probably be available for
Itanium shortly after its release.. I've read a few articles about compiler
development for the Itanium.. This is a tremendous chance for Linux to get a
giant leap ahead of MS in the server and high end workstation market.
Personally, I'll be building a K7 system as soon as a better chipset
solution is available from VIA or ALI. I think that the K7 has far more
potential than the Coppermine and even the Itanium. The big problem for
Itanium is that there will be no backwards compatibility with x86
technology. That means little hardware or software support on initial
release unless people start development now. The K7 and the K8 (code name
Sledgehammer) are going to keep Intel in a #2 spot for a long time to come..
