Computex 2003 - Day 4: XGI, Motherboards, and cheap Itaniums
by Evan Lieb & Andrew Ku on September 26, 2003 7:54 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
DFI
This year, DFI was all about their patented “CMOS Reloaded” BIOS options. CMOS Reloaded was created by the lead engineer who designed ABIT’s famous BH6 motherboard from the old PIII Celeron days of yore.
As you can see above, CMOS Reloaded allows users to save BIOS settings of their choosing using the Backup command. High-end DFI motherboards will have the ability to save a total of four different sets of BIOS settings depending on what the user would like to do with their machine. For example, if someone wants to have aggressive BIOS settings for gaming, all they have to do is create that configuration and save it to CMOS and they’ll be able to use that setting every time instead of having to change their settings each time they enter the BIOS. All in all, CMOS Reloaded is an interesting idea and a very useful BIOS feature.
Some other motherboards DFI had displayed at Computex included an Athlon 64 motherboard based on ALi’s Hammer chipset. This is the first motherboard we’ve seen based on ALi’s Hammer chipset at Computex. However, DFI says that it performs well and they even believe they can make it their flagship Athlon 64 motherboard. We’ll have to wait and see how this chipset develops.
DFI’s VIA K8T800-based motherboard, pictured above, is ready for prime time and should ship in quantity in about two weeks. So far, DFI says that they have been able to get K8T800 to work better than nForce3, which they are delaying due to driver issues. It’s really quite odd that there all motherboard makers seem to be split right down the middle on nForce3 and K8T800 performance numbers and stability issues.
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Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
#9 My point is: Where are the Benchmarks?
The only place where I can compare the Itanium2's is SPEC.org (www.spec.org)
SPEC int 2000
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/cint2000.html)
Itanium 2 1500Mhz, 6Mb L3 cache 12Gb RAM
base 1322 peak 1322
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q3/cpu2...
Itanium 2 1400Mhz, 4Mb L3 cache 8Gb RAM
base 926 peak 926
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q3/cpu2...
I know that clock speed is not the same but is the closest i can get. The clock speed of 1400Mhz itanium2 is 93% of the 1500 itanium2. It has less cache. SPEC result of 1400 itanium2 is 70%
of 1500Mhz itanium2. I wonder how a 1400Mhz, 1,5Mb L3 cache itanium2 would do in SPEC.
The article talks about "cheap itaniums", and by cheap they mean $744 for 1.0Ghz and $1,172 for 1.4Ghz.
For about the same price you could buy an Athlon FX-51.
Before you talk about the 1400 itanium2 had less RAM look at these SPEC results, with 1Gb RAM
Athlon FX-51 2200Mhz, 1Gb RAM
base 1376 peak 1447
(http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q3/cpu2...
Andrew Ku - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
#7 Typo, we fixed it. Thanks for being patient.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
#8, it's not a difficult concept to comprehend. If you really think that the extra 4.5MB of L3 are going to make a huge difference in widely used 64-bit applications, you have a lot to learn about modern MPUs.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
'quote' "I2’s 32-bit performance is no where near as fast as Opteron series processors, but depending on the 64-bit application, I2 is much faster, and could be much faster in the future when more applications are developed specifically for IA-64." '/quote'This is nonsense. Where are the performance numbers of an Itanium running at 1.0Ghz and 1.4Ghz with only 1.5Mb L3 cache? the only numbers I'am aware of are the 1.5Ghz with 6Mb L3 cache and they should not be the same.
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 27, 2003 - link
umm...what happened to Computex Day #4? it went from day 1, 2,3,5 ?didnt anything happen of the 4th day??
Anonymous User - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
I'm also looking forward to the XGI cards... Wasn't there a blurb on AT a few days ago about how the Volari 8 offered 6000+ 3dMarks?Of course, I'm not one of those extreme money-wasters who'd sink $500 on a single component (maybe the CPU, and the RAM), so I'd be looking more at the performance of their mid-range card (the V5?). Considering nVidia's weak overall performance in DX9, XGI only really has to compete with the 9500/9600 from ATI in the mid-range, and if its high end can compete with ATI's high end pretty easily (using beta drivers, no less), I don't see why the V5 couldn't penetrate the market and become a contender in the mid-range market. Here's hoping it doesn't turn into a Phantom or any of the other many attempts to break into graphics cards and failing miserably...
Xelloss - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
A desktop Itanium2 would be pretty damn useless at this point anyhow. Yeah, you could run linux on it, but I'd imagine you'd have some trouble compiling a lot of software for it. I don't think Itanium is currently a high priority target architecture for desktop software.You could probably run apache, etc., but then why buy a desktop machine?
AgaBooga - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
Yeah, don't expect Itanium 2 for desktop anytime soon.Anonymous User - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
Until they replace some of those Xeons with the I2 line, I doubt you'll be seeing it at all in desktops.jliechty - Friday, September 26, 2003 - link
Well, now we have some half-reasonably-priced Itanium 2s. The big question is if the "Average Joe" will ever be able to purchase one from Newegg.