Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!dg!Publius
From: Publius@dg.dg.com (Publius)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Price/Performance of DECsystems
Keywords: Price/Performance, DECsystem 5400, DECsystem 5810
Message-ID: <418@dg.dg.com>
Date: 1 May 90 18:01:25 GMT
References: <414@dg.dg.com> <38407@mips.mips.COM>
Reply-To: publius@dg-pag.webo.dg.com (Publius)
Distribution: na
Organization: Performance Analysis Group, Data General, Westboro, MA.
Lines: 38

In article <38407@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
>
>Seriously, one of the two machines has considerably more expandability
>in memory, I/O capacity, and additional CPUs, and you pay for all of that.
>This is hardly news, and in fact, if you study your own (i.e., DG pricing),
>I believe you can find similar effects.  For example, unless I'm mistaken,
>a DG AV 410 costs >= an AV 310, but (according to most recently published
>SPEC data), has a lower SPEC rating.
>
>In these days when the CPUs aren't much different from top to bottom,
>other differences are what cost.
>-- 

Thanks for your reply, especially for your excellent and insightful comments.

You are absolutely right.  Customers not only pay for the benchmark numbers.
They are willing to pay much more for things which are not that tangible,
such as expandability and compatibility, with good reasons.

As the industry standard computing systems grow bigger, more sophisticated,
and more popular, these systems should be evaluated NOT just as fast
stored-program calculators.  Can the system grows with customers' need?
What kind of support is provided by the vendors?  Do they hold your hands
or just dump it on your doorstep and you and your brother the guru would
get it to run your applications?  Do they use industry standard I/O buses
or use a proprietary I/O bus in the system?  These should be factors based
on which the systems should be evaluated, in addition to the benchmark
numbers.

As the comparison between DS5400 and DS5810 examplifies, even the
highly respected SPECmark numbers only tell a small part of the story.
We have seen that old Dhrystone get used beyond proper context.  Let us
make sure that SPECmark does not get mis-used in the same manner.
-- 
Disclaimer: I speak (and write) only for myself, not my employer.

Publius     "Old federalists never die, they simply change their names."
publius@dg-pag.webo.dg.com