back to article Feeds and speeds on HP's Tukwila blades

If you are a shop that uses Hewlett-Packard's Integrity line of servers sporting HP-UX, OpenVMS, or NonStop operating systems (perhaps with a smattering of Windows and Linux), and you were excited about the prospect of putting quad-core "Tukwila" Itanium 9300 processors in the new Tukwila blades HP announced earlier this week, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    MB and the clock speed

    Ha! 3 years of waiting and Tukzilla came from 1.6 to 1.7GHz at top speed.

    Nice upgrade hun?

    Funny to see you point at POWER that now runs at an octocore chip at JUST 3.8GHz.

    Clap clap to Intel!

    This is the dream upgrade all customers were looking for after the delay fiasco!

    Cheers!

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: MB and the clock speed

      <Yawn> Still waiting for that intelligent IBMer to post a comment.... There is at least one out there, isn't there?

  2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Troll

    Something to keep the IBM trolls frothing.....

    Whilst we wait for that one intelligent IBMer to come along, I'd thought it might be a good idea for the IBMers to take a look at the following link. Just because they are so obsessed with clock speed, insisting that it makes Power faster in all circumstances, and keep frothing on and on about benchmarks:

    http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/w1/en/messaging/realstory-server-realworldperformance.html

    Yes, that's the old Montvale Itanium blades trouncing the Power6 JS22 blades with more than 50% better performance on SPECjappServer2004 benchmark. Maybe the IBMers would like to explain why a 1.6GHz Itanium so soundly thrashed a 4GHz P6 if clock is so important? Could it be because their clock speed squealing is just feature sell? Is there anyone out there who hasn't realised yet why they're they FUDing the new Tukzilla blades so hard? Because they're scared of them.

    /SP&L

    1. tintin

      benchmark comparisons

      Hi Matt,

      Yep, for the SpecjappServer benchmark at least, it looks like the JS22 is rather weak. However, if you want start a benchmark comparison of POWER6 vs HP Itanium servers.. Let's look at some industry standard benchmarks:

      specInt_rate2006

      64 core 5.0Ghz POWER6 P595 - 2080

      128 core HP 1.6Ghz Itanium Superdome - 1650

      POWER6 is 2.52x faster / core

      specfp_rate2006

      64 core 5.0Ghz POWER6 P595 - 2,110

      128 core HP 1.6Ghz Itanium Superdome - 1,480

      POWER6 is 2.85x faster / core

      specJbb2005

      64 core 5.0Ghz POWER6 P595 - 3,435,485

      128 core HP 1.6hz Itanium Superdome - 2,054,864

      POWER6 is 3.35x faster / core

      SAP-SD 2 tier

      64 core 5.0Ghz POWER6 P595 - 35,400 users

      64 core 1.6Ghz HP Itanium Superdome - 9,265 users

      POWER6 is 3.82x faster / core

      TPC-C

      64 core 5.0Ghz POWER6 P595 - 6,085,166

      128 core 1.6Ghz Itanium Superdome - 4,092,799

      POWER6 is 2.97x faster / core

      TPC-H@3000GB

      64 core 5.0Ghz POWER6 P595 - 156,537

      64 core 1.6Ghz Itanium Superdome - 60,359

      POWER6 is 2.6x faster / core

    2. Jesper Frimann
      Headmaster

      More stuff from Matt's place of wisdom.

      Again.. I don't get it you don't want to look at vendor benchmarks...... Unless they come from HP's 'The Real Story' ?

      You do know what this comparison is all about, it's a IBM software Group how to use alot of cheap hardware to generate software revenue for them versus a benchmarked solution versus a 'get the most you can out of the hardware with any means cause prices aren't listed in the benchmark submission', by HP.

      Software sales people is what some of the inner circles of hell is reserved for.

      If you look at the actual benchmark disclosure reports (rather than just quoting marketing bull)

      http://www.spec.org/osg/jAppServer2004/results/res2008q4/jAppServer2004-20081202-00125.html

      and

      http://www.spec.org/osg/jAppServer2004/results/res2008q1/jAppServer2004-20080115-00098.html

      Each of the js22 blades cost what.. 5779$+559$+1200$ for the RAM and AIX that is 7538$ per blade. Check it out yourself on the web.

      Now the BL870c used in the HP submission costs 52397$ from (the list price list I have cause it's not like HP wants you to know what their products costs).

      So what is that.. a factor of 2.34 in price performance advantage to the js22... So if you want to throw a lot of money after a HP solution then feel free... I don't care.

      Note how HP has only focused on the Blades that are used for driving the app software, not on the Database which is also a part of the benchmarked configuration (SUT hardware)

      They haven't at all.. mentioned the fact that on the DB side of the benchmark HP is using a 128 Core Superdome with 512 GB memory to drive the database, where as the IBM solution uses 40 cores in a p595.. and a 2.1 GHz POWER5+ based p595 that is, with 192GB memory.

      That means that on the database site you need 1 Itanium Core to drive 169 BOBS on the app side.

      Where as you need 1 POWER5+ 2.1GHz Core to drive 350 BOBS on the apps side.

      To put it in other words you've just quoted a benchmark that shows that POWER5+ (notice that this is power5+.. not power5) is more than x2 factor faster that Itanium on the Database side.

      I wonder how much POWER6 would have been faster if they had used a POWER6 based power 595 ?

      Was that what you wanted to show, that Itanium is only able to do half that of POWER5+ on DB loads ?

      Again.. check your facts and do your math.. rather than just quoting marketing Bull.

      // Jesper

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Troll

        RE: More stuff from Matt's place of wisdom.

        ".....I don't get it you don't want to look at vendor benchmarks...." I suspect it's actually that you don't WANT to understand, or that you don't want any readers to understand. After all, it would be so much easier for you if no-one asked for POCs but just took your word on the back of some IBM labs benchmarks.... Well, I suppose IBM can at least hope there really is one born every minute - probably more than that in Denmark.

        And then you waste a whole lot of airtime getting all hot under the collar over one vendor benchmark I posted to show you P6 or P7 don't win every time. Chillax! OK, I did find it very amusing, but for your own good you really need to calm down. You forgot, I also stated quite clearly that vendor benchmaks HAVE NO BEARING ON REAL WORLD PERFORMANCE! I have run POCs in Montecito Itanium kit with Java apps and got very good results, but not ones as good as hp labs did because mine were real world apps. Your total fixation with trying to disprove anything that threatens your worldview of IBM Power as the unchallenged performance king is much more revealling than any benchmark.

        Here's a big hint for your next salespitch - don't diss the opposition, just stick to explaining your proposal. Us customers will think much more of you for it. Sure, if your customer says vendor X has said some FUD then defend your kit, but don't try and do it by FUDing theirs - the customer is usually not stupid and will know there is actually very little chance of you having ever touched the competitor's kit and having any real experience of it. All you do is look stupid, especially if your competitor is sly enough to have predicted your canned response and already fed the customer a neat counter. "He will say this" and you do! - the customer thinks your competitor is a genius and that you can only repeat IBM soundbites! Guess who wins the deal.

        ".....Software sales people is what some of the inner circles of hell is reserved for...." I'm not surprised an IBMer would say that. After all, for years it's been a fact that IBM software sell more software on hp hardware than IBM's own, something that really p*sses off the IBM hardware guys! Many a time IBM Software resisted calls from IBM Hardware to bump up the license costs on PA-RISC and Itanium compared to Power, and many times IBM Software refused because it made more market sense to keep them even. Nothing like your own software division admitting their marketshare is dependent on a competitor's kit!

        /SP&L

        1. Jesper Frimann
          Thumb Down

          Matt Bryant now with insults to the Vikings.

          "I suspect it's actually that you don't WANT to understand, or that you don't want any readers to understand. After all, it would be so much easier for you if no-one asked for POCs but just took your word on the back of some IBM labs benchmarks...."

          Well, we do POC's big time when customers a new to us. It's just fair that they want to be assured, of our choice of platform and that we can execute it. And well the cost of the POC is well on their shoulders, one way or another. So actually POC's make us more money.

          "Well, I suppose IBM can at least hope there really is one born every minute - probably more than that in Denmark."

          Ok, so now you are so far out that you need to call people in Denmark idiots. Says a great deal more about you than people in Denmark :) You are actually not being a very nice person.

          "And then you waste a whole lot of airtime getting all hot under the collar over one vendor benchmark I posted to show you P6 or P7 don't win every time. Chillax! OK, I did find it very amusing, but for your own good you really need to calm down. "

          No, it is you who is off the mark. Just cause you finally find a benchmark that gives you a tiny leverage. And then cause you don't read it but rather just quotes HP marketing sites, then you don't discover that what the benchmark also says is that the DB servers used actually showed that a Montecito based SD needed 128 Cores and 512GB RAM to deliver 1.5 times that of a 40 Core 192 GB RAM POWER5+ server. It's not my fault that you shoot yourself in the foot. Go blame yourself, and actually look through the benchmark configuration and disclosures, rather than just quoting HP's the real story.

          "You forgot, I also stated quite clearly that vendor benchmaks HAVE NO BEARING ON REAL WORLD PERFORMANCE! I have run POCs in Montecito Itanium kit with Java apps and got very good results, but not ones as good as hp labs did because mine were real world apps. Your total fixation with trying to disprove anything that threatens your worldview of IBM Power as the unchallenged performance king is much more revealling than any benchmark."

          Who ever said that Benchmark results equals Real World Performance ? If you had bothered reading what I have written you would have seen that I have always said that Sizing tools and methods are _based_upon_ benchmark results. That is two whole different things. Listen I live in the real world, I have to work with everything from M9000/SD/p595 to old DS20,V210's or old SP2 nodes. You on the other hand seem to only know HPUX,PARISC and Itanium.

          "Here's a big hint for your next salespitch - don't diss the opposition, just stick to explaining your proposal. Us customers will think much more of you for it. Sure, if your customer says vendor X has said some FUD then defend your kit, but don't try and do it by FUDing theirs - the customer is usually not stupid and will know there is actually very little chance of you having evs sly enough to have predicted your canned response and already fed the customer a neat counter. "He will say this" and you do! - the customer thinks your competitor is a genius and that you can only repeat IBM soundbites! Guess who wins the deal."

          I never ditch the competition, you never know when you might need a new job. And HP's hardware and software Business, not to mention their big gadget depardement, are not my competitors. They are my business partners, just as Oracle is a very big business partner. And IBM HW and SW business also are my partners.

          And for having experience of UNIX. I grew up on UNIX wise on BSD, SUN OS and HPUX v2-8. We had a 340 with a M68040@40Mhz, as the machine that could go on the internet. But the real darling was Embla a 735 with a whopping 64MB of RAM featuring a PARISC RISC processor WOOO ! And then also a farm of 320'ies. So I've been a big fan of HP hardware, for many years.

          For me personally it changed with Itanium, I am tired of having to explain to my customers why the HP/Intel roadmaps we presented to them as part of the agreed development plans for their infrastructure, doesn't hold water.

          ".....Software sales people is what some of the inner circles of hell is reserved for...." I'm not surprised an IBMer would say that. After all, for years it's been a fact that IBM software sell more software on hp hardware than IBM's own, something that really p*sses off the IBM hardware guys! Many a time IBM Software resisted calls from IBM Hardware to bump up the license costs on PA-RISC and Itanium compared to Power, and many times IBM Software refused because it made more market sense to keep them even. Nothing like your own software division admitting their marketshare is dependent on a competitor's kit!"

          Have you ever even meet a Software sales guy ? He will try to convince you to run your apps on scale out SPARC64 solaris boxes. Why ? Cause he'll make more money that way. I've heard that story both from Oracle and IBM software sales people time and time again. I've been in on doing deals, last place I worked, where the whole outsourcing deal payed for itself in savings on software licenses.

          // Jesper

          1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
            Troll

            RE: Matt Bryant now with insults to the Vikings

            Why is it the Danes have to always bring up the Vikings? I mean, I know it's the only time in history Denmark actually amounted to anything, but it was a very long time ago. And it's not like the Vikings actualy added to civilisation - did they build great roads or make scientific discoveries like the Romans? Any Vikings make advances in mathematics, chemistry or biology? Did they do anything other than attack farmers and monasteries and run away when faced by real troops? And didn't the original Vikings come from Norway anyway?

            "...Well, we do POC's big time when customers a new to us...." We do a POC for every major project. I wouldn't care if you'd been supplying solutions to us for ten years, I still wouldn't go with vendor benchmarks as a guide, I'd expect you to prove your solution. Maybe we're just less guillible in the UK.

            "....the cost of the POC is well on their shoulders...." I see now why EDS are beating you hollow. I never pay for any POC, it is always at the vendor's expense. If they are not willing to put their kit up on at least try-before-you-buy terms we don't buy. If you asked me to pay for a POC I wouldn't even bother telling you where to go, I'd just reject your proposal and go with the competitiors that were willing to fund a POC. If you have so little faith in your solution that you have to ask for cash up front then I will have no faith in you either.

            ".....No, it is you who is off the mark....." Really? So how come you then spend the rest of the paragraph frothing on about how it wasn't a fair comparison? Face it, you and the rest of the IBMers have been ranting on and on about clock and throwing benchmarks around, all I did was post one to show the falacy of your statements and you go off the deep end! And the really funny bit is you quote IBM benchmarks and articles but then try and saqy that hp ones can't be considered! Especially not ones that poke holes in IBM FUD - wouldn't want the customers to see those, would you!

            "....Who ever said that Benchmark results equals Real World Performance?...." You did. In many posts here covering everything from Xeon through SPARC to Itanium. In fact, you always are the first to start pushing selected benchmarks and claiming that they somehow PROVE that Power has better real World performance.

            "....You on the other hand seem to only know HPUX,PARISC and Itanium..." Read my posts. I work with Integrity and pSeries, mainframe, Wintel and Lintel and some SPARC still. Don't try and pretend you have a better view of the World than anyone else because I am sure there are readers here with twice as much experience as both of us put together, and they and I are working in live environments, not doing outsourcing proposals and the odd POC. More IBM God complex, it seems.

            "....Have you ever even meet a Software sales guy ?...." All the facts on IBM software sales on hp kit came from the head of IBM software sales for the UK. I even queried it with IBM Europe as I wanted to be sure - they had to agree. I meet a lot of salespeople from hardware and software vendors, thanks, and that includes IBM Software salesgrunts. I'm sure you think you're better than them because you work with hardware, but a salesman is still just a salesman regardless of what they're flogging. To me you're no better than a second-hand car salesman, and there is no way I'd buy a car without a test drive. You can tell me any story you like about how you saved some other company money or did it all off licence rebates and I'll just laugh and remind you we're not that company, they don't run our environment or do our line of business, and their situation is going to be completely different to ours. So unless you can prove (at your expense) what your selling will work you can stop wasting my time and go away.

            /SP&L.

            1. Jesper Frimann
              Headmaster

              Try some history leassons

              "Why is it the Danes have to always bring up the Vikings?..."

              Well I see that your knowledge of Nordic history, and thus also a big chunk of western europe is about as big as your knowledge of Unix solutions. It clearly reflects a world seen from only one perspective from someone sitting on a little island.

              "We do a POC for every major project. I wouldn't care if you'd been supplying solutions to us for ten years, I still wouldn't go with vendor benchmarks as a guide, I'd expect you to prove your solution. Maybe we're just less guillible in the UK."

              Yawn. You sure live in a perfect world. In the world I live in customers don't want do do POC. It is almost always me who has to insist on a 'verification test', Pilot or POC call it what you want. Sure I am honest enough, to put the real cost to the customer. And if there is excess capacity they can usually lend it for free. But I can't give them the manhours for free. So they get what they pay for, but then they can also be assured that there are no hidden costs.

              "I never pay for any POC, it is always at the vendor's expense. "

              Ok, now you are just plain naive. Do you really think that the cost of the POC isn't added to your final price, either up front or later in some way. You have never been involved in doing pricing on contracts I can see, or been involved in negotiating prices with vendors. Again Welcome to the REAL WOLRD (tm). Your naivity is IMHO shocking.

              "If they are not willing to put their kit up on at least try-before-you-buy terms we don't buy."

              Now that seems sensible, as mentioned above I will normally lend excess capacity to our customers for test etc, either for a symbolic price or for free. Often it's simply just extending the overprovissioning factor on their current test system, which basically is a simple little change for me, but would be quite costly for the customer. Hence it's good business for both of us.

              And that is what my business is all about.. making sure that both parties make good business.

              I have never understood the 'We get the vendor to bleed', and if we can get him/her to loose money then HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!. You are undermining your own investment. IMHO just plain stupid.

              "I see now why EDS are beating you hollow."

              EDS haven't got a presense in the country. And what do you think this will cost HP in Itanium business that they themselves star

              t to underbid their own platform ? Now every time we have to go up against EDS, we have to use either POWER or x86, and try to talk the customer away from Itanium.

              I just talked to a former college of mine, and it seems that the place where I used to work, now have booted HP as services vendor on their own hardware. The rumor is that EDS is trying to take share, and HP is paying the price and becoming a box mover only where I used to work. But I suspect that perhaps the real reason is that last place I worked we picked up all the 'good ones'

              from when EDS closed down their operation in Denmark, so there is a lot of personal bad blood in the busines against EDS. Are EDS still on strike in the UK btw ?

              "If you asked me to pay for a POC I wouldn't even bother telling you where to go, I'd just reject your proposal and go with the competitiors that were willing to fund a POC."

              Damn you remind me of a place I was hired in many many years ago, true story. The Business system owners were p*ssed at the IT depardement, cause the IT department that were responsible for selecting the Infrastructure seem to come up with the most expensive solution every time x5 more expensive than the competition. And when it then was implemented they never reached the the number of transactions that they had in the POC, that were run. Turned out that one vendor was very well liked by IT. They always did the POC's at the vendors site in Southern France, good food good wine and the vendor was allowed to RAM the Base, and generally sweet talk IT.

              In comes Freelancer Cowboy Jesper, no POC in Southern France this time, But a serious analysis of the RFP, and elimination of the 'we want this vendor' parts and an ajustment of the political availability demands to something that was inline with the business needs, changed the attitude in the project from "Get the vendors to work for us" to "we need to know ourselves". Then a TOC analysis of the incoming proposals, performance calculations, X visits to reference customers later without the vendors present. Result the 'other' vendor was selected 5M £ in savings later, IT was furious but the business was happy. An upgraded version of that system still runs today, but there are still people there in IT that holds a grudge, cause I took away their expensive toys.

              So POC's where you pitch one vendor against another is not such a golden solution as you think.

              "Especially not ones that poke holes in IBM FUD - wouldn't want the customers to see those, would you!"

              What a rant.. and btw. you have only been able to find one benchmark that partially poke a tiny hole, so what's up with the plural form.

              "You did. In many posts here covering everything from Xeon through SPARC to Itanium. "

              Let me learn you one thing young man. There are nothing that are certain, there are only probabilities says the former student from The Niels Bohr instutute. U do know that quantum mechanics come from Denmark rigth ? I actually have a friend who is the grand something from Niels Bohr, he btw. works for IBM, in the US :)=

              But it's pretty simple when you have a vendor that does sweep all the benchmarks, be that from SAP,SPECINT to Oracle app performance, then probability is that it's also faster in the REAL WORLD. But keep up the POC's.. must do great things for your project plans.

              "In fact, you always are the first to start pushing selected benchmarks and claiming that they somehow PROVE that Power has better real World performance. "

              Ehh.. Selected benchmarks ? again.. POWER7 is cleaning house, it wins every damn benchmark it participates in. Sure this is just some grand Illuminati IBM conspiracy....

              Again, you don't understand that your rude manors, lack of perspective and "it's the world against me" attitude puts people at odds with you. I have no problem discussing things like Poulson release dates, and digging up evidence that it will actually be a shipping products, actually supporting the person that I perhaps am disagreeing with, and disproving people who claim that particular product is foilware. Why? Cause if discussions are done in a polite manor and civilized tone with the goal of enhancing the knowledge of both participans, then the road, and the knowledge gained, is more important than than the end result. But hey 10 years and you might come to the same conclusion, but I have my doubts that you will see the light.

              "Read my posts. I work with Integrity and pSeries, mainframe, Wintel and Lintel and some SPARC still. Don't try and pretend you have a better view of the World than anyone else because I am sure there are readers here with twice as much experience as both of us put together, and they and I are working in live environments..."

              Well I haven't really seen you just remotely displaying any what so ever skills on POWER and what a solution stack on that platform is able to do. Again all you can do, when it's not HPUX or Itanium is to link to HP's TheRealStory. Hardly a sign of skills. I've had UK Cowboy bodyshop consultants in that claimed to have 10 years of Oracle experience, that couldn't even start up a database, but funny enough when I get people in from Norway, Sweden or Denmark they can actually deliver what their CW claims that they can do. And I am pretty sure that I have a longer track record with actual Itanium hardware than you have :)

              But there are always people better than you. I've learned my lesson, back when I thought that I was the master of the world, but then again I've been debating on the internet for 20+ years, my "I know everything and flame everyone" period was over 18 years ago. But I also know that I've tried more than most. I've been in enough real life tough IT critical situations. I've seen project managers running to the toilet to throw up. I've seen DBA that had to rush to the toilet so as not to soil themselves, I've even had people having to pop nitro due to chest pains, where we had to ship them to the hospital, cause they couldn't handle the situation. Not where I work now cause things are more structured here, but other places I have.

              All the facts on IBM software .. bla bla second-hand car salesman.. bla bla..

              Damn. You sound just like Barnes in Platoon. "Now, I got no fight... with any man who does what he's told. But when he don't, the POC breaks down. And when the POC breaks down, we break down. And I ain't gonna allow that... in any of you.".. Cause the POC is my meal ticket, and I like it.

              And I don't do sales, well I keep my clients happy, so that they will buy more.. hey wait.. And the last second hand car I bought was actually from a nice guy my wifes sisters husband, an good old design classic Citroen XM 2.4 TD estate.

              // Jesper

  3. Matt Bryant Silver badge

    RE: benchmark comparisons

    "Yep, for the SpecjappServer benchmark at least, it looks like the JS22 is rather weak....." No, still the IBMer can't bear to admit clock isn't everything. I'd try to look surprised but that would be almost as big a waste of time as reading the rest of Tintin's post.

    ".....if you want start a benchmark comparison...." Not really as I've stated many times that vendor benchs are irrellevant, I only posted that example bench to show the stupidity of your position that clock is the single most important factor. What you actually need to do is get the kit in your environment, with your stack, apps, data, etc, and then see how it performs for you in the real World. Any other test is really quite meaningless. That's because we don't all have $4m of disk to short-stroke and have to run real databases, unlike IBM labs which are notorious for their unrealistic benchmarking setups. What I actually asked you to do was explain how the 1.6GHz Itanium could beat the 4.2GHz Power6 in that benchmark if all that matters is clock speed as you IBMers insist (and as you avoided answering yet again).

    /SP&L

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    RE: benchmark comparisons

    ""Yep, for the SpecjappServer benchmark at least, it looks like the JS22 is rather weak....." No, still the IBMer can't bear to admit clock isn't everything. I'd try to look surprised but that would be almost as big a waste of time as reading the rest of Tintin's post."

    Matt, are you suffering from clock envy? ;)

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: RE: benchmark comparisons

      ".....Matt, are you suffering from clock envy?" <Yawn> Still waiting for that one intelligent IBMer.....

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    MB joker

    Matty, you are so fun!

    You were the one that started the Megahertz clock discussion on the other P7 thread.

    Now HP comes up with the Tukzilla blades with only 100MHz more. Is this funny, or what?

    Tintin posted the most important benchmarks that kicks Itanium butt and you only have a Japp benchmark to defend your point?

    I really liked your HP webpage that gives us SpecJAppserver benchmark.

    But, you missed to post us the details behind that:

    http://www.spec.org/jAppServer2004/results/res2008q4/jAppServer2004-20081202-00125.txt

    Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.6.0.02) 32 bit

    OS Name: HP-UX 11i v3 September 2008

    http://www.spec.org/jAppServer2004/results/res2008q1/jAppServer2004-20080115-00098.txt

    IBM J9 VM (build 2.3, J2RE 1.5.0 IBM J9 2.3 AIX ppc64-64)

    Availability Date: Oct-2007

    At the time of the benchmark IBM posted results using J2RE 1.5 and HP used 1.6.

    As you may know, both JBB and JApp benchmarks are very JRE version sensitive.

    Besides that, HP used a full Superdome 128 core as DB Server, IBM used at that time a 40 core POWER5 server.

    Please, post to El Reg readers something that is fair to compare and makes sense.

    Cheers!

  6. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    RE: MB joker

    "....You were the one that started the Megahertz clock discussion on the other P7 thread....." I brought it into this thread after you and your fellow dribbling IBM trolls mentioned it repeatedly in every post even bearing the faintest connection to Tukzilla. Why am I not surprised you didn't notice that.

    We get the same squealling from the IBMers with every Power launch. Power4 comes out, IBMers crow "We are faster than everyone else's CPU, we are like GODS, we will win ALL the UNIX business!" Customers ignore them, keep buying Itanium.

    Power5 arrives, IBMers go into overdrive: "Our CPU is the best, it's so fast, we say so so it must be true, you would be FOOLS to buy anything else!" Market still goes on buying Itanium. Squeezing two P5 chips into one unit to make P5+ doesn't help.

    Power6 is announced and the IBMers are really getting frantic - why won't the customers listen to them? "We have the fastest chip EVER, only a complete imbecile would buy Itanium!" Meanwile, hp has concentrated on building an integrated system that performs well in all situations rather than just clock-sensitive ones, and hp has worked harder with the app vendors, and as Sun dies it is hp Integrity that forges on and keeps Power at bay. Customers buy more Itanium, especially in the margin-rich high-end, in preference to Power.

    The IBMers are getting desperate by now, they've predicted Itanium's death so many times now and it just hasn't happened, all because they know nothing about the market or what the customers are actually wanting to do.

    So now we get round to Power7, and the IBMers are going loopy with their bilious statements - "P7 is sooooooo fast you have to be a d*ckless, retarded goat-f*cker to buy Itanium, haven't you seen the benchmarks?!?" I predict the market will ignore them once again.

    /SP&L

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