Plugging In 64-Bit Chips

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High-Speed Processors: Plugging In 64-Bit Chips

Systems based on superfast processors are on the horizon

By John Foley
Issue date: Jan. 1, 1996

If you consider yourself leading edge because you just upgraded to 32-bit software and left the 16-bit world behind, think again. An entirely new generation of systems, based on superfast 64-bit microprocessors, is about to hit the streets.

Power users can expect to see big advances in microprocessor performance in 1996. Two giants in the world of RISC (reduced-instructio n set computing) processors, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard, introduced their first 64-bit chips late in 1995--and systems based on those chips will be rolled out this year. IBM and Motorola plan a midyear release of the PowerPC 620, a 64-bit version of their jointly developed microprocessor line.

Two veterans of 64-bit computing, Digital Equipment and Silicon Graphics' Mips Technologies subsidiary, also plan upgrades that will significantly boost their already powerful devices.

"Users are very hungry for them," says John Logan, a VP with the Aberdeen Group, a research and consulting firm in Boston. "We can already see the advantages with Digital's Alpha." The new chips aren't for the timid. They offer raw speed, huge memory cache, and support for very large file systems--and cost up to 50% more than 32-bit chips. Initially, Sun and HP will offer their chips--the UltraSparc I and the PA-8000, respectively--only in their top-of-the-line workstations and servers.

By the year 2000, however , 64-bit chips will become the norm. "The move to 64-bit processing is as inevitable as night following day," says Mike Lambert, VP of technical strategy with X/Open, the independent standards organization in Menlo Park, Calif. Is 64-bit-ness worth the migration headaches--applications need to be rewritten or recompiled to reap maximum benefit--and the extra cost? If sales of Digital's 64-bit Alpha chip are any indication, a growing number of users think so: Digital's Alpha business grew by 77% in fiscal 1995, which ended in July.

Experts say two factors--graphics-intensive computing and the need for heavy-duty databases--are driving 64-bit technology. Typical examples: Pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham in Philadelphia is tapping Alpha systems to store and analyze data in an application that involves simulating molecules. Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, Conn., has deployed a cluster of Alphas for jet-engine design.

The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel chose two Alpha-based servers to repl ace two Unisys V-380 "light" mainframes. Peter Stockhausen, the newspaper's VP of information technologies, says his company also looked at IBM's AS/400 minicomputer and an HP midrange system. "The HP and IBM were fairly comparable to each other," he says. "Digital was significantly faster in total throughput." The Journal/Sentinel now runs its customer-service database and billing system on the Alpha servers. Bottom-line benefits include faster access to customer records and better customer service.

A major advantage these new chips offer is that 64-bit computing breaks through the 4-Gbyte memory limit of 32-bit systems. Digital's Alpha Server 8000, for instance, supports 14 Gbytes of memory. The larger cache makes it possible to process huge chunks of data on a single chip.

"With 64 bits, you can have one big application running in memory," says Patrick Smyth, director of marketing with Digital's Unix business segment in Maynard, Mass. "That translates into dramatically improved performance a nd much shorter response times," he adds.

Record-Breaking Benchmark
The proof behind these performance claims? In December, Oracle announced a record-breaking benchmark of 11,456 tpmC (transactions per minute based on the C set of benchmark tests created by the Transaction Processing Performance Council in San Jose, Calif.) for its Oracle7 database. The benchmark was set using an eight-processor Alpha server running Digital's 64-bit Unix operating system.

Another technical barrier that's smashed by a 64-bit architecture is file size. A 64-bit file system can handle much larger files than a 32-bit system--a decided advantage as images and video become part of a file system.

But sheer speed is the most talked-about advantage of a 64-bit world. Chipmakers are already one-upping each other with claims of world-leading performance. On Nov. 2, HP announced release of the PA-8000, billed as having "the highest performance available today," 8.6 SPECint95 (a measure of CPU Integer performance b y Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. in Manassas, Va.). Less than two weeks later, Digital announced sampling of its Alpha 21164, touted as "the world's fastest and highest performance microprocessor," at 11 SPECint95.

Living In The Real World
Experts warn users not to get caught up in the benchmark brouhaha. "We discount the meaningfulness of a spec number [because] it doesn't reflect what a real-world application with real-world data is like," says Steve Schick, a spokesman for Mips Technologies in Mountain View, Calif. Mips' redesigned 64-bit chip, the R10000, will go into production in January.

"The better measure is when you get down to real applications," agrees Arthur Goldberg, executive VP with HAL Computer Systems, a Campbell, Calif., subsidiary of Fujitsu. HAL just began shipping workstations based on its own Sparc-compatible 64-bit chip, the Sparc64.

In other words, technology managers should try before they buy. But regardless of the processor, it's fair to expect a majo r performance improvement when pumping an existing application through a 64-bit machine. A typical example: HP says 32-bit applications will run 70% to 100% faster on its PA-8000.

There are important differences in 64-bit platforms. Silicon Graphics Inc., for instance, is the market leader in "floating point" performance, important for 3-D and graphical applications such as animation. Silicon Graphics' customers include Disney and Ford Motor Co. With the R10000, says Schick, Silicon Graphics is concentrating on "reducing bottlenecks that hang up a processor," rather than devoting all of its attention to the sheer speed of the chip. The goal is improved database performance. "We've been running database trace code, and so far it is proved out that there's a huge difference in performance," says Schick.

Silicon Graphics attributes the R10000's performance improvements to two techniques: dynamic scheduling and nonblocking caches. The former improves processor efficiency by "reordering" instructions to su it the execution resources of the chip. The latter keeps the processor active rather than waiting for data it may later need to complete an operation.

Sun is challenging Silicon Graphics with the UltraSparc I, which it bills as "the world's first general purpose microprocessor to deliver on-chip support for MPEG-2 decode." MPEG-2 is an industry standard for broadcast-quality video.

Digital and HAL Systems, on the other hand, concede the high-end graphics niche to Silicon Graphics. "We don't pretend to think we can compete with them in the entertainment business at the high end," says Bill Glazier, Digital's director of workstation marketing in Maynard, Mass.

Digital has its own bragging rights. It is one of the few 64-bit chip suppliers with a 64-bit operating system, Digital Unix. Sun's Solaris and HP's HP-UX are 32-bit operating systems that have been tuned for 64-bit chips but are unable to take full advantage of the 64-bit architecture. In addition, Digital sells Microsoft's 32-bit Windows NT operating system for the Alpha.

Rich Sevcik, VP and general manager of HP's systems technology group in Cupertino, Calif., acknowledges that 32-bit software cannot take full advantage of 64-bit hardware. "You can increase the clock rate [of the application], but that has nothing to do with 64-bit-ness," he says.

No Need To Rush
HP has promised to deliver a 64-bit version of HP-UX in the second half of 1996. Once done, applications still need to be written or recompiled to run in 64-bit mode. "There are very few 64-bit apps in the world," says Sevcik. "In commercial environments, we're not going to see 64-bit applications for three to five years."

Indeed, for most organizations, there's no need to rush into 64-bit computing, says Sevcik. Fewer than 5% of current HP systems ship with the maximum 4 Gbytes of memory, evidence of untapped potential on 32-bit systems. The extra power of 64-bit processors, he says, is mainly needed for high-end database applications. "If you're doing somethin g like decision support, it's worth paying for the large memory," says Sevcik. "You'll get some benefit from that."

Graphics-intensive computing is the other big strength of 64-bit chips, making them a good match for the real-time multimedia applications soon to appear on the World Wide Web. However, PowerPC partners IBM and Motorola, and PC chip giant Intel agree with HP's analysis--that 32-bit chips will continue to meet the needs of most users. In fact, the 32-bit PowerPC 604 is nearly as powerful as the 64-bit PowerPC 620.

This is a dilemma that has caused IBM and Motorola to delay the 620's release until mid-1996. They hope to widen the performance gap between the two processors over the next six months.

Intel and HP are partnering on a 64-bit architecture that combines the two dominant chip technologies: RISC and CISC (complex instruction set computing). The partners have yet to announce a microprocessor based on the HP-Intel Architecture, but experts expect a 64-bit chip, called the P7, in 1997 or later. Until then, Intel will be pushing Pentium Pro, a 32-bit processor released in November.

Long-term planners have their sights set on the new generation of 64-bit chips and beyond. "Today's move toward 64-bit file systems and 64-bit processing are just stages in the evolution of information technology," says X/Open's Lambert. "It is important to recognize this and not develop solutions for 64-bit that are not sufficient for 128-bit and beyond."

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