Xref: utzoo comp.unix.aix:5959 comp.sys.hp:9558 comp.benchmarks:708 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!boingo.med.jhu.edu!haven.umd.edu!uflorida!travis!hrshcx!wdh From: wdh@hrshcx.csd.harris.com (W. David Higgins) Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix,comp.sys.hp,comp.benchmarks Subject: Re: IBM 6000 vs HP 9000 series 700 Message-ID: <1145@hrshcx.csd.harris.com> Date: 27 Jun 91 13:54:21 GMT References: <1991Jun25.160925.53455@eagle.wesleyan.edu> <1991Jun25.214124.29573@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> <1991Jun26.191020.26093@cs.utk.edu> Followup-To: comp.unix.aix Organization: Harris Computer Systems, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Lines: 59 In article <1991Jun26.191020.26093@cs.utk.edu> Dave Sill writes: > >Can anyone shed any more light on this AN-SYS benchmark and what it >measures? > I'm not a user of ANSYS, but I've been involved in porting the program to several platforms. Take all of this with a small chip of salt... ANSYS is a finite element analysis program, used to model physical structures and the stresses placed upon them. SP-3 is a "moderate sized 3-D solid statis analysis of a pressure vessel containing 1020 eight node solid elements". ANSYS is a product of Swanson Analysis Systems Inc. (SASI), Houston PA. From what I remember ANSYS in general, and solving SP-3 in particular, spends much of its time doing linear algebra (dot product, etc.). I suspect a machine that does well on the Linpack benchmark would do equally well with ANSYS. I don't believe Dvorak's column gave SP-3 times for Intel x86 boxes; let me remedy that by giving some times from SASI's 03/20/91 benchmark report: SP-3: Machine CPU Elapsed Comments -------- ---- ---- ------------------------------ CRAY-2 27 29 One processor used for timings CRAY Y-MP 8/128 17 17 One processor used for timings IBM 6000/540 68 70 ALR 486/33mHz 360 360 HP 486/25mHz 550 550 Gateway 386/33mHz 804 804 No wonder Dvorak conveniently forgot to include x86 times. There is some small truth to Dvorak's claim that SP-3 doesn't give the Cray a chance to strut it's stuff, although it is probably vector length and not system overhead that is involved. SASI's LS4 benchmark problem is considerably larger in size than SP-3. Some times follow: LS4: Machine CPU Elapsed -------- ---- ---- CRAY-2 647 699 IBM 6000/540 4139 4656 Notice that the IBM-6000 took 2.5x the Cray running SP-3, but the ratio grew to 6.4x when solving LS4. LS4 is a _large_ problem; SASI says 600mb of disk is required to complete the run. The benchmark reports I am quoting from did not include HP snake times, so I cannot give the HP times for LS4. Dvorak gave SP-3 CPU times of 49 seconds for the HP 9000/730, and 68 seconds for the HP 9000/720. I hope this information is useful. -- -- W. David Higgins wdhiggins@hrshcx.mkt.csd.harris.com -- Harris Computer Systems, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33309 305-973-5351