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Merced vs McKinley 56

Posted by CmdrTaco from the delayed-vs-mythical dept.
Single GNU Theory writes "HP suggests that people skip Merced in favor of McKinley. I think the reason is that HP has a bigger influence on McKinley's design than Merced's, not because the release date for Merced has been delayed past the expected release of McKinley... "
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Merced vs McKinley More

Merced vs McKinley

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  • NT is a better design than 95/98 - that doesn't make it "good". Too much stuff running in ring-0. Bears a bit too much similarity to DOS and VMS (and win95/98) for my taste. Still tends to crash and bluescreen more than a "high-end" OS should. Win2k doesn't seem to be doing much better, and with all the extra bloat... well, you know how that goes.

    Also, Windows 95/98 and NT are still very tied to 32-bit systems, esp. the ix86. Yes, NT got ported to PPC and MIPS (both of which are dead projects) and AXP (which apparently is now being abandoned as well). It ran in 32-bit mode on all the processors it ran on (fine for PPC, but AXP and recent MIPS designs are 64-bit, and that wastes a lot of potential).

    To go 64-bit, Microsoft will probably end up redoing the whole API all over again, and all the apps will have to be rewritten to use the new APIs. It won't be pretty. (Think Win16->Win32, but probably an order of magnitude more painful.)
  • In the late 80s Intel released two RISC designs. Neither of them gained significant traction in their intended market segments. They failed for a variety of reasons, only some of which were technological. The biggest reason was that no body wanted to buy a faster cheaper chip from Intel unless it could run x86 code.

    This was good and bad for Intel. It was bad because Intel was stuck selling a chip which, for a given production volume, would never offer the same price performance as a RISC chip at the same production volume.

    It was good for Intel because they had something that everyone wanted and they could churn out so many of them, and sell them at such fat margins that the bad part didn't look quite so bad.

    Of course, ultimately, Intel was going to have to lay the x86 design to rest, but, as time went on, and competitors in the x86 market got better, it became even more difficult to make an abrupt transition.

    They needed a guaranteed customer base, and they found that in HP. HP had been producing their own RISC chips, and had begun design work on a radically new chip architecture, but they had pretty small sales volumes and bringing out a new chip family is really, really expensive.

    So, Intel and HP struck a bargain. Intel would make use of HPs design resources, but they would shoulder the multibillion dollar costs of actually putting a finished design into production. HP would buy the chips (at a discount, I imagine) and sell systems using them, guaranteeing Intel a substantial customer and they would avoid a lot of outlays to bring their own chip to market.

  • Rather, merced never will. However, Intel is planning a line of IA-64 chips for desktops, to be available in 2002 or something. Apply the standard rate of deadline slip, and get 2005...
  • Also, from rumors I heard, the HP engineers who were working with Intel on the design of the Merced got fed up with how things were going there. That might have something to do with why they kinda wandered off on their own and did the McKinley design. (Note: this is rumor mixed with my personal speculation - don't take this as the official story.)
  • To answer your first question, it's very simple. HP makes better chips than Intel, but designing and bringing a new chip architecture to market was getting prohibitively expensive for HP. The partnership was a natural one for both companies.

    McKinley is an HP designed rework of the original Merced chip. Intel liked it so much they exercised their rights to it.

    Saying that HP "had more influence" on McKinley is an understatement. McKinley IS an HP chip, not an HP/Intel chip.

    - Necron69
  • A lot of shaves and haircuts.

    ----
  • You are so far off it's funnt :P
  • >Does anybody really think Intel can get people to jump to a new architecture?

    Intel doesn't have to get anybody to jump to a new architecture. People are not going to have much of a choice. The next Windows platform will be designed for Intel's new chips and then all the software companies will have to make their software compatible if they want to stay in business. People will keep running x86 OS's and apps on old Intel's and AMDs, but once application support for the platform dies out and everyone's using the new arch. it won't matter. Intel just has to get through the transitional phase, which is why they're teaming with up with HP to get the help/support.

    -Zulu
  • Is the Merced i386 archetecture? What new chip are the normal, non-server running people supposed to put in thier new hopped up PCs? Does intel have an offering, or is the future looking very AMD?
  • You make some statements that are misleading.

    Why are HP push customers toward systems that are both HP-PA and IA-64 capable (recommending HP-PA until McKinley comes out) and being the first out with their Unix on Merced mutually exclusive? I think not. There is no reason that HP can't port HP-UX to Merced and recommend customers purchase their N class systems which reportedly are capable of supporting both HP-PA and IA-64. If their HP-PA CPUs out-perform Merced then it would only make sense to purchase those CPU's and exchange them for McKinley CPU's when they come out.

    It's probably BECAUSE of performance concerns that they recommend HP-PA CPU's until McKinley comes out, skipping over Merced CPUs. They would be dis-honest if they did not recommend otherwise and you can be sure that they would get "caught in the act" if they tried to fudge the performance specs.
  • I didn't know about OCT, but FX!32 is a generally well-known tool. I was trying to give people a reference to something they already know about.

    Just out of curiosity, when did OCT do the translation? At runtime, after exection or some other time? Do you have any references?

    --

  • What other chip did Intel come out with that has a comparable design? Forget the x86 architecture. What about their i960? Was that on the same level as the HP-PA, SPARC, Alpha, or PPC?
  • I've had this discussion with numerous people over the last year or so, and Intel even said a similar statement about that time. Regardless of the HP influences, Intel stated that the Merced was a giant step forward for Intel CPUs, but that the McKinley was the result of the lessons learned while designing and implementing the Merced. Essentially, the McKinley is the Merced done right (or at least, better).

    Personally, I have typically waited for a major jump before upgrading my primary computer. From my Apple ][, I went to an Amiga 2500/30. From the Amiga, I jumped to a Pentium Pro (the Pentium was cool, but my Amiga was doing things as well if not better than the first generation of P5 chips). I have no desire to get a Pentium II or !!! chip right now, since they don't really prove anything other than higher clock rates. The Merced is a good candidate, but the McKinley makes more sense.

    Just my 2...

    --

  • Actually, I do. Still working as my primary machine, though it's being relegated to server work when I inherit a laptop....
  • My bet: they didn't want to be a market follower, doing "Yet Another RISC ISA", so they looked for something different - and found HPs EPIC. So now they can claim to be a 'market leader'. As to the idea that intel is full of fools that can't design a decent ISA - the X86 (16bit) is very old and not particularly ugly if you compare it with contemporaries (68K is much nicer yes, but it's a later design too). And the IA32 part of X86 - it's not too bad if you consider that they (the designers) had to keep 16 bit compability...

    Erik

    Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
  • Hmmm... I'm not sure where you disagreed with me but your second paragraph is pretty close to the point I was trying to make. Sorry if my post was that unclear. ;)
  • There asking people to skip something thats not out now so they can wait for something thats not out now. Morons.

  • Let's see, that's 64 divided by 8 which is equal to $8. Wow, that's a cheap chip! But I wonder what it can do.

  • Does anyone know why Intel decided to get the IA-64 design from HP in first place? I mean, Intel are the biggest chip company in the world right, so wtf can't they make a 64 bit processor on their own when DEC, SUN, HP and company can?

    Same thing with the Pentium/K7 situation, Intel have been adding a little cache here, and a few instructions there, and but it takes smaller AMD to come up with the first really new i386 processor in 5 years. What gives?
  • Is anyone porting Linux to HP 8[56]000?
    What will be the cost/benefice relationship in both McKinley and Intel Merced?
  • HP is not the only company touting McKinley over Merced. Intel, too, has presented this view in the past, though not as publicly. Intel's chief architect for IA-64 gave a talk here during which he indicated having a similar sentiment. He also made a vague assertion about those template bits in the bundles not necessarily being a good idea, though he of course did not elaborate.

    As for why HP would be saying this so publicly now, I can only present some speculation based on rumors and other bits of information:

    • HP (specifically the engineers there) is quite upset about Intel stealing the show. Merced is seen as an Intel chip, with HP languishing in the background. Intel is now starting to market "its" McKinley chip, and HP probably wants to nip it in the bud.
    • HP has far, far more experience in the compiler arena than Intel, and spent years working on PlayDoh, from which IA-64 draws heavily. Their compiler guys are really top notch, with lots of experience in VLIW, predication, software pipelining, etc. It's possible that with HP doing the McKinley design, they were better able to design the hardware for the compiler rather than the other way around.
    • McKinley may be a more dynamic (O-O-O perhaps?) implementation of IA-64. Less reliance on the compiler provides time for the problems to be worked out. And there are a lot of them.
    • The second implementation is usually better that the first. It's a simple matter of having more experience with the instruction set.

    --

  • Why did Intel go to HP for the ISA? Because HP already had it from the work done on PlayDoh. Why reinvent the wheel? Intel wanted a new ISA to replace x86. Since it has failed in every endeavor to do so in the past, it makes sense to go to a company with more experience.

    As for Intel not innovating with the x86 -- you've got to be kidding. The P6 core was quite a leap for the old workhorse. The Pentium is nowhere near the complexity level of the PentiumPro and everything based on it. And my hats go off to Intel for being able to use virtually this same P6 core in every new processor released since the PPro came out (not counting Pentium-MMX of course). It's a good design, as Intel proved x86 could compete with the RISC guys, which no one thought possible at the time.

    --

  • I attended a 'HP and IA64' seminar almost 1.5 years ago when IA64 was 'only a year away' from release to initial developers and whatnot (of course which has all slipped horribly). They made a point at the time of their support for IA64 but were still following their own chip development path (the PA8x00) in the event 'something happened.' At the time the 8500 was not released (it was pending in the C360), and the charts used in their little presentation showed a few chips beyond the 8500, 'should they need to be sent to fab if IA64 slips or tanks.' Doing goofy things like adding 2nd FPUs in the chip, restructuring pipelines for better execution, etc... now they have things like the C3000 out, with a 400Mhz 8500, 2Gb/sec bus, etc etc...

    It also was a point these steps would narrow the performance gap between the PA8x00 chips & Merced. It makes sense to me (as an HP customer) they make this claim. As to the design infulence issue, I do know Merced was under way when HP joined the fray. It would not suprise me. But I also remember with HP's influence Merced is (was?) supposed to be binary-compatible with PA and they planned major performance boosts with its successor.

    Their (stated) primary reason for joining IA64 was because design & fab costs to do all this in-house was just killing them. The 8500 was fabbed by Intel for HP, though HP still did the design. This, of course, is no suprise to anyone.. but it did suprise me how candid the HP rep was about all this. It just screamed 'DOJ probe' all over.

    (shit, I wish I still had all the info from that meeting... I think I just tossed it all last week in a fit of weakness and office cleaning. filed under the 'meet what time schedule?' section..)

    -fester
  • Months ago, when Intel announced a big slip in the Merced, one of the Microprocessor report dudes predicted that it would continue slipping to the point where it was irrelevant. It would be irrelevant because its release would be too close to McKinley's, whose release date would not slip as fast as Merceds. McKinley's ship date would not slip as fast as Merced's because McKinley had a largely HP design team and the HP design methodology, using a small design team was much better suited for developing an all new processor than intel's approach of throwing 1 jillion engineers at it.
  • Boh! Forgot to add one important bit of speculation (based on absolutely no information I have):

    McKinley may not have an x86 grafted onto its back. Merced supports PA-RISC through dynamic translation a al FX!32. My guess is that putting two separate processor cores (or decoders at least) on the same chip is no easy feat. Two designs must be verified rather than one. With HP doing the design, they may have just chucked the x86 entirely. Intel can always use dynamic translation or compilation (which they are working on) for those few remaining x86 apps that people will want to run on McKinley.

    --

  • Hmmm... but is pushing customers into HP-PA systems advantageous over being the first on the block with *Merced* systems running your native Unix? I think not. If HP intends to move to IA-64 anyway, being the market leader would seem to give them a significant advantage. In addition, they will get the benefit of Intel's massive mindshare and marketing machine.

    No, I think they have very real performance concerns in recommending customers skip Merced. It's not something they should consider lightly.
  • f-cpu.tux.org.

    Nuff said.

    Join the crew.
  • The current x86 ISA is an extension of a 25 year old design. PA-RISC is what, 10 years or less.

    Compairing the two to reach the conclusion you want us to reach is like showing us a 3 month old baby and a 75 year old man and expecting us to conclude that the parents of the baby are somehow superior to the parents of the 75 year old because the baby has nicer skin!
  • In addition, Wilamette/Foster, the chip after Coppermine, is a completely new design.

    Creating a new design vs. incremental (though not always small) changes is extremely difficult, and it takes a long time to develop. Intel just had a case of bad timing, scheduling their new design to appear close to a year after AMD's.

    Actually, the interesting thing about this is that Intel will end up competing with it's own product line, IA-64 vs. Wilamette. If Wilamette is all it's cracked up to be, there may be little reason at all to migrate to IA-64, whether Merced or McKinely.
  • Indeed, Intel has ridden the dead horse that is the x86 to far more victories than anyone could have imagined in the late 80's. This, I think, deserves some respect.

    I think it is precisely this ability that has caused them to fail in their attempts to replace it. Nobody wanted a RISC chip from Intel, they wanted a faster x86 that was compatible with their old code and Intel gave it to them.

    If they didn't, and tried to force the issue by stopping x86 development, they would have suffered badly because AMD would have eventually filled the void.

    They face a similar problem with the transition to Merced or McKinley. It is very likely that in the next few years Intel will permenantly resign from the race for the fastest x86 chip. They are a bit better off now than they have been though, to make this transition. If their x86 business dries up, they could loose some serious revenue, but the P7s should be able to emulate the x86 fast enough, so, if they price them agressively enough, they can still continue to milk a significant portion of the x86 market until the p7 picks up.

  • Ahh, I remember the day in early '96 when I bought that first Pentium system. Of course the 3V 90s were out, but the performance? Ahh, no difference they said. These days that box is still one of two primary systems (along with a newer K6-2/300) I use at home. It used to run Linux and WFW 3.11, but these days it runs NT4 on 48MB of RAM (Linux on the other machine now, of course). I'll spare you a loving description of my 486SX 25 . . .

    Maharet
  • I wanna see G4 systems as badly as the next guy (I'm not a Mac fan, but I think the PPC chips are pretty cool), but the Merced has its roots in a whole new design. 64-bit bus, VLIW instruction set... there're a lot of changes. It's a big wait and see for now. McKinley will probably be significantly faster than the Merced tho... so don't go jumping to any conclusions about who'll beat who.

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