Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 15 May 1997 13:46:30 -0400 (EDT) | From | Chris Arguin <> | Subject | Re: Alpha 500 vs Bi Ppro. |
| |
On Thu, 15 May 1997, Yann DUPONT wrote:
> Today we were comparing > a Bi Ppro 200 (128 Mo Ram) & A No-name Alpha 500 Mhz (21164 Ev5) 256 Mo Ram > 1Mo cache. ... > To our great disapointment, it seems that the pentium Pro is faster > than the Alpha. We weren't expecting that. > > Ok, maybe we didn't test it the right way, and we will give it another > try with a more serious benchmark. Anyway, today we tested: > > Compilation : > > For exemple we compiled Python 1.4 > (make -j) > > on bip (Bi pentium pro) => 26 sec. > on Alpha => 57 sec > > Ok, maybe the code generation on alpha is longer ?
Compiling RISC code does take a lot longer, and GCC isn't exactly optomized for the Alpha anyway. Also, when you say "Bi pentium pro", do you mean you actually have two pentium pro processors? I ask simply because I've never seen it written that way. That would make a big difference as well. Get two alpha chips and the alpha would probably win. Or try something besides compiling code.
> We didn't test floating point yet, it's not a priority for us. Maybe > this is a point where Alpha can blast the Ppro ?
If I remember correctly, at equal clock speeds the Alpha will beat a PPro at floating-point, and a PPro will beat the Alpha at integer opperations.
Of course, on the floating point side the Alpha will also give correct answers and not crash ;)
Ok, that was a low blow and not entirely accurate. But you get the idea.
-- Chris Arguin | "...All we had were Zeros and Ones -- And cpa@hopper.unh.edu | sometimes we didn't even have Ones." +--------------+ - Dilbert, by Scott Adams http://leonardo.sr.unh.edu/arguin/home.html |
| |