Why AMD is blowing smoke up your ass about Opteron

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupd...ag=tu.arch.link

or,

http://tinyurl.com/2alkf

"Yousuf Khan" <ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:

>http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupd...ag=tu.arch.link

A stupid article. He seems to think that "buying computers" is
something that is done all at once, with an eye toward OS upgrades X
months later. In fact, computers, 10's of thousands of computers, are
sold every freaking day of the year. It's not an off/on switch where
suddenly buying an Opteron makes sense. It's a grey scale, where
every single day it makes sense to more and more buyers.

chrisv wrote:

> "Yousuf Khan" <ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:
>
>
>>http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupd...ag=tu.arch.link
>
>
> A stupid article. He seems to think that "buying computers" is
> something that is done all at once, with an eye toward OS upgrades X
> months later. In fact, computers, 10's of thousands of computers, are
> sold every freaking day of the year. It's not an off/on switch where
> suddenly buying an Opteron makes sense. It's a grey scale, where
> every single day it makes sense to more and more buyers.
>

I was particularly amused by the paragraph:

In my book, the whole AMD investment protection
story is a bit over-rated. Chances are, you’re going
to buy a new system anyway. I asked Knox about my theory,
and surprisingly he agreed, but his disclaimer was a time
threshold. “If you aren’t migrating for another two or
three years, you’re right,” Knox said. “Anything after that,
you should buy the best 32-bit system [now] and not worry
about backwards compatibility [later]. But, for people that
are migrating in 18 months or less, this makes sense.”

Why the heck didn't either Knox or that idiotic writer point out
that for most purposes AMD64 *is* the best 32-bit system available ?

"chrisv" <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news15i105oat8su298su0be4qajhqssdigqh@4ax.com...
> "Yousuf Khan" <ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:
>
>
>http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupd...nces_pitch_for_
Opteron.html?tag=tu.arch.link
>
> A stupid article. He seems to think that "buying computers" is
> something that is done all at once, with an eye toward OS upgrades X
> months later. In fact, computers, 10's of thousands of computers, are
> sold every freaking day of the year. It's not an off/on switch where
> suddenly buying an Opteron makes sense. It's a grey scale, where
> every single day it makes sense to more and more buyers.

He seems to think that running 32-bit x86 programs in Opteron vs. in
Itanium's IA32 execution layer are pretty much on par. Why are they on par?
Because he feels like calling them at par.

Porting from x86 to AMD64 shows greatest cost savings when translating
assembly language programs. His gets all huffy at that point and says who
uses assembly language anymore? Pretty much anybody who writes device
drivers.

Oh and BTW, yeah AMD has seemed to convince a lot of OEMs, software ISVs,
and customers about the value of their solution, yada-yada-yada, let's just
get that out of the way so we can continue attacking AMD. :-)

Yousuf Khan

"Rob Stow" <rob.stow@sasktel.net> wrote in message
news:101ii822gahjt98@corp.supernews.com...
> chrisv wrote:
>
> > "Yousuf Khan" <ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:
> >
> >
>
>>http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupd...ances_pitch_for
_Opteron.html?tag=tu.arch.link
> >
> >
> > A stupid article. He seems to think that "buying computers" is
> > something that is done all at once, with an eye toward OS upgrades X
> > months later. In fact, computers, 10's of thousands of computers, are
> > sold every freaking day of the year. It's not an off/on switch where
> > suddenly buying an Opteron makes sense. It's a grey scale, where
> > every single day it makes sense to more and more buyers.
> >
>
> I was particularly amused by the paragraph:
>
> In my book, the whole AMD investment protection
> story is a bit over-rated. Chances are, you’re going
> to buy a new system anyway. I asked Knox about my theory,
> and surprisingly he agreed, but his disclaimer was a time
> threshold. “If you aren’t migrating for another two or
> three years, you’re right,” Knox said. “Anything after that,
> you should buy the best 32-bit system [now] and not worry
> about backwards compatibility [later]. But, for people that
> are migrating in 18 months or less, this makes sense.”
>
> Why the heck didn't either Knox or that idiotic writer point out
> that for most purposes AMD64 *is* the best 32-bit system available ?

Another good one is this:

"I’ll yield to Opteron on this point because, based on the anecdotal
data, it will run those 32-bit applications faster than Intel’s IA32
Execution Layer. However, for applications and utilities in which
performance isn’t critical, the IA32 Execution Layer will probably suffice,
once again putting the Itanium and Opteron on par with each other. Let’s not
forget that for Opteron to win this uphill battle, par isn’t good enough."

Let's see, Opteron is faster to... it's on par with IA32EL to... par isn't
good enough. Excuse me?

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:12:17 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<ABCbbbl67DEF@GHIyahooJKL.MNOcomPQR> wrote:

>http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupd...ag=tu.arch.link
>

It seems to me like the author of this article is grasping at straws
to try and prove that AMD64 support is somehow a bad idea. He starts
out by pointing out that it offers the best price/performance for many
applications right now, which in and of itself suggests that it should
be a good product, but then goes on to complain that it might not make
sense when upgrading software 2-3 years down the line?!

He also talks about how the AMD64 approach is very beneficial in that
it allows you to keep running most of your legacy utilities and
"extra" programs while still running the latest and greatest 64-bit
server app. Again, it sounds like AMD did it right.

In the end, I'm not really sure what his big complaint about the
Opteron is, except that some people might not benefit much from it's
64-bit capabilities. It seems to me sorta like if someone were to
complain about a great 4-door sedan because right now the owner is
single and might not start a family for quite a number of years so
he/she won't really benefit from having a sedan instead of a coupe.
While it might be true, it misses the point that the car is great to
begin with, regardless of how many doors it has.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

"Tony Hill" <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:2ffea5adca0023735755ca157f9bb848@news.1usenet.com...
> In the end, I'm not really sure what his big complaint about the
> Opteron is, except that some people might not benefit much from it's
> 64-bit capabilities. It seems to me sorta like if someone were to
> complain about a great 4-door sedan because right now the owner is
> single and might not start a family for quite a number of years so
> he/she won't really benefit from having a sedan instead of a coupe.
> While it might be true, it misses the point that the car is great to
> begin with, regardless of how many doors it has.

I sent the author, David Berlind, an email going through some of his points,
he sent back a form letter saying that he's gotten inundated with emails
about his article and he can't answer them all. I'd say, "no kidding?" :-)

He did answer a few of the common points (looks like a lot of people asked
him the same points at the same time). Here's an example:

---
"Several readers wrote in to say that I unfairly downplayed the significance
of converting x86 code, citing the effort it will take operating system
vendors and device manufacturers (that have device drivers) to convert the
code they've written in x86. The Giga study that AMD cites and that I was
critical of has nothing to do with this aspect of the x86 ecosystem. The
study focused on the costs that "typical Fortune 1000" companies should
expect to take on should they move their x86 assembly language written
custom database applications to a foreign instruction set such as IA-64.
Whereas the former's costs to port operating systems and drivers are borne
by those vendors, the latter's costs are borne by enterprises which is who I
wrote this story. This so-called typical Fortune 1000 is in reality
extremely atypical and I had to figure that out from the fine print myself.
In its presentation, AMD fails to disclose Giga's footnote: a practice which
I find to be deceptive. !"
---

So basically, he never thought that the cost of porting device drivers (the
vast majority of which are written in assembly language) would come into
play, because the AMD/Giga study never specifically mentioned them. Strange
he doesn't seem to have much trouble extrapolating and inferring things
other than that.

I've yet to see a database program that was custom written in assembly
language, even in the old small-memory days of DOS. However, device drivers
have always been written in assembly, and how somebody who claims to have
been in the IT industry since 1991 couldn't figure that out is a little
beyond me.

Yousuf Khan

Device drivers has been written without assembly language for quite a long
time. Only very small parts of kernel need assembly. I'm not sure if you'll
be able to find much assembly in Linux driver's sources. Windows NT/2K/XP
etc and Win9x WDM drivers are all written in C and some C++. Assembly has
been widely used for writing Windows 3.0/3.1 VMM and VxD, but then there was
no 32-bit C compiler at Microsoft. Now, for quite a few years even VxDs (God
forbid!) could be (and are) written entirely in C.

I write WDM-style drivers for network and USB devices under Win9x and 2K/XP.
Making them to compile and run on AMD64 took a day. I can also compile for
Itanium, but don't have a system to test. The compiler helps to catch the
errors like trying to cast 64 bits address into 32 bit int variable, and
vice/versa. Such things as int->pointer and ponter->int conversions (with
explicit cast) are checked for bitness.

Can't talk for Linux, but I think its drivers are as easily portable (if
written with all the rules in mind).

"Yousuf Khan" <ABCbjsk90DEF@GHIhotmailJKL.com> wrote in message
news:xpiSb.55469>
> I've yet to see a database program that was custom written in assembly
> language, even in the old small-memory days of DOS. However, device
drivers
> have always been written in assembly, and how somebody who claims to have
> been in the IT industry since 1991 couldn't figure that out is a little
> beyond me.
>
> Yousuf Khan
>
>

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:00:56 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<ABCbjsk90DEF@GHIhotmailJKL.com> wrote:

>Oh and BTW, yeah AMD has seemed to convince a lot of OEMs, software ISVs,
>and customers about the value of their solution, yada-yada-yada, let's just
>get that out of the way so we can continue attacking AMD. :-)
>
> Yousuf Khan

YES! finally an Opteron bashing article, just what Intel ordered!

Who cares what this guy thinks anyway, he just some bozo!
Ed

"Ed" <nobox@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:tbgm10peebfdkn0nfifdmc2akii84p89nq@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:00:56 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
> <ABCbjsk90DEF@GHIhotmailJKL.com> wrote:
>
> >Oh and BTW, yeah AMD has seemed to convince a lot of OEMs, software ISVs,
> >and customers about the value of their solution, yada-yada-yada, let's
just
> >get that out of the way so we can continue attacking AMD. :-)
> >
> > Yousuf Khan
>
> YES! finally an Opteron bashing article, just what Intel ordered!
>
> Who cares what this guy thinks anyway, he just some bozo!

Bozos who get published are dangerous.

Yousuf Khan