Are Xeon or Itanium Procs Ever Used In Personal Desktops?

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

1. Are Intel Xeon or Itanium processors ever used in high-performance
single-processor desktop personal computer systems?

2. Are these processors so customized for multiple-processor systems that
they'd be inappropriate in single-processor systems?

3. Are these processors inferior to high-end processors such as Intel's
Core 2 Quad processors for use in single-processor personal computer
systems?

+++++++++++++++++++++

(Optional background information):

I'm selecting components for my first Do It Yourself system unit. I'd
decided to choose one of Intel's three Core 2 Quad 45 nm processors
but I then found Intel's "Public Roadmap" for the second half of calendar
year 2007, at:

http://download.intel.com/products/roadmap/roadmap.pdf#nameddest=desktop_roadmap


This document lists Intel's recommend processor, chipset, and MoBo
combinations for various system types. Page 4 lists Consumer Desktop
combinations and page 10 lists "Server: Workstation" combinations. Xenon
processors were recommended for servers and for workstations and
that led me to wonder if I should investigate the use of Xenon or Itanium
processors in high-performance home desktop systems.

I assume these processors have been designed for multiple-processor
"enterprise-level" systems, such as servers in which large numbers of
processors can be "scaled" to work together. I also assume workstation
systems are most often used for high performance purposes, such as CAD,
scientific modeling, etc. I don't expect to use my new system for those
types of work. My system will include only one processor and it won't even
be used in a home LAN; it'll be a stand-alone unit.

I'm not an overclocker or a gamer now and I'm not likely to be in the
future. I'm not likely to need 3D graphics capability. A Core 2 Quad
processor may be more than I'll need, based on my *current* uses, but I
don't want to build my first DIY system around a "down-market" processor. I
made that mistake
with my present OEM system. I can't know what future uses I might want to
make of my new system, and I therefore thought it might be best to equip
this new system with the fastest, most powerful processor I can obtain, with
the largest caches and with the fastest FSB in my price range.

I'm assuming that it's best to obtain excess capacity in terms of HDD size,
PSU output, processor capability, etc. to allow for unexpected future needs,
and to avoid over-stressing the components by assuring that they have plenty
of reserve capacity.

I've decided I don't need Intel's Viiv technology because it seems to be
designed for high definition video, television, media center, and other uses
which I don't expect to make of my system. I've also assumed that Intel's
vPro technology isn't appropriate for my system, because those processors
seem to be intended to support enterprise-level systems administration
software which I'll not be using. However I haven't yet been able to
determine if a Xeon or an Itanium processor might be desirable in my system
and I didn't want to rule out any possible benefits.

Thanks.

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA

 

[Andrew Smallshaw]

1. Are Intel Xeon or Itanium processors ever used in high-performance
single-processor desktop personal computer systems?

2. Are these processors so customized for multiple-processor systems that
they'd be inappropriate in single-processor systems?

3. Are these processors inferior to high-end processors such as Intel's
Core 2 Quad processors for use in single-processor personal computer
systems?

It sounds here as if you are after general purpose machine rather
than anything specialised so forget about Itanium straight away -
it isn't x86 compatible. If you need Itanium you probably already
know it and if you didn't know it you probably wouldn't be asking
on the homebuilt groups.

As for Xeon, yes, they are used singly occasionally, mainly with
servers or workstation-class desktops that begin life as uniprocessor
but have multi-processor capability for future upgrades. A single
chip offers few benefits over a mainstream chip. The larger cache
is a benefit but the amount you pay for it isn't really an efficient
use of resources. The performance improvement is essentially
marginal over an equivalent spec mainstream part and you are spending
a sizable premium for no good reason.

I'm assuming that it's best to obtain excess capacity in terms of HDD size,
PSU output, processor capability, etc. to allow for unexpected future needs,
and to avoid over-stressing the components by assuring that they have plenty
of reserve capacity.

In my experience it pays to get a roomier hard drive than you think
you need, provided the price differential is not too great. However,
for most other situations I'd advise _against_ deliberately buying
excess capacity either to attempt to future-proof your machine or
gain reliability. This only changes if you have clear future needs
and a clear timescale for when those needs will arise, in other
situations it usually turns out to be a waste of money.

Buy what you need now now and use the money you save to upgrade at
a later date when you actually need that extra capacity. There
are better methods of gaining reliability. At the most basic level
simply buying quality kit helps a lot - it doesn't need to be
high-end to be good quality.

 

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

**Thanks**, Andrew.



It sounds here as if you are after general purpose machine rather
than anything specialised so forget about Itanium straight away -
it isn't x86 compatible. If you need Itanium you probably already
know it and if you didn't know it you probably wouldn't be asking
on the homebuilt groups.

As for Xeon, yes, they are used singly occasionally, mainly with
servers or workstation-class desktops that begin life as uniprocessor
but have multi-processor capability for future upgrades. A single
chip offers few benefits over a mainstream chip. The larger cache
is a benefit but the amount you pay for it isn't really an efficient
use of resources. The performance improvement is essentially
marginal over an equivalent spec mainstream part and you are spending
a sizable premium for no good reason.

I'm assuming that it's best to obtain excess capacity in terms of HDD
size,
PSU output, processor capability, etc. to allow for unexpected future
needs,
and to avoid over-stressing the components by assuring that they have
plenty
of reserve capacity.

In my experience it pays to get a roomier hard drive than you think
you need, provided the price differential is not too great. However,
for most other situations I'd advise _against_ deliberately buying
excess capacity either to attempt to future-proof your machine or
gain reliability. This only changes if you have clear future needs
and a clear timescale for when those needs will arise, in other
situations it usually turns out to be a waste of money.

Buy what you need now and use the money you save to upgrade at
a later date when you actually need that extra capacity. There
are better methods of gaining reliability. At the most basic level
simply buying quality kit helps a lot - it doesn't need to be
high-end to be good quality.

 

[~misfit~]

Somewhere on teh intarweb "Andrew Smallshaw" typed:


[snip excellent advice]

Buy what you need now now and use the money you save to upgrade at
a later date when you actually need that extra capacity.

This makes sense too. However, it pays to keep your eye on what's current
and prices of hardware. There's nothing worse than wanting to upgrade, say,
your RAM, a year or two down the track only to find it's a couple
'generations' old now and 5 times the price it used to be.

 

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

Thanks, "misfit."

I continued my research of this topic and I found a thread in the
DevHardware forum's Intel Processors section which discussed the Itanium
processor. A participant who identified himself as DMOS supported Andrew
Smallshaw's advice on July 7, 2004, at:

http://www.devhardware.com/forums/intel-processors-30/itanium-23579.html?&highlight=Itanium


explaining:

< Itaniums are used in massively multiple processor systems, for research
purposes mostly. Weather, earthquakes, financial simulation, physics, etc.
Usually they are paired up in the hundreds or thousands. They created it
because nothing could do the floating point calculations all those purposes
require. Itanium is a beast, in every sense of the world. It's not practical
for anything other than a large mainframe.


It's not the 32 bit part that's the problem with running x86 code. It's the
"x86" part. Itanium is meant to run parallel code, where 3 or more
instructions are lumped together and all done at once. That way, you don't
need lots of clock speed. x86 stuff is all linear on the front end, then
executed out of order (but still only one thing at a time). Big difference.
So when you "emulate" the engine, with the two architectures being so
different, it's a given the performance is dismal. If you are going to run
something on a processor, at least compile the code correctly for it. >


Two days later he said this in the same thread:

< I studied VLIW (very long instruction word) and EPIC (Explicitly Parallel
Instruction Computing) for an entire year. I had to hand code Itanium
(IA-64) instruction bundles by hand... but at least that makes sense. Unlike
IA-32 (Pentium and Athlon). Itanium itself won't ever come down the desktop.
They've maxed out the reticle size on them (meaning they can't physically
make the chips any larger, the masks and etches won't go any wider for an
individual CPU), and just removing cache won't fix that. However, the EPIC
instruction set could eventually filter down. Intel has already said they
want price parity between the low end itaniums and high end xeons. It seems
however, that between EPIC coming to the desktop for us, we'll get a stopgap
of IA-32e (x86-64) in the form of the Pentium-M first, before fully
switching to 64 bit on a new instruction set. >

I'd be delighted if anyone else wished to "weigh in" on this topic, for the
benefit of readers who'll see this in the future via Google Groups, etc.
However, I've ruled out both the Xeon and the Itanium processors for use in
my upcoming DIY system unit, and I've chosen the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
processor, which has 45 nanometer circuits, a 2.66 GHz clock speed, a 12 MB
L2 cache, and a 1.33 GHz Front Side Bus speed.

Thanks again to Andrew and to "Misfit."

Jeff Hook

[snip excellent advice]

Buy what you need now and use the money you save to upgrade at
a later date when you actually need that extra capacity.

This makes sense too. However, it pays to keep your eye on what's current
and prices of hardware. There's nothing worse than wanting to upgrade, say,
your RAM, a year or two down the track only to find it's a couple
'generations' old now and 5 times the price it used to be.