Reply to post: Re: POWER8 disappoints

Re: POWER8 disappoints

@Mad Mike

"...It's also interesting that the poster believes making the biggest (as in processors/cores etc.) is all that matters. The vast majority of the market simply doesn't want servers of this size, so it's largely irrelevant..."

This is funny how IBM goes on when Oracle beats IBM:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/03/27/ibm-fires-back-at-oracle-after-server-attacks/

“This was a frozen-in-time discussion,” Parris said in an interview Wednesday. “It was like 2002–not at all in tune with the market today.”...Companies today, Parris argued, have different priorities than the raw speed of chips. They are much more concerned about issues like “availability”–resistance to break-downs–and security and cost-effective utilization of servers than the kinds of performance numbers Ellison throws out....Not that Parris is conceding that Oracle’s new hardware is actually faster."

And now you say that the market doesnt want huge servers that only Oracle can manufacture. Well superior performance means you get wicked small servers too. If you have a small 8-socket M7 server (256 cores, 2048 threads, 16TB RAM), it will surpass the biggest baddest IBM P795 (256 cores, 1024 threads, 16TB RAM) for a fraction of the IBM price - why would you spend much more money, more space, and more wattage being an IBM customer? And the P795 does not have lot of hardware accelerators that M7 has. So tell me, why would anyone go for a hugely expensive large P795 server with 32 sockets, when you can get a small 8-socket M7 server?

BTW, the SPARC M6 is faster than the POWER7+ cpu. And one SPARC M7 is 3-4x faster than the the SPARC M6. This means an 8-socket M7 server will equal 24-32 socket M6 server. Or, 8-socket M7 server will almost equal an 32-socket POWER7 P795 server. Why would anyone want a huge P795 server, when they can get a small 8-socket M7 server? Tell me.