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From: smiller@wet.UUCP (Gregory Shane Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Whtat's the big picture for the 040 NeXT cube?
Keywords: NeXT cube 040
Message-ID: <1558@wet.UUCP>
Date: 21 Sep 90 19:14:25 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco
Lines: 101


         21 September 1990

         I too have been waiting for the release of NeXT's new
         computer.  But I'm wondering what the "big picture" is.

         Byte's November 1988 issue (review on original cube) quotes
         Jobs writing: "'MIPS is only one-third of the equation;
         sustained system throughput is the key'".

         This is absolutely correct.

         No kidding! Look at *all* hardware NeXT added to keep work
         off the CPU:

              NCR 53C90 SCSI Chip [ moves 4 MB / sec ]
              Motorola 20 MHz DSP 56001
              2 custom VSLI chips for handling
                   SCSI interface
                   optical drive
                   serial ports (2)
                   ethernet port
                   12 DMA channels

         NeXT uses the Mach Unix kernel (from Carnegie-Mellon).  The
         September 1989 issue of Unix World writes: "Last, but not
         least, Next uses Mach.  Mach is a new operating system kernel
         that can run 25 percent faster than a UNIX kernel".

         So you can imagine how depressed and (frankly) confused I was
         when in the March 1990 issue of Byte I find the new UNIX
         benchmarks which includes times from a (030) NeXT machine:

              Everex i386/33 Mhz SCO Xenix 2.3.1: Cum. Index 6.00
              NeXT                              : Cum. Index 3.54
              DEC3100                           : Cum. Index 11.12
              HP370                             : Cum. Index 5.37

         The baseline was the Everex; the NeXT ran half as fast as the
         baseline, HP370 5/6 ths as fast, DEC3100 nearly twice as
         fast as the baseline.

         Note:
              [1] The DEC3100 may be (I don't know) many more times
                  expensive than a NeXT and so it *should* run fast.
              [2] The article did not give the RAM size, OS version,
                  or the like for the NeXT, DEC3100, or HP370.

         Why is the 030 NeXT box so slow?  If the benchmark tests were
         unfair, how so?  Unfair enough so that NeXT was half as slow
         as a i386/33Mhz box?

         My point is this: If NeXT just took out the 68030/68882 chips
         and replaced them with their 040 relatives, where is the
         improvement in the throughput?

         I am forced to admit that the new price ($4995) with options
         of color boards is exactly what the doctor ordered.
         However, for multitasking or multi-user, the net result may
         likely be the same as the old cube.  On the other hand,
         Walter C. Daugherity (usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU) writes
         (19 Sept 1990) concerning the new NeXT box:

         [ text deleted ect. ]

         >NeXT          $333 /MIP  for 15 MIPS (list price on system $4995)
         >Sun Sparc SLC $500 /MIP  for 13 MIPS (list price on system $6500)
         >386/Mac ci    $2000/MIP  for 1.75 MIPS (list not given [approx $3500?])

         Thus, I am forced to ask three questions:

         [1] Does the new NeXT have more "slave" chips?  Faster
             versions of the old "slave" chips?

         [2] Given a 68030 and a 68040 of same speed, is the 040
             really faster?  If so, by how much?  Does the 040
             have more RISC architecture?  More parallel instruction
             decoding?  More pipelining? [Assembler programmers,
             what's the big picture here?]

         [3] Apple has really done a nice job with the MACs and networking.
             Universities (et al) just how simple is it to setup (eg. hard-
             ware and software) a NeXT net?  How's the throughput?

             BTW: September 1990 Unix World has this to say:

                "At this point, I see administering to a NeXT - or a
                 network of NeXTs - as a big problem for non-technical
                 users."

                [ again, on the other hand ] earlier in the same article:

                "I was pleased to discover that NeXT had not made the
                 same mistake that Sun did with the Sun 386 - assume
                 that the network would have nothing but identical
                 computers on it."

         What about gentlemen? Does the 040 box have the same throughput?

         Regards -
         Shane Miller