Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!lll-tis!mordor!sri-spam!sri-unix!ctnews!pyramid!prls!mips!mash From: mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: brash micros versus the Big Iron: not yet Message-ID: <622@winchester.UUCP> Date: Tue, 25-Aug-87 06:37:39 EDT Article-I.D.: winchest.622 Posted: Tue Aug 25 06:37:39 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Aug-87 04:24:53 EDT Lines: 48 Chuck Simmons (amdahl!chuck) writes: >In article <1588@apple.UUCP> bcase@apple.UUCP (Brian Case) writes: >> The >>MIPS Co. processor, SUN 4 processor, the Acorn RISC machine processor, >>the Am29000 processor, etc. have, at least, for some problems, performance >>equal to or greater than multimillion dollar machines, at prices orders >>of magnitude lower. > >Anyone have an example of an application that runs faster on a MIPS, >Sun, Acorn, or AMD machine than it does on either a 5890 or a Cray 2? I suspect Brian was being a little enthusiastic, however: James Woods' compress benchmark: u+s user sys Cray 2 1.86 1.80 0.06 Mips M/1000 1.6- 1.4 0.2- empty system, sys = .1 or .2 Amdahl 5890-190 0.54 0.51 0.03 (== half of a model 5890-300 CPU) Of course, that's cheating, beating up a Cray-2 with character-pushing! Then, there's the Doduc benchmark (FORTRAN Monte Carlo): Perf Rel to 11/780 5.7 Amdahl 470 V8, VM/UTS 7.0 IBM 3081-G, F4H ext, opt=2 8.4 MIPS M/1000, f77 -O3, 1.21, UMIPS-BSD 2.01, runs 218 secs 18.3 Amdahl 5860 41.6 Cray X/MP [for perspective: we have a way to go yet!] On things like Hspice, we think an M/1000 is only about .25-.3X of an IBM 3090. In general, I'd suggest that the raw scalar CPU (integer/FP) speed of fast RISC micros is in the .25-.35X range relative to the big iron, at best. It will be two years before CMOS micros can match what's there now in overall scalar computational performance. (But that's not bad. There is about 100X difference in cost). Chuck: how about enlightening us all by posting the current Amdahl high-end machines' salient characteristics? cycle time? cache-sizes? mips-ratings? number of CPUs? The numbering has gone crazy, and it's hard to know what's faster than what up there. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!mash OR mash@mips.com DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086