Subject: CCL:SUN vs HP workstations

From: Mikhail Kuzminsky (095)-135-6388 <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 May 94 21:49 MSK

> I am considering buying one of the following workstations:
>
> 1) HP model 712/60  32MB main memory 60MHz PA-RISC7100LC processor
> 2) SUN SPARCSTATION 20 model 50 32MB main memory 50 MHz supersparc processor
>
> I will be using the workstations primarily for MD simulations.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas about how these machines compare in terms of
> speed and ability to load large programs (large memory requirements) ?
   First of all you may take into account usual benchmarks data as
SPECint, SPECfp and LINPACK MFLOPS. There are:
   workstation         SPECint92               SPECfp92
HP9000 712/60          58                         79
SUNstation 20 mdl 50   69,2                       78,3

(I don't have LINPACK data near me :-( ).
   But this data is only first approximation to estimation of
performance of MD programs. If the MD benchmarks for this workstation
are unavailable for you, you may receive a bit more good approximation
on the following way : 1) Take the benchmark MD data for another
models of SUN (SUN station 10 for example) and HP 2) Re-calculate
this data on the base of performance relations betweeen for example
SUN station 10 model 50 and SUN station 20 model 50.

   Mikhail Kuzminsky,
N.D.Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry,Moscow.
PS. I may recommend to take into account DEC3000 ALPHA AXP mdl 300LX
or mdl 300X which are also very good in the sense of price/performance
relationship and which have performance relative close to workstations
you are estimating.