Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!maddog!brooks
From: brooks@maddog.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: The Killer Micro From Hell
Keywords: price/performance ratios, benchmarking
Message-ID: <42793@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 31 Dec 89 20:47:43 GMT
References: <158@csinc.UUCP> <787@stat.fsu.edu> <42701@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <788@stat.fsu.edu> <42737@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <789@stat.fsu.edu> <34030@mips.mips.COM> <791@stat.fsu.edu>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: brooks@maddog.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 37

In article <791@stat.fsu.edu> mccalpin@stat.fsu.edu (John Mccalpin) writes:
>In a short series of articles, Eugene Brooks and I have been flaming
>back and forth (in a reasonably light-hearted sort of way) about the
>relative merits of vector supercomputers vs KILLER MICROS.
I think that we can cut back on the flames a bit....

Actually, this line of discussion started out with a posting of a real
measurement for a specific "very scalar" code on the XMP4/16 CPU and on a R6000.
I speculated that the R6000 is the fastest single CPU computer in the world on
this specific code.  I will provide the code to any person who would like to run
the code on another machine and disprove this speculation.  I will even take
accurate simulation results for any traditional supercomputer which will BE
DELIVERED in the same time frame as the R6000's lifetime, which I estimate to
be at a close one year from now.

I also speculated that the R6000 is the first Killer Micro to cleanly overrun
traditional supercomputers for scalar dominated computation.  I suggest that we
compare the performance of the 5 scalar LLNL loops for the YMP and the R6000,
when MIPS cares to release the figures, as a way to decide on this question.
We should also compare the R6000 to the Japanese machines which are currently
on the market as well, I understand their their scalar performance is quite
impressive.

The notion that the R6000 is not really here yet, that it is not yet being
delivered, is a red herring.  Its lifetime will be over, having been replaced
by much meaner hardware, before any of the next generation of traditional
supers are ready for benchmarking.

How well KMs are doing on vectorizable workloads, for the purposes of this
duscussion, is a red herring.  I prefer to wait for the appropriate time
to discuss KMs overrunning traditional supercomputers for vector workloads.
Killer Micros have been quite brilliant in their strategy of market conquest,
they have always waited for a clean unambigous kill of their prey before
visibly moving into the frey.  Lets wait till they make their move to worry
about splitting the hairs on the issue.

brooks@maddog.llnl.gov, brooks@maddog.uucp