Subject: Re: CCL:SUN vs HP workstations

From: Mikhail Kuzminsky -135-6388 <[email-masked]> (095)
Date: Thu, 26 May 94 17:31 MSK

>
> >    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
> >
> It might be worth noting that the 712/80 (80MHz PA-1.1) is
> rated by HP at the same SPECfp92 as the 712/60 (60MHz PA-1.1).
   The data for HP 712/60 was taken from *independed* sources,
from DEC on-line service in partition containing  competitive
comparison of DEC3000 AXP Alpha mdl 300LX with HP 712/60 and
SGI INDY R4000PC.
   Yes, I found that the data for HP 712/80 taken from the same
 source (comparison of DEC3000 AXP mdl 300X with HP712/80 and
SGI R4000SC) are : SPECfp92 = 79 (! - the same as for 712/60)
and SPECint92 = 84.
   Therefore I think that this data contain mistake.

> There has been evidence that this (quite improbable) result
> was achieved by intentionally slowing the benchmarks for the
> faster machine, in order to protect the more expensive 7?5
> line of technical workstations. Indeed, when we run MD on our
> 712/80, we find that its performance is more consistent with a
> SPECfp92 rating of above 100, just what you would expect by
> simple clock rate extrapolation of either the 735 or the 712/60.
   Unfortunally I don't have HP712 and can't measure  SPECfp :-(
 but I may agree with this estimation if I'll think that SPECint
 data are correct. If it's so then SPECfp92 for HP712/80 is about
 SPECint92 * 1.36 (specfp/specint ratio for HP712/60) what give
 the value much more high than 100.
    Clock rate extrapolation may give bad approximation if the
cache size for HP712/60 and /80 is different (I don't know is't
so or no).
> From my experience, HP is faster than anything else
> on the market, and they are pretty nice machines, too.
   I agree that HP is excellent family. The main todays advantage
of SUN station 20 is multiprocessing, not CPU itself.

Mikhail Kuzminsky