Subject: Xeon vs Power3-II RS6000 benchmark

From: Eric HENON <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 14:40:17 +0000

Hello,

We have a plan to get a workstation with 4 processors to do
some ab initio calculations (g98, Molcas). The "Linux/xeon" platform
seems to be an interesting alternative but, unfortunately, we have not
found recent benchmarks for current xeon.

Thus, I would be grateful if anyone could share his/her
experience concerning the performance of Linux/current Xeon-PIII   vs
Power 3-II  (IBM RS6000).

Thank you in advance.

      E. Henon
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From: "art'" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 05:14:02 -0800

Hi,

Xeon .... I dont know. It would be better Athlon, in my mind. It runs Linux also,
but has better performance and is cheaper. But consider other answers.

A.Ziemys

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From: "Stanislaw Oldziej (Wizytator Nowej Francji)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 22:00:44 +0100 (MET)

Hi all,

As usual all is about $$$$$.

First of all the g98 is not very well scalable on the multiprocesor
machines in my opinion is better (and cheaper) to buy four machines
(1CPU) than one 4xCPUs.
I'm not using g98 however and I do not have acess to Power-3-II IBM
machine but, I have some benchmark for GAMESS on PC-like processors 
(single point MP2 energy calculations), the results are below (time in seconds):

DURON 600MHz            	-       1227.9
K-7 ATHLON 600MHz  	        -       1093.0
PIII CELERON 433MHz	        -       2029.2 (app 600Mhz 1462.1)
PIII 650MHz            		-       1195.0 (app 600MHz 1294.2)
PIII XEON 700Mhz/1MB Cache	-	1081.1 (app 600MHz 1261.1)

I do not have access to the T-Bird AMD but I'm sure that T-Bird AMD will
be the best. 

The second point is that Xeon is very expensive. If you want to have
4-way motherboard the XEON 700Mhz/1MB Cache will cost you 1349 USD, 
XEON 550MHz/512K 975 USD. If you will buy 1-way motherboards you can
get XEON 933/256k for 670 USD. 
The 4-way motherboard for Xeon is SC450NX and it cost c.a. 1800USD, or
S2QR6 c.a 2500 USD. It is mean that 4-way motherboards + 4 XEONs 700MHz 
is ~7000 USD and you should add memory disks and all another stuff.

For comparison the 1000Mhz T-Bird + motherboard ASUSTek, 1GB RAM, 18 GB HD
SCSII cost ~1600 USD.

Have fun,

Stan

P.S. All prices are from: www.pricewatch.com. 

===============================================================================
Dr Stanislaw Oldziej
Faculty of Chemistry,
University of Gdansk,		"Plucie to nie to samo co wolnosc wypowiedzi"
Molecular Modelling Group	                           
Sobieskiego 18, 80-952 Gdansk                        
POLAND
tel:(048-58)-345-0361
fax:(048-58)-341-0357
===============================================================================