RE: [TCLUG:3420] MIPS is dead

[Brad DeJong <1796@mn3.lawson.lawson.com>]

Serge M. Egelman wrote:

by high-end I mean Intel isn't going to have anything as nice as an   
Octane or an
Origin server in the near future.


They do now.  (Although "nice" is a bit vague and you could argue that   
they don't.)

HP has NT machines that use the same graphics sub-systems as their   
PA-RISC machines (for 1/2 the cost, at least they charge about the same   
for the graphics board on both platforms).  Once you offload the graphics   
calculations, the relatively poor floating point performance of the Intel   
machines becomes much less important.  And even then, the latest Pentium   
II's match/exceed the SPEC FP numbers of most RISC chips that are more   
than 2 - 3 years old.

Data General has some very nice Intel based servers running DG-UX (SVR4   
based I think).  Our home town folks over at Unisys also have some fairly   
high-end stuff.  Just because it's running Intel doesn't mean it's crap   
compared to SGI.  (Usually it does  ;^)  but there are exceptions.)

These are the numbers from the latest and greatest off of www.spec.org.   
 I chose the fastest single CPU workstation results for each vendor.  I   
didn't look at the server numbers.  As you can see, the Pentium II   
integer performance is the best for any machine.  This covers the OS,   
wordprocessor, database, ... in terms of CPU performance.  Memory   
bandwidth/latency and I/O throughput are another matter of course.  :^)   
 (If anyone knows of a site that has a straightforward comparison with   
up-to-date numbers, please let me know.)  In terms of CPU performance,   
the only way to justify a proprietary workstation is for floating point.   
 And then you'd probably be better off with a cluster of PC's or Alpha's   
running Linux/Beowulf (provided vendor support for any proprietary   
software that you rely on exists).

(view tables in a fixed width font):

     SPECint_base95   SPECint95   SPECfp_base95   SPECfp95
1)       18.9           18.9          13.3          14.7
2)       16.3           17.3          23.0          25.4
3)       16.0           18.4          19.9          21.3
4)       13.0           13.6          19.2          20.3
5)       12.8           16.1          21.9          23.5
6)       12.5           13.1          27.6          30.1
7)       12.4           12.2          14.1          16.1
8)       11.0           14.1          15.8          18.3
9)       10.5           11.0          16.1          17.0


1) Dell Precision WorkStation 610, 450 MHz Pentium II Xeon
2) HP Visualize Model C240, 236 MHz PA-8200
3) Digital Personal Workstation 600au, 600 MHz 21164
4) SGI Octane, 250 MHz R10K
5) Sun Ultra 60 model 1360, 360 MHz UltraSPARC-II
6) IBM RS/6000 model 43P-260, 200 MHz POWER3
7) Digital Alpha PC164SX, 533 MHz 21164PC
8) Sun Ultra 5 model 333, 333 MHz UltraSPARC-IIi
9) SGI Octane, 195 MHz R10K


     SPECfp_base95   SPECfp95   SPECint_base95   SPECint95
1)       27.6          30.1         12.5           13.1
2)       23.0          25.4         16.3           17.3
3)       21.9          23.5         12.8           16.1
4)       19.9          21.3         16.0           18.4
5)       19.2          20.3         13.0           13.6
6)       16.1          17.0         10.5           11.0
7)       15.8          18.3         11.0           14.1
8)       14.1          16.1         12.4           12.2
9)       13.3          14.7         18.9           18.9


1) IBM RS/6000 model 43P-260, 200 MHz POWER3
2) HP Visualize Model C240, 236 MHz PA-8200
3) Sun Ultra 60 model 1360, 360 MHz UltraSPARC-II
4) Digital Personal Workstation 600au, 600 MHz 21164
5) SGI Octane, 250 MHz R10K
6) SGI Octane, 195 MHz R10K
7) Sun Ultra 5 model 333, 333 MHz UltraSPARC-IIi
8) Digital Alpha PC164SX, 533 MHz 21164PC
9) Dell Precision WorkStation 610, 450 MHz Pentium II Xeon