#Alpha VS. Pentium
19 messages in this thread
So, what do you all think about DEC's new Alpha based machines? I recently saw
a bunch at the PC expo here in NY, but unfortunately they were demoing them
with a windows paint program so it was hard to get an idea of overall speed
(would have liked to see AutoCAD or a rendering program running). The Alpha
seems to be running about twice as fast as the Pentium and is even faster at
floating point operations than the MIPS R4000 chip used in the midline SGI
Indigo (according to a benchmark demo I saw…also PC magazine). This could be
a killer machine for doing 3-D work (if NT gets off the ground), and they only
cost about $8-10k. Anyone else seen them in action with CAD software etc?
Charles,
I've been following the Alpha news also. I think if The Yost Group were to come
out with a version of 3DS that was optimized for these machines, you would see
people here selling their wives, kids, etc. <g> to get their hands on one of
these combinations. Seriously, though, I think the porting of 3DS to this
platform in itself would drive a changeover; rather than the other way around.
There are few other applications that it would have such an effect on because
of rendering times, etc. (translate $$). And it might motivate Autodesk to port
ACAD over; what a combination that would be!
Just my $.02 worth.
John
My dream machine has an Alpha AXP processor inside. However, I first will buy
the software, then the machine. You know, anybody can't live from dreams.
Expect to see Alpha machines cheaper than the Pentium. I only hope that the
Yost Group move 3ds to Alpha NT and that Compaq will include the Alpha as a
module to their Triflex PCs.
Ana
Since your dreaming.. What about the Wyse system with the 5 pentium processors.
And , get Yost to write the special software to do the split processing.??
<< You know, anybody can't live from dreams>>
Right, I'll stick to more interesting stuff than computers in my dreams.<g>
Dream On!
Don Landis
Yes, the Wyse system could help. But the Group doesn't have to write any
special versions, just to put it in NT. It will be support directly the
multiprocessing…of course, you have to BUY first the Wyse, then the NT
special version with more than two processors support (if the ussual version
cost $800, I CAN'T IMAGINE the "HighEnd" version price) and then buy R4 for NT.
However, I see the Alpha (even the two processor version) as a dream that COULD
be true…someday <g>
Ana
>> What about the Wyse system with the 5 pentium processors.
Heck! What's the difference in price between this thing and a SGI? 50 cents?
<g> IRIXsize 3DS…
I don't believe it was on the market. It was shown at Comdex as an example of
a mini capacity/ speed computer in the size of a standard tower case. The demo
showed 20 open windows with operations just flying by. three were acad 3d
wireframes rotating in real time.
Charles,
You know, SGI has never been famous for the speed of their main CPU. Where they
have made their mark is their hardware 3D engines. For that it doesn't really
matter how fast the processor is since the 3D hardware is doing all the work.
I don't think the Alpha will have a chance against the SGI as far as realtime
3D is concerned. A generalized processor will not be able to keep up with the
specialized 3D hardware. That's not to say that the Alpha won't be
successful…
The Pentium may be slower but it runs virtually ALL the existing PC software.
This give it an enormous advantage in the PC marketplace. I suspect the Alpha
to be competing in the workstation market, not the PC market. I expect to see
Intel dominate the market for at least 5 more years.
If I recall correctly, the Alpha that's running NT is actually running a 486
code via an interpreter to execute DOS and Windows programs. This method of
running a foreign instruction set on a computer generally results in executing
about 10 instructions to emulate each instruction from the target machine.
Even if the Alhpa has twice as many MIPS, it's having to run 10 times as many
IPS to accomplish the same task, resulting in 1/5 the real speed. Of course
that will change once native Alpha NT versions of the software are available.
A Windows paint program is probably the perfect demo from DEC's point of view.
It's not a CPU intensive task (so running 1/10 it's real MIPS is not a problem)
and drawing to the screen via Windows functions can be optimized for the Alpha.
Commodore used the same trick many years ago with the Amiga. You could buy a
software package that emulated a PC and could run many PC programs. It
actually ran 1/10 to 1/20 the speed of a PC, but if you demo it with the right
software (software where the bottleneck is the user, not the computer) it
didn't seem so bad…
John.
John,
Good point about SGI's hardware shading. I saw one of their Onyx machines
doing a nice textured fly-through of a small town at the Spring NCGA, but for
high-end software rendering (Renderman etc) you need the kind of fast CPU math
performance that the R4000, R4400 (and Alpha) provide. Obviously for realtime
simulations you'd get something with a bunch of reality engines, not an Alpha.
One interesting note though: At the PC expo last week in NY I saw Matrox's MGA
card demo. It does realtime shading whithin AutoCAD and was very impressive.
Seemed to be at about the same level as a low end Indigo, and it's supposed to
be compatible with the DEC AXP.
I'm coming at this from the point of view of someone looking for the fastest,
most cost effective, CAD & rendering platform. DOS compatibility is important
for a lot of people, but I'd rather have a machine who's hardware wasnt
compromised by such compatibility. I see NT machines (based on the Alpha,
R4000, etc) as being the bridge between PCs and workstations. They will have
the speed, but the large market will allow for much lower prices. I sure hope
NT doesnt turn out to be a dud!!!
Charles
P.S. I probably shouldnt have called this thread "Alpha VS. Pentium". I really
just wanted to start a discussion about the Pentium, NT, and the new breed of
PC/workstation hybrids. I do find it interesting, though, that while the
Pentium is being heralded as the next great chip, DEC and MIPS both have much
faster chips that should run much of the same software once NT is established.
Charles,
You're right about ray tracing and the other high quality renders — fast
CPU/FPU's are needed. In a real world environment your going to need all those
other little utility programs you use every day too though…
CB> I sure hope NT doesnt turn out to be a dud!!!
From a technical standpoint, anything based on the Windows paradigm has to be
<grin>! (I wonder about a system that's best selling products are sceen savers
and wallpaper! Is that what it's best for?) Marketing and market success is
another thing though. I don't have too much hope for all the cross-platform
promises. Note that the demo they were running wasn't running the processor's
native code — it was the exact same package you can buy off the shelf for
Windows. They picked the class of program that works well under those
circumstances. Renderman would have choked.
Over the next 3 years I'm pretty sure you'll continue to see what we have now.
Large numbers of PC's based on DOS and the 80×86 architecture. and a small
number of workstations based on the Alpha, R4400, etc. and their decendents.
Farther out into the future things may change, but that's too far to predict in
the computing world!
John.
John,
>> A generalized processor will not be able to keep up with the >> specialized
3D hardware
A good point, but you may be missing a "small" point. Just like SGI "adds" the
fast 3D to the system, so can this "graphics subsystem" be added to a Pentium,
Alpha, etc.. Just take a look at the Matrox MGA card w/Z-buffer. That system
can now do realtime Goraud shading in ACAD and is planning to have drivers for
3DS which will allow realtime shading in the editor (and that's based on a 486
performance). The point is, that the market for the "IBM compatibles" is so
large, that mfgr's like Matrox can afford to make a card which have broad based
appeal (Windows, ACAD … yes 3DS).
Now, SGI could take some 3DS customers if they "Go NT" (like they have said
that they wil) AND write special drivers for 3DS do allow access to the
"off-processor" graphics performance AND make the systems affordable. But,
only a limited amout of the affordability issue for SGI is under SGI's control.
Since SGI has such a small market, ALL peripheral hdwr/sftwr is VERY EXPENSIVE.
I was recently looking for a dye-sub printer driver for an SGI for a customer,
and the prices ranged from $1k-$3k .. just for the software driver!
It'll be interesting to see what happens.
Ang
Angelo,
AG> you may be missing a "small" point. Just like SGI "adds" the AG> fast 3D
to the system, so can this "graphics subsystem" be AG> added to a Pentium,
Alpha, etc…
I don't think I'm missing a small point at all:
The Alpha is not instruction set compatible with the 80×86. No 80×86 program
will run directly on it, even with NT, unless it is recompiled and relinked by
the manufacturer. The demos that DEC has been showing is a software 80×86
EMULATOR running the 80×86 version of NT. Software emulators typically require
10 to 20 native instructions per instruction that they're emulating. That
put's a 200 MIPS Alpha running at somewhere around 10 to 20 MIPS during
emulation. Any task that's CPU bound rather than display bound will crawl. I
don't have any direct experience with 3DS but, I do write 3D software, and,
once you get past flat shaded triangles, they are rarely display bound.
Once Autodesk comes out with a native Alpha NT version of 3DS then you'll see
some speed. Don't count on that happening any time soon though Conversion of
software from one CPU to another (even programs written in mostly in C) can be
very time consuming unless the programmers took that into account in the first
place.
The same observations go to SGI. And most companies are not going to be happy
about having to support NT products accross a multitude of processors. Let's
see we have the Alpha-NT version, the R4000-NT version, the Pentium NT version,
…..
In the short term there's also the problem of all those other little programs
that you run which won't be available until sometime after the native 3DS is
established on the Alpha. Some may run acceptably in the emulated environment
but most probably will not.
And, from message #49309, that you're already aware of some of the hardware
issues on machine that decide to go with a different bus.
I wasn't suggesting that one should buy an SGI instead of an Alpha or Pentium.
I was simply pointing out that, since a comparison of graphics speed was made,
that the SGI is a special purpose machine — real time, texture mapped, gouraud
shaded, Z-buffered, 3D polygons. An Alpha or Pentium without a specialized
processor won't be able to touch the SGI at that particular task. I don't know
much about the Matrox board but it sounds like a 2D gouraud shader — nothing
close to SGI. The only thing I know of (and I don't claim to be an expert)
that's close is the HP9000 with it's NURBS engine.
I agree that we're in for some interesting times though… and I'm always
hungry for more speed…. Unfortunately I write software for mass markets so
I'll have to stick with 80×86 architecture for the time being…
John.
John,
Good points. I guess we'll all have to wait to see what Msoft and Adesk have
in store for us. …. Feel kind'a like a turkey in mid-November <g>
Ang
John,
>> A generalized processor will not be able to keep up with the >> specialized
3D hardware
A good point, but you may be missing a "small" point. Just like SGI "adds" the
fast 3D to the system, so can this "graphics subsystem" be added to a Pentium,
Alpha, etc.. Just take a look at the Matrox MGA card w/Z-buffer. That system
can now do realtime Goraud shading in ACAD and is planning to have drivers for
3DS which will allow realtime shading in the editor (and that's based on a 486
performance). The point is, that the market for the "IBM compatibles" is so
large, that mfgr's like Matrox can afford to make a card which have broad based
appeal (Windows, ACAD … yes 3DS).
Now, SGI could take some 3DS customers if they "Go NT" (like they have said
that they wil) AND write special drivers for 3DS do allow access to the
"off-processor" graphics performance AND make the systems affordable. But,
only a limited amout of the affordability issue for SGI is under SGI's control.
Since SGI has such a small market, ALL peripheral hdwr/sftwr is VERY EXPENSIVE.
I was recently looking for a dye-sub printer driver for an SGI for a customer,
and the prices ranged from $1k-$3k .. just for the software driver!
It'll be interesting to see what happens.
Ang
Charles,
A couple comments regarding the Alpha and 3DS
First, yes it is a very fasst processor and at the street price that DEC is
planning, it should be a great seller. It iss running Windows NT and if 3DS
goes that direction (which by Adesk's public endorsement of NT as the corporate
direction is a VERY safe bet), then special versions of 3DS, ACAD, etc will not
be necessary.
Beware though, that even thought these systems have an EISA bus and will be
running NT, the peripheral manufactures MUST recompile their low-level drivers
to work in an Alpha box. Therefore, your TV board, animaition controller, etc
… won't work until the mfgr's recompile and release new drivers. With that
said, simply save your old slow 486-66 EISA system as the input/output system
and use these machines for rendering … no problem. But in the case of a new
3DS customer, at least until MOST of the peripheral mfgr's come up to speed,
then you'll need at least one other system for "animation specific" (= very
small market) cards.
Waiting for my 1st alpha
Ang
Angelo,
> First, yes it is a very fasst processor and at the street price that DEC is
> planning, it should be a great seller. It iss running Windows NT and if 3DS
> goes that direction (which by Adesk's public endorsement of NT as the
> corporate direction is a VERY safe bet), then special versions of 3DS, ACAD,
> etc will not be necessary.
Oops, don't expect an NT program to run unmodified on a different NT
platform. With NT you'll get the same situation as with UNIX: Source code
compatibility (at best), but not executable compatibility.
An Autodesk product for NT will probably be for NT/Intel only. They have to
recompile/debug it on any other platform like NT/Alpha or NT/MIPS. As you
can see with the UNIX versions of AutoCAD, this is not a simple nor a high
priority task.
With the Alpha you might be able to run the NT/Intel version using it's
emulation software. But emulation usually slows the machine by a factor of
10 (or so).
Dietmar
Dietmar,
I was just curious bout your comment regarding AutoCAD under UNIX. Is it very
buggy? I've used thier Mac version, and it has a number of bugs. I am curious
because I have been considering purchasing a UNIX workstation (Indigo or Indy
probably) for CAD and Rendering, but if UNIX AutoCAD is no good I'll keep it on
a PC.
Charles Brush
Charles,
> I was just curious bout your comment regarding AutoCAD under UNIX. Is it
> very buggy? I've used thier Mac version, and it has a number of bugs. I am
> curious because I have been considering purchasing a UNIX workstation
> (Indigo or Indy probably) for CAD and Rendering, but if UNIX AutoCAD is no
> good I'll keep it on a PC.
I suggest that you ask in the ACAD forum about the UNIX version of AutoCAD
for the workstation you want to buy. From my experiences (which are mainly
with the SPARC/Solaris version), AutoCAD under UNIX is no more buggy than
under DOS or Windows. I even heard good things about the Release 12 Mac
version.
Dietmar
Charles,
A couple comments regarding the Alpha and 3DS
First, yes it is a very fasst processor and at the street price that DEC is
planning, it should be a great seller. It iss running Windows NT and if 3DS
goes that direction (which by Adesk's public endorsement of NT as the corporate
direction is a VERY safe bet), then special versions of 3DS, ACAD, etc will not
be necessary.
Beware though, that even thought these systems have an EISA bus and will be
running NT, the peripheral manufactures MUST recompile their low-level drivers
to work in an Alpha box. Therefore, your TV board, animaition controller, etc
… won't work until the mfgr's recompile and release new drivers. With that
said, simply save your old slow 486-66 EISA system as the input/output system
and use these machines for rendering … no problem. But in the case of a new
3DS customer, at least until MOST of the peripheral mfgr's come up to speed,
then you'll need at least one other system for "animation specific" (= very
small market) cards.
Waiting for my 1st alpha
Ang