Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!uunet!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Real System Comparisons Message-ID: <13723@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 9 Aug 90 17:28:01 GMT References: <13466@cbmvax.commodore.com> <13678@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1990Aug9.000233.8928@uncecs.edu> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) Distribution: usa Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 63 In article <1990Aug9.000233.8928@uncecs.edu> urjlew@uncecs.edu (Rostyk Lewyckyj) writes: >I have suggested that Spec mark numbers would be very nice >I have suggested the following problems: Linpack 300 x 300, 4096 point >fft, and a few other such problems. An A3000 SPECmark set would be very nice. However, porting the SPEC benchmark suite to the A3000 would be something of a major undertaking. I don't know of anyone here who has that kind of free time, and Commodore isn't currently a member of the SPEC group. I would also like to see someone run the AIM workstation benchmark series on the A3000, since these stress multitasking performance more than other benchmarks. But again, other than to acquire bragging rights, that's a great deal of work that amounts to a great waste of time. The only people who can justify the work involved would be the Marketing group, since they are the only ones who can really get any true benefit from such magic numbers. And again, you're skipping over 3/4ths of the system when you ask for something like Linpack. I'm sure we could get someone around here to compile and run a Linpak, maybe someone already has. But that ignores many of the things that most PC designers tend to ignore, specifically hard disk throughput, video display buffer speed, and expansion bus speed. Since that last one is my area, I have mentioned here both theoretical and actual transfer rates on the Zorro III bus. I have yet to read anything but theoretical figures on MCA or EISA. So apparently a good number of people have been a big negligent in their benchmarking. >You have asked for the street price of a hypothetical A3000 equivalent >machine configuration. Can you supply us with some real performance >figures that support your basis for claiming such equivalence. We've had plenty of postings by various folks of simple performance benchmarks: Dhrystone 2.1, DiskSpeed, MFlops, Sieve, etc. A3000s run at least as fast on these things as other 25MHz 68030 computers, and 80386 machines tend to run similar results. If anything, these kind of tests bias things in the direction of 80386 machines, since most have at least 16K of external cache. Virtually all of the simple benchmarks will fit in 16K of external cache, large array manipulation tests being the exception. >Mr Joon Song answered your posting with his equivalent to your proposed >system and a price from Microtimes. Would that system in fact satisfy >your criteria? His system missed on two major points: EDSI vs. SCSI disk, and ISA vs. EISA expansion bus. I'm not in a position to judge the quality of a maker I've never heard of, and I'm not asking for that -- I'm simply looking for a valid comparison based only on technical merit. Caveat Emptor would certainly apply to anyone actually considering such a system in lieu of an A3000; there is more to a computer purchase than system performance in the real world. >... but I can not understand your reticence to defend your creation with hard >performance comparison results. Surely such results exist? As I said, I don't sit around all day running benchmarks, and to my knowledge, none of the very large benchmark suites have been ported to AmigaOS. The best Dhrystone 2.1 figure I've heard was something around 8000, other than that, I couldn't tell you. > Reply-To: Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Get that coffee outta my face, put a Margarita in its place!