Alpha upgrade details Burtoned

Mr. E said over a pint of London Pride that the DS20L high density rack mount server, for example, which comes with two 833MHz EV68 processors, will give a two times performance boost, will have a 4MB per CPU external cache, and support a max of 2GB of memory running at 2.6GB/s. HPQ will also include external SCSI and internal CD-ROM, and the IP will now be two rather than one 64-bit PCI slots, with peak SPECint 2000 of around 535, and a peak SPECfp 200 of 720 - the firm claims it will come in a 40 times 133Gflops rack, apparently.

The DS25 improvements include an opgrade to the EV68 1GHz Alpha, 125MHz memory, dual Ultra SCSI and dual Ethernet integrated, four 64-bit PCI buses, and hot plug PCI, with an estimated 682 SPECint200 score at peak, and an estimated 955 SPECfp2000 score at peak.

When we say improvements, however, we must remember that Compaq/HPQ just bought up a heap of old API stock and put a new front plate on them - at least that's what we're given to understand. Cough.

Mr E muttered that the ES45 improvements rely on a 1.25GHz EV68, increased external cache of 16MB, a SPECint2000 peak of 845 and a SPECfp of 1170 peak. OSes supported will include Tru64 Unix 5.1A, Open VMS 7.3 and Linux 2.4. This is qualified for Oracle 9i.

The GS improvements include a 1.22GHz EV68 Alpha - my what a processor - external cache of 16MB per CPU, and a SPECint2000 peak of 745, and a SPECfp2000 peak of 920, supporting Tru64 4.0G and 5.1A, Open VMS 7.3 and Linux 2.4 ADK.

The Alpha roadmap remains the same, despite concentrated competitive FUD from Big Blue, claimed our mole. Next year we'll see 8-64 EV7 in the GS Alphaserver series, and 2-8 EV7 chips in the ES series.

In Q4, the EV79 still remains on the flock roadmaps adorning the boozer.

HPQ will support its Alphas until 2011, it promises.

The EV7 - what an Alphaserver that will be. two to eight way AlphaServer systems supporting 64GB and having 72 IO slots, and two processor systems supporting 16GB of memory and 22 IO slots, AGP graphics, seemingly limitless UO, and integrated server management capability.

"Cheers," said Mr. E. "And pass on my regards to Jim B. µ