Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!pyramid!leadsv!esl!ian From: ian@esl.UUCP (Ian Kaplan) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Why is SPARC so slow? Message-ID: <538@esl.UUCP> Date: 15 Dec 87 23:51:48 GMT References: <1078@quacky.UUCP> <8809@sgi.SGI.COM> <6964@apple.UUCP> <344@ma.diab.UUCP> Reply-To: ian@esl.UUCP (Ian Kaplan) Organization: ESL, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA. Lines: 37 In article <344@ma.diab.UUCP> pf@ma.UUCP (Per Fogelstrom) writes: >Well, the history repeats once again. A new RISC chip is launched and peopels >expectations reaches new "high scores". A few years ago there was another risc >chip set brougth to the market, called the Clipper. [ deleted text ] >For this chip set the picture has cleared now. The perfor- >mence range is not much more than can be achived with a 16-20 Mhz 68020. [ deleted text ] >Well they could have had 2-3 times the >clipper performance with the NS32532 today. And they called the buy a bargin ! I think that the discussion on the SPARC vs. the MIPS R2000 centers around why the SPARC is not faster than it is - specifically, why it is not as fast as the MIPS processor. What seems to have been missed here, if I properly understand Mr. Fogelstrom's article, is that the SPARC is quite fast. The lab I work in has a Sun 4/280 and I can tell you that it smokes. It may be 20% slower than the MIPS processor, but it is by no means a failure. The SPARC is much faster than the Motorola 68020 and, I would bet, the National processors. How the MIPS and SPARC scale remain to be seen. You should remember that neither Sun nor MIPS will keep their hardware architecture static. I have greatly enjoyed the discussion of SPARC vs MIPS architecture. This sort of interchange makes comp.arch worth reading. A happy holiday season to you all, Ian L. Kaplan ESL, Advanced Technology Systems M/S 302 495 Java Dr. P.O. Box 3510 Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3510 decvax!decwrl!borealis!\ sdcsvax!seismo!- ames!esl!ian ucbcad!ucbvax!/ / ihnp4!lll-lcc!