Re: EV79 CANCELED !!!!!!!!!

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_istop.com)
Date: 10/25/03 

Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 21:32:12 -0400

Robert Deininger wrote:
> The Marvel systems went out the door with the best EV7 CPUs that could be
> produced at the time.

Yet, a few months later, HP admits that the current EV7 can be boosted by 15%
because existing productions of EV7 has shown its speed can be increased
without changes. Either the engineers were totally incompetent in estimating
the highest possible speed for their new EV7, or HP decided to lower the clock rate.

> After several passes of EV79 prototype chips, they did not _work_ at
> anything approaching the design speed. They were absolutely not ready to
> ship.

And EV79 wasn't meant to ship until next year. Heck,. EV7 systems have only
now beund to ship, you'd think they'd wait a while before unleashing its successor.

Unless, of course, their goals are not to get the most profits from their
alpha assets.

> post-2004. The problems were largely out of HP's control.

Sorry, I don't buy that. Compaq/HP should have known exaxctly what is involved
in a process shrink expecially with their supposedly so cosy relationship with
Intel. So when they commotted to EV79, they would have known what to expect.

If IBM can do it with Power, Sun with Sparc and Intel with 8086, HP should be
able to do it with Alpha. Note that EV79 was to have been just a process
schrink, not a logic/core change.

> Throwing tons
> of money at it wouldn't have fixed the schedule problem, at least not
> enough to matter.

Why are they in such a hurry ? They just unleashed EV7. Customers would be
more than happy to see Alpha's lifetime extended, especially since IA64 is so lackluster.

> EV79 was NOT a "process shrink", whatever that vague term might mean.

Well, how come the roadmap, "plan of record" and other propaganda attemps from
Compaq/HP spoke of a process shrink for EV79 ?

Relevant Pages

  • Re: EV79 CANCELED !!!!!!!!!
    ... > They told us that about two weeks ago it was decided NOT to produce the EV79. ... EV7 chip development was continued, ... EV7 Alpha processor. ... Will customers be able to add EV7z CPUs to existing Alpha EV7 ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: EV79 CANCELED !!!!!!!!!
    ... with much speculation that HP didn't want to release EV7 before IA64 ... If their expectations were that IA64 would outperform Alpha, then of course, ... the EV79 wouldn't meet their expectations. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Sun to use AMD Opteron - announcement expected Monday
    ... > They committed to develop EV7 and a speedup, with the plan being what was ... > currently on the table as EV79. ... that they will allow EV7 to run at its originally intended speed and call that EV7z. ... They aren't exactly *developping* a speedup. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: EV79 CANCELED !!!!!!!!!
    ... EV7. ... I suppose you just think that getting a chip to work is all it takes ... describing what was left as being merely a 'process shrink' is ... advantage of the move, e.g., by raising the clock rate significantly, they ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: EV79 CANCELED !!!!!!!!!
    ... >> The Marvel systems went out the door with the best EV7 CPUs that could be ... Are you saying that ever design that ever gets produced is 100% ... to making a successful system, ...
    (comp.os.vms)