Linux Now Supports Oracle's SPARC-T4

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Now Supports Oracle's SPARC-T4

With the Linux 3.7 kernel there is now support for the SPARC-T4 processor that Oracle introduced last year...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE5Nzc

[mark45]

I wonder how much more sophisticated is such a processor than say an Intel Core i7 and how much more power does it use.

[jrch2k8]

I wonder how much more sophisticated is such a processor than say an Intel Core i7 and how much more power does it use.

well this is a big iron system and more directly compared to IBM Power 7 systems, not intel/AMD, beside is not designed to be a fast desktop but very efficient at massive parallel workloads like massive oracle databases.

not to mention those are really really expensive [around IBM power 7 price tag]

[uid313]

It is too bad that Oracle is not so open as Sun were.

I remember Sun with their OpenSPARC initiative and releasing IP cores under the GPL as RTL files.
The UltraSPARC T1 and T2 are open source. They're open hardware.

Oracle discontinued that.

[JanC]

I wonder how much more sophisticated is such a processor than say an Intel Core i7 and how much more power does it use.

As somebody already said, they compare more to IBM's Power or Fujitsu's SPARC64 processor lines (where the Fujitsu's processors are also based on the SPARC architecture).

And if you want to compare to any Intel/AMD processors, look at the high end multiprocessor-ready Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron lines.

[DanL]

And if you want to compare to any Intel/AMD processors, look at the high end multiprocessor-ready Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron lines.

Itanium is a better comparison point.