> Today we were comparing
> a Bi Ppro 200 (128 Mo Ram) & A No-name Alpha 500 Mhz (21164 Ev5) 256 Mo Ram
> 1Mo cache.
...
> To our great disapointment, it seems that the pentium Pro is faster
> than the Alpha. We weren't expecting that.
>
> Ok, maybe we didn't test it the right way, and we will give it another
> try with a more serious benchmark. Anyway, today we tested:
>
> Compilation :
>
> For exemple we compiled Python 1.4
> (make -j)
>
> on bip (Bi pentium pro) => 26 sec.
> on Alpha => 57 sec
>
> Ok, maybe the code generation on alpha is longer ?
Compiling RISC code does take a lot longer, and GCC isn't exactly
optomized for the Alpha anyway. Also, when you say "Bi pentium pro", do
you mean you actually have two pentium pro processors? I ask simply
because I've never seen it written that way. That would make a big
difference as well. Get two alpha chips and the alpha would probably win.
Or try something besides compiling code.
> We didn't test floating point yet, it's not a priority for us. Maybe
> this is a point where Alpha can blast the Ppro ?
If I remember correctly, at equal clock speeds the Alpha will beat a PPro
at floating-point, and a PPro will beat the Alpha at integer opperations.
Of course, on the floating point side the Alpha will also give correct
answers and not crash ;)
Ok, that was a low blow and not entirely accurate. But you get the idea.
--
Chris Arguin | "...All we had were Zeros and Ones -- And
cpa@hopper.unh.edu | sometimes we didn't even have Ones."
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http://leonardo.sr.unh.edu/arguin/home.html |