#PC vs. Workstation
9 messages in this thread
Thank you for the reply.
Specint 92 Specfp 92
———- ————
IBM RS/6000 PowerStation 250 62.6 72.2
Sun SPARKstation LX 26.4 21
HP Apollo 715/50 36 72
SG Iris Indigo R4000 XZ 57.5 60
Compaq Deskpro 5/60M 38 33
DECpc AXP/150 (EISA) 74! 126!
This is for my public penitence. For private punishment i've bought an DECpc
XL560 🙂
Now i'm waiting for Alpha.
Ignacio.
Ignacio,
From someone that has an Alpha in-house (we "scammed" a demo from DEC for a
client that was interested) let me say that they are KILLER boxes. BUT, don't
let those numbers fool you! NT imposes some SERIOUS overhead on these systems,
and the actual application speed will not see that much of an increase. DEC
admits that by saying that apps will have to be specifically recompiled for the
Alpha to realize serious speed increases. Our benchmarks so far showing the
Alpha about 5% to 10% faster than a good Pentium box. However, as your numbers
illustrate, the floating point potential is phenominal.
Now, if I could only test 3DS3………….
Chuck
Chuck
I thougt Alpha AXP benckmarks would be at least 50% higher than any
Pentium60, before soft optimization. And twice faster or more after
recompilations. Get me on earth again, please; Is there info about the expected
AXP speed with proper NT and "3DStudioNT"?
Ignacio.
Well, we were disapointed with the results also. In fact, furthur
benchmarks using "straight" windows programs like Excel have shown
performance equal to about a 486-33!!!!
While I know that this is not the best measure, IT IS a real world
measure. I have posted the Excel times we got today below [ 🙁 ]
Microsoft Excel 4.0 Using spreadsheet with 121 Columns and 5,147 Rows
of numbers (about 2Mb)
Pentium Alpha To Load 6.7 sec 56 sec 🙁
To SUM All 0.86 sec 1.6 sec 🙁 To Recalc SUM 0.54 sec
0.56 sec 😐
These are the numbers. Your probably thinking the same thing we were
this afternoon, "These can't be correct!". Well we agree, and we
have a call into DEC. I'll keep you posted,
Chuck, you must've been using the Intel Win 3.1 version of Excel,
since Microsoft hasn't released their 32-bit Excel for NT on the DEC
Alpha yet. The Alpha is doing everything under regular Windows in
emulation mode, which makes it very slow. Unfortunately, no 32-bit
apps natively compiled for the Alpha exist yet.
Well, what did you expect?! You are running x86 code (286, by the way)
in a Alpha CPU. They have to emulate every single instruction in
software. Those times are actually pretty impressive if you think
that each x86 cycle has to go through hundreds of Alpha cycles.
By the way, there are all kind of NT goodies over the DEC forum. Lots
of stuff compiled specifically for the Alpha chip.
Well your superior minds may never do this, but I think I was in
meltdown yesterday <BG> ! Of course, the Alpha is running in
emulation (duh!). But, my only defense is this….
We have been marketing a local account for hardware for a
Windows/Excel solution. These guys do some SERIOUS spreadsheets (6Mb
is not uncommon, and some are 14Mb to 15Mb!!!). Of course we were
right in there with the Pentiums, supplied 2 demos, and had
everything going well. In walks DEC claiming that their Alpha
machines would blow our Pentiums away, so progress grinds to a halt!
No, I didn't forget anything. DEC didn't talk about an optimized
version of Excel or anything of the sort. So, we (and we were there
when DEC was there) start thinking "What do these guys know that we
don't"? Well they supplied a demo, and Voila, some seriously slow
times!
Now, and only now, are they singing the "It's not optimized" song!
<BG> So, needless to say things are rolling again!
Thanks for the "head-slap".
PS Gus, Firstly Congrats (looks like my wife and I have #3 on the
way!), and thanks for the tip on the Alpha forum! It IS a WONDERFUL
box, and I can't wait to get some Alpha Specific toys for it!
I'm glad you went with the DEC. Gus Grubba loves his, and I'll love mine as
soon as I can afford another machine <g>!
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)