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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.arch,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: 68020 Performance Revisited Again
Message-ID: <237@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Nov-84 02:34:29 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.237
Posted: Tue Nov 13 02:34:29 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Nov-84 05:32:52 EST
References: <4132@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
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> 1. Your idea of cpu-intensive UNIX benchmarks sure is strange;
>    Gosh, I always thought there was a fairly large I/O component to
>    cc, nroff, grep, vi, mail, news, etc.

Ever timed "cc" or "nroff"?  *VERY* CPU-intensive - at least the versions
we've got here on our 780.  One "make" rebuilding the kernel takes up
between 60 and 90% of an 11/780.

Also, note he only referred to the aforementioned as '"real" UNIX tasks',
not "cpu-intensive UNIX benchmarks."  He referred both to CPU-intensive
and disk-intensive tasks.

> 5. I've spent 8 years working with UNIX systems.  I have yet to see
>    a machine run 4.2 better than the 780 does (soon to change with the
>    advent of the VAX 8600).

Working for a competitor who *has* a machine that runs 4.2 better than the
780 does, unless you're beating the terminals to death (our terminal mux is,
shall we say, sub-optimal), I'm a little biased here, but there do exist
superminis out there that are faster than an 11/780.  Are you willing to make
that claim about the Power 6/32, *and* the Pyramid 90x, *and* the
top-of-the-line Gould (maybe the MV/10000, too)?  (While we're at it, how about
the 11/785?  If it isn't any improvement over the 11/780 running 4.2, *somebody*
screwed up...)  (Anybody put 4.2 up on some big IBM/Amdahl/... iron? For
terminal I/O, I dunno, but I bet it's pretty good on CPU-intensive or
disk-intensive jobs.)  If you mean you've never seen any *micro* out there run
4.2 better than the 11/780, maybe.

I agree that statements of the "wow, this supermicro is faster than a
!" ilk are to be taken with a grain of salt -
we had a supermicro in house whose manufacturer boasted that it was as fast
as an 11/70.  We decided, after working some with it, that it was no doubt
true, under certain circumstances.  If you dropped it off a building, it would
fall as fast as an 11/70 (modulo air drag).

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy