Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!windy!srghgcp
From: srghgcp@windy.dsir.govt.nz
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: 80960CA v 68040 comparative benchmark
Message-ID: <18653.27132b53@windy.dsir.govt.nz>
Date: 10 Oct 90 14:08:16 GMT
Organization: DSIR, Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 57

We are in the business of designing high performance data communications
servers, and are about to embark on new development work with FDDI. We
have been evaluating two processors (Intel 80960CA and Motorola 68040)
as compute engines. We currently use the 68020. We have 
completed benchmarking the 80960CA, with the following results;

Obtained using Dhrystone (we only want integer performance) 2.1 compiled
under Intel iC960 version 2.0. The target is the Intel SDM evaluation
board running a 25MHz processor. The hardware can handle a 33MHz CPU
when Intel manage to make one. The board runs zero waitstate (WS) pipelined
reads in SRAM and one WS writes. Both reads and writes are burst mode. The 
DRAM runs 3-1-1-1 reads and 2-1-1-1 WS writes. The compiler does not
do any clever re-scheduling of instructions.
The internal instruction cache is on and upto 6 local register sets can be
internally cached.

Running in SRAM optimise=default=1........21916
Running in DRAM		"	  ........12813

	   SRAM	optimise=max=2............22585
	   DRAM 	"	..........13808

Since the hardware can handle 33MHz with no loss of performance (no more WS)
over 25MHz, we can scale the result for 33MHz, SRAM@ level 2......29812!!!

For comparison we ran the same tests on a VAX and our 68020 system....
VAX 11/780......1400. The 68020 has 1 WS DRAM, the compiler was Crosscode
C with no optimisation (it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference anyway)

68020@16.5 MHz cache on reg vars on, ............3242
68020@16.5 MHz cache off reg vars on.............2864

We are still building our 68040 system (we have a sample 25MHz 68040) but
based on Motorolas performance figures this gives a projected figure of
around 22000 Dhrystones. A 68040@25MHz = 5(68020@16.67MHz). This assumes 
no optimisation, and a zero WS 68040 system. 
Some other systems we have figures for (we did NOT run the tests) are;

	SUN 4/260	17800
	MIPS M/1000	22500    I'd treat these figures with care 
	SUN 3/60	4700     as I dont have the exact details
	IBM PS/2 M80	4400     of how the tests were run. 

Food for thought though eh? Anyone else got any figures or comment...I can
supply more details if needed.

Geoff Peck, Douglas Parker
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