[Beowulf] Register article on Opteron - disagree

[Jeff Layton]

Robert G. Brown wrote:

>On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 john.hearns at clustervision.com wrote:
>
>  
>
>>The fact that there are fewer Opteron based systems in the Top 500 is
>>irrefutable (I didn't know this) but it makes me uneasy to extrapolate
>>this to the impending death of a CPU.
>>
>>I DO agree (and let's have some debate here) that Nocona is bound to make
>>big inroads.
>>    
>>
>
>(snip)
>
>SO I'd have to say that I doubt that the authors of the article were
>particularly well informed, and that AMD is likely to be around and
>kicking for a few years yet.  Look, even the Power series hasn't
>disappeared and it has almost no top 500 presence at all, if you
>discount BG itself as IBM showing its marketing clout and finding a use
>for 700 MHz CPUs in Very Large Quantities...
>

Did anyone else notice that once the Columbia numbers were publically
announced and within a day or two of the Top500 announcement,
BlueGene/L suddenly appeared on the list at the top? I thought there was
some kind of deadline, but evidently, if you are a sponsor of the Top500
site, then deadlines mean little.

However, I guess it's understandable since, as rgb points out, the Top500
is an advertising thing anyway. Doug Eadline has a great quote about
the SuperComputer show and the Top500. I can't repeat the quote here,
but it has something to do with "size." After experiencing the show, the
observation is ABSOLUTELY right on target.

Also, the CPUs in BlueGene/L are specialized. I haven't heard anything
from IBM about marketing those CPUs in a real system. In talking to
IBM they are even reluctant to talk to us about their 970 or Power5
systems, nevermind testing them. At least Cray created a product from
Red Storm.

Enjoy your day!

Jeff


-- 
Dr. Jeff Layton
Aerodynamics and CFD
Lockheed-Martin Aeronautical Company - Marietta