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Date:      Tue, 01 Jul 1997 19:00:26 +0200
From:      Christoph Kukulies <kuku@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE>
To:        "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Benchmarks/comparisions between PC->Sparc
Message-ID:  <19970701190026.07877@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.95.970701121533.20086D-100000@hub.org>; from Marc G. Fournier on Tue, Jul 01, 1997 at 12:16:27PM -0400
References:  <Pine.NEB.3.95.970701121533.20086D-100000@hub.org>

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On Tue, Jul 01, 1997 at 12:16:27PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> 
> Hi...
> 
> 	Does anyone know of URLs for comparisons between the two?  Stuff
> like SPECint and anything else that would be pertinent to a discussion of
> the merits of either/or?
> 
> Thanks...
> 
> Marc G. Fournier                                 scrappy@hub.org
> Systems Administrator @ hub.org              scrappy@freebsd.org
> 

I don't have an URL but appended is a saved mail
from the questions list on this issue:


-- 
Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de
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> From: Ben Black <black@gage.com>
> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 97 13:17:48 -0600
> To: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@freefall.freebsd.org>
> Subject: Re: UltraSPARC and MicroSPARC vs Pentium Pro ?
> Cc: mcwong@hotmail.com (M.C Wong), questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> References: <199702121833.KAA18506@freefall.freebsd.org>
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> 
> >quick dirty answer:
> >        Integer: the intel boxes kill the snot out of *all* suns
> >        Float:   the ultras outperform intel boxes.
> 
> see numbers below which indicate that a P6-200 slightly outperforms a 200MHz  
> UltraSPARC in integer, while the UltraSPARC actually does "kill the snot"  
> out of the P6 in floating point.
> 
> >long answer:
> >        the sparc architecture is limited in its ability to perform
> >        integer operations.  my suspicion is that the memory bandwidth
> >        is not up to the task. (surely, its not the cpu itself, but
> >        rather feeding data and instructions to the cpu that is the
> >        limiting factor.)
> 
> thank you, mr. wizard.  unfortunately, completely wrong.  the UltraSPARC  
> machines all use the UPA crossbar switch which gives a bandwidth of over  
> 1GB/s.  compare that to a typical PC bus which is usually around 400MB/s (and  
> is not switched, as the UPA is).  quite simply, current mass produced Intel  
> boards just can't compete for I/O bandwidth.
> 
> if memory bandwidth *were* the problem, you'd expect it to show up in the  
> floating point benchmarks.
> 
> as for "killing the snot out of Sun" in integer performance, the SPECint95  
> numbers just don't show it:
> 
>                            SPECint95   SPECfp95
> Intel Alder 200MHz P6         8.09        6.75
> Sun Ultra 2 1200 200MHz       7.72       11.1
> 
> if i get a chance, i will run the HiNT benchmarks on an UltraSPARC and a P6  
> here.  i doubt i will see any snot flying from the Sun.
> 
> benchmarks, of course, can always say what you want them to.
> 
> 
> b3n
> 



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