Re: performance stuff [Re: Kernel Rebuild & Status...]

Bjoern Tiemann (tiemann@ife.ee.ethz.ch)
Sat, 19 Aug 1995 12:56:24 +0200

Just my 2 cents to this performance discussion:
I ran an example program on severeal systems. It's a canny filter that
uses float numbers and and one or several MBs of memory. I don't claim
that it's representative at all, but it can give an impression.

Check out http://www.ife.ee.ethz.ch/~tiemann/performance.html for
the results.

Some comments:

The AXPpci33 board with 1MB/20ns cache is faster than any Sun Sparcstation
and any Intel Box that was available for me. It is equally fast as a
HP735 workstation.

A 21064/175MHz/2MB cache AXP is as fast as a 21064A/233MHz/0.5MB cache
Alpha station and about 1/3 faster than the noname board.
So the size of the L2 cache is significant.

A significant speedup can obtained if cc is used instead of gcc
(528 to 416 ms).

The fastest single processor system measured is a 21164/250MHz/2MB(?) cache.
Damn, this is a real fast processor 8-). It costs about $3000 and reaches
>500 SPECfp when clocked with 300 MHz.

Please don't blame me, it's really a stupid sample application and not
a real benchmark.

Bjoern