From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On 30 Jun 2003 17:47:21 -0700, imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot)
wrote:

Jim Kroger <jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> wrote in message news:<jimkkREMOVEME-B165BC.20333629062003@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu>...

But it doesn't affect at all whether I should buy a G5 or a dual
Opteron. Or whatever they call it.

The dual opteron is going to be VERY comparable in performance, at
similar pricepoints, to the dual G5.

Too bad AMD can't get any traction with the OEMs who are in bed with
Intel (and the m/b manufacturers dependent on Intel chipsets)...

Erm...huh? You've already mentioned Asus, and I'm sure ABIT and
others will announce MBs eventually when the market presents itself.
There's excitement on Madison, too - a lot is happening in x86-land.

Asus is supposed to be announcing an nForce3 Pro board this week
(SK8N).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20030519042810.html

A reasonably configured desktop (1.4Ghz opteron / 512MB / 120 GB /
9800Pro) is around $1900 from them.

=Heywood=

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foo <foo@bar.com> wrote in message news:<tqm1gvgkvh95he5qnli2opblsiv1v2m7ki@4ax.com>...

On 30 Jun 2003 17:47:21 -0700, imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot)
wrote:

Jim Kroger <jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> wrote in message news:<jimkkREMOVEME-B165BC.20333629062003@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu>...

But it doesn't affect at all whether I should buy a G5 or a dual
Opteron. Or whatever they call it.

The dual opteron is going to be VERY comparable in performance, at
similar pricepoints, to the dual G5.

Too bad AMD can't get any traction with the OEMs who are in bed with
Intel (and the m/b manufacturers dependent on Intel chipsets)...

Erm...huh? You've already mentioned Asus, and I'm sure ABIT and
others will announce MBs eventually when the market presents itself.

For OEM's I was talking about Dell, Gateway etc.

Abit's SK8N with nVidia's nForce3 Pro chip was announced today.

http://www.amdzone.com/releaseview.cfm?ReleaseID=1112

There's excitement on Madison, too

given the twin turds Intel has laid on the market with Itanium, I
suppose third time's the charm.

$4200 is an... interesting... pricepoint for the 1.5Ghz chip. That'd
nearly buy the CPU's for an 8-way 1.6Ghz Opteron array.

Worst comes to worst, with its 107W TDP the Itanium3 will make a good
waterbed heater...

- a lot is happening in x86-land.

same circles, faster and faster.

=Heywood=
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system


"Eric Salathe" <esalathe@cascade.org> wrote in message news:e7d80033.0306301207.3f2bbb63@posting.google.com...

Jim Kroger:

It it hype or has apple blown away the x86 world?
Any pointers most appreciated.

For scientific applications, there are a number of interesting posts
to the Apple SciTech list. However, at this point, comparisons are for
code compiled on a G4 and run on a G5. So, one can only extrapolate to performance with G5 compilers. Altivec is also a big variable in the comparison, since Altivectorized code already "blew away the x86
world".

Real-world scalar performance is most certainly somewhere between the gcc-to-gcc comparison Apple did and the gcc-to-icc comparison taking
P4 numbers from SPEC.org. Since no one uses icc/ifc for scientific and technical computing on Intel/AMD, but rather gcc and Portland Group compilers, I tend to lean toward the Apple comparison as more
relevant.

Except Apple didn't use pgf90 on x86, but Nagware.

JCS


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system


"Heywood Mogroot" <imouttahere@mac.com> wrote in message news:dd5de929.0307010102.2c72b2e8@posting.google.com...

foo <foo@bar.com> wrote in message

news:<tqm1gvgkvh95he5qnli2opblsiv1v2m7ki@4ax.com>...

On 30 Jun 2003 17:47:21 -0700, imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot)
wrote:

Jim Kroger <jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> wrote in message

news:<jimkkREMOVEME-B165BC.20333629062003@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu>...

But it doesn't affect at all whether I should buy a G5 or a dual
Opteron. Or whatever they call it.

The dual opteron is going to be VERY comparable in performance, at >similar pricepoints, to the dual G5.

Too bad AMD can't get any traction with the OEMs who are in bed with >Intel (and the m/b manufacturers dependent on Intel chipsets)...

Erm...huh? You've already mentioned Asus, and I'm sure ABIT and
others will announce MBs eventually when the market presents itself.

For OEM's I was talking about Dell, Gateway etc.

Abit's SK8N with nVidia's nForce3 Pro chip was announced today.

http://www.amdzone.com/releaseview.cfm?ReleaseID=1112

There's excitement on Madison, too

given the twin turds Intel has laid on the market with Itanium, I
suppose third time's the charm.

$4200 is an... interesting... pricepoint for the 1.5Ghz chip. That'd
nearly buy the CPU's for an 8-way 1.6Ghz Opteron array.

Worst comes to worst, with its 107W TDP the Itanium3 will make a good waterbed heater...

- a lot is happening in x86-land.

same circles, faster and faster.

Apple spin getting to you?

JCS


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

"James Stutts" <stuttjc@knology.net> wrote in message news:vg4pdkll1tlc78@corp.supernews.com...

"Eric Salathe" <esalathe@cascade.org> wrote in message news:e7d80033.0306301207.3f2bbb63@posting.google.com...

Real-world scalar performance is most certainly somewhere between the gcc-to-gcc comparison Apple did and the gcc-to-icc comparison taking
P4 numbers from SPEC.org. Since no one uses icc/ifc for scientific and technical computing on Intel/AMD, but rather gcc and Portland Group compilers, I tend to lean toward the Apple comparison as more
relevant.

Except Apple didn't use pgf90 on x86, but Nagware.

absoft if also very popular (and available for windows, linux, and os x). i think the compiler complaints, at least for the fortran side, would have largely gone away if they had used something like absoft; it's well
respected, well known, and optimizes for the specific chips (athlon, p4, opteron, g4- including altivec). of course they would have had to get a
port to g5, but i'm sure that had apple asked, they would've done it (since they've already commited to a g5 port...)


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"ed" <news@no-atwistedweb-spam.com> wrote in message news:3vuMa.68$ZQ2.15@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com...

"James Stutts" <stuttjc@knology.net> wrote in message news:vg4pdkll1tlc78@corp.supernews.com...

"Eric Salathe" <esalathe@cascade.org> wrote in message news:e7d80033.0306301207.3f2bbb63@posting.google.com...

Real-world scalar performance is most certainly somewhere between the gcc-to-gcc comparison Apple did and the gcc-to-icc comparison taking
P4 numbers from SPEC.org. Since no one uses icc/ifc for scientific and technical computing on Intel/AMD, but rather gcc and Portland Group compilers, I tend to lean toward the Apple comparison as more
relevant.

Except Apple didn't use pgf90 on x86, but Nagware.

absoft if also very popular (and available for windows, linux, and os x).

i

That would've been a better fit then two different versions of gcc, but even then-
there's no such thing as an actual cross-platform compiler.

think the compiler complaints, at least for the fortran side, would have largely gone away if they had used something like absoft; it's well respected, well known, and optimizes for the specific chips (athlon, p4, opteron, g4- including altivec). of course they would have had to get a
port to g5, but i'm sure that had apple asked, they would've done it

(since

they've already commited to a g5 port...)

Based on their previous benchmark shenanigans, it is quite easy to see what they
were about.

JCS


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

"ed" <news@no-atwistedweb-spam.com> wrote :

as it stands, who the hell knows anything
about nagware? who the heck uses the thing? i've never even heard of it, and we actually still use fortran quite a bit. =)

I actually use it as the primary compiler on my Mac. The Univ of
Washington has a site license, so I suspect there are quite a few
others using it -- linux and most Unix platforms are supported. NAG
f95 actually translates into very low-level c and then uses the local
c compiler, so for Apple's testing protocol, using NAG actually was
the right choice (whether Apple's protocol is reasonable is outside my
domain of giving a darn).

I have not been able to do a good comparison of fortran compilers on
the Mac, since I do not have the Absoft compiler. I sent some code to
somone with Absoft installed on a 550 MHz PowerBook and compared it to
the same code compiled with NAG runnng on my 800 MHz PowerBook.

Beware: This is pretty sketchy benchmarking! For entertainment
purposes only!

The results were (smaller is better):

System MHz compliler time time*MHz/100 ------------------------------------------------------------
Powerbook 550 g77 -O3 120 660
Powerbook 800 g77 -O3 83 664

Powerbook 550 f90 -O (Absoft) 129 710
Powerbook 800 f95 -O (NAG) 84 672

Powerbook 800 f95 -O3 (NAG) 78 624

As you can see from the first two lines, g77 performance scales with
processor speed. So comparing time*MHz is reasonable for this code on
these two powerbooks.

1) NAG appears to outperform Absoft for this particular code with -O2 optimization (-O==-O2 for NAG).

2) Since NAG allows -O3 optimization, but Absoft aparently does not, I
got significantly better performance from NAG with full optimization.

3) Absoft is about comparable to g77, maybe not quite as fast even.

4) NAG significantly outperforms g77 even tho it uses gcc.

g77 is free, but pretty useless for modern code. NAG is fairly cheap
and fast, but includes no extras. Absoft appears to buy little or
nothing in terms of performance, but includes a lot of good tools,
some of which may end up yielding faster computations in the end.

For kicks and grins, same code on two additional platforms:

AthlonMP 1200 ifc -O3 67 804
Alpha 618 f90 -O3 (digital) 44 273

The AthlonMP, dual cpu, cost $1000 in parts off the web (not counting
the salary of the guy who built it and 36 others like it).

-Eric
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system


"Eric Salathe" <esalathe@cascade.org> wrote in message news:e7d80033.0307021249.58f049c6@posting.google.com...

"ed" <news@no-atwistedweb-spam.com> wrote :

as it stands, who the hell knows anything
about nagware? who the heck uses the thing? i've never even heard of

it,

and we actually still use fortran quite a bit. =)

I actually use it as the primary compiler on my Mac. The Univ of
Washington has a site license, so I suspect there are quite a few
others using it -- linux and most Unix platforms are supported. NAG

Most UNIX platforms would use the system compiler. The Forte suite for Sun, Mipspro for SGI and so on. I have never encountered Nagware in an academic
or professional setting. I have encountered Absoft.

JCS


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

"Eric Salathe" <esalathe@cascade.org> wrote in message news:e7d80033.0307021249.58f049c6@posting.google.com...

"ed" <news@no-atwistedweb-spam.com> wrote :

as it stands, who the hell knows anything
about nagware? who the heck uses the thing? i've never even heard of

it,

and we actually still use fortran quite a bit. =)

I actually use it as the primary compiler on my Mac. The Univ of
Washington has a site license, so I suspect there are quite a few
others using it -- linux and most Unix platforms are supported. NAG
f95 actually translates into very low-level c and then uses the local
c compiler, so for Apple's testing protocol, using NAG actually was
the right choice (whether Apple's protocol is reasonable is outside my
domain of giving a darn).

I have not been able to do a good comparison of fortran compilers on
the Mac, since I do not have the Absoft compiler. I sent some code to
somone with Absoft installed on a 550 MHz PowerBook and compared it to
the same code compiled with NAG runnng on my 800 MHz PowerBook.

Beware: This is pretty sketchy benchmarking! For entertainment
purposes only!

The results were (smaller is better):

System MHz compliler time time*MHz/100 ------------------------------------------------------------
Powerbook 550 g77 -O3 120 660
Powerbook 800 g77 -O3 83 664

Powerbook 550 f90 -O (Absoft) 129 710
Powerbook 800 f95 -O (NAG) 84 672

Powerbook 800 f95 -O3 (NAG) 78 624

As you can see from the first two lines, g77 performance scales with processor speed. So comparing time*MHz is reasonable for this code on
these two powerbooks.

1) NAG appears to outperform Absoft for this particular code with -O2 optimization (-O==-O2 for NAG).

2) Since NAG allows -O3 optimization, but Absoft aparently does not, I
got significantly better performance from NAG with full optimization.

3) Absoft is about comparable to g77, maybe not quite as fast even.

4) NAG significantly outperforms g77 even tho it uses gcc.

g77 is free, but pretty useless for modern code. NAG is fairly cheap
and fast, but includes no extras. Absoft appears to buy little or
nothing in terms of performance, but includes a lot of good tools,
some of which may end up yielding faster computations in the end.

For kicks and grins, same code on two additional platforms:

AthlonMP 1200 ifc -O3 67 804
Alpha 618 f90 -O3 (digital) 44 273

The AthlonMP, dual cpu, cost $1000 in parts off the web (not counting
the salary of the guy who built it and 36 others like it).

cool, good info. like you said, sketchy, but good info. =)

and for those who still think just because a compiler has the same name on different platforms, look at the differences in a compiler's (absoft)
inability to reliably compile the same code across platforms, nevermind assuming equal optimizations:
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/%7Eszymansk/OOF90/eval.html


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 23:20:31 -0400, Jim Kroger
<jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> wrote:

It it hype or has apple blown away the x86 world?

Any pointers most appreciated.

Thanks
Jim

http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <12e8gv45er1ub8d3mtfvgstdg40j8onj99@4ax.com>,
- ILUVJazz - <ILVJazz@NYOB.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 23:20:31 -0400, Jim Kroger
<jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> wrote:

It it hype or has apple blown away the x86 world?

Any pointers most appreciated.

Thanks
Jim

http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/

There is a lot of religion involved in this sort of stuff.
In addition, benchmarking is a complicated multi-headed
monster. The best benchmark is a comparison of the application
of interest on each platform coupled with a subjective
analysis of the importance of speed with other factors
such as stability and usability. Focusing on Spec can
be an exercise in irrelevance.

This website suggests that the DNA sequencing tests
are of little interest to many dekstop users. This is
true, but they are of great interest to the scientific
community and may scale well with other applications.
Applications on the Apple site that may be of greater
direct interest to users include Photoshop and a sound
application (Logic Platinum). But speed is but one
factor that may not be important to all users.

While the scalar code (integer and floating point) speed
of the G5 is clearly similar to that of p4 machines,
the big performance gain is still with code that can
be vectorized.

--
Daniel Packman
NCAR/ACD
pack@ucar.edu
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Me:

I actually use [NAG f95] as the primary compiler on my Mac. The Univ of Washington has a site license, so I suspect there are quite a few
others using it

James Stutts

I have never encountered Nagware in an academic
or professional setting. I have encountered Absoft.

Well, you just have. I believe NAG f95 is superior to Absoft on the
Mac, and it's significanly less expensive.

I know only one other person using it here (Univ WA), also on a Mac. I
know of no one using Absoft. Since several departments here and at
dozens of other universities <http://www.nag.com/Local/asli.asp> pay
$500 a year for a license presumably one might encounter other NAG
users if you looked harder. These are on systems other than the Mac,
since the Mac version was included in the license only recently.

Most [users on] UNIX platforms would use the system compiler

Certainly; for commercial Unix, the vendor's compiler should be
fastest. I think NAG has a presence there since it was first with f90
and offers very standard platform independence, due to its use of c
as an intermediary language.

-Eric
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system


"Eric Salathe" <esalathe@cascade.org> wrote in message news:e7d80033.0307031101.321b5ee8@posting.google.com...

Me:

I actually use [NAG f95] as the primary compiler on my Mac. The Univ

of

Washington has a site license, so I suspect there are quite a few
others using it

James Stutts

I have never encountered Nagware in an academic
or professional setting. I have encountered Absoft.

Well, you just have. I believe NAG f95 is superior to Absoft on the

No, I have not. This is not an academic or commercial setting. :)

Mac, and it's significanly less expensive.

I know only one other person using it here (Univ WA), also on a Mac. I
know of no one using Absoft. Since several departments here and at
dozens of other universities <http://www.nag.com/Local/asli.asp> pay
$500 a year for a license presumably one might encounter other NAG
users if you looked harder. These are on systems other than the Mac,
since the Mac version was included in the license only recently.

Well, we didn't use them in college. We use Portland, CVF, and Absoft at
work - mostly
CVF. I have never seen a NAG product outside of a math library in any professional
setting. Now, that's anecdotal, but so is your's. NAG is also quite a bit more expensive for us.

Most [users on] UNIX platforms would use the system compiler

Certainly; for commercial Unix, the vendor's compiler should be
fastest. I think NAG has a presence there since it was first with f90
and offers very standard platform independence, due to its use of c
as an intermediary language.

Which, as a Fortran user, bothers me. A glorified f2c? <shudder>

JCS


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

To comp.os.linux, comp.sys.mac.advocacy and comp.sys.mac.system
subscribers,

From: Jim Kroger <jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu>,

From: - ILUVJazz - <ILVJazz@NYOB.com>,

Is it hype or has apple blown away the x86 world?

Any pointers most appreciated.

Thanks
Jim

http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/

The information on the above page is both misleading and inaccurate. It
has been debunked many times, in this forum, in other forums, and by
Apple and VeriTest.

The reasons for the benchmark discrepancies are already known: GCC was
used on both platforms, even though it does not produce the most
efficient code on either, and the PowerMac used a less-efficient but better-performing malloc library.

Other claims on the page, that HyperThreading being disabled decreased
test performance, that compilations were done on the Dell workstation
with optimisations disabled, and that Apple is engaging in misleading
pricing, have already been exposed as blatently dishonest.

Criticisms across the internet have referenced the above article as
evidence in an unprecendented fashion. Some of the articles linked to
from the above page link back _to_ it. A minority of sites that have
published information from the above source have actually displayed impartiality, whereas a majority of them have wilfully ignored
information from multiple other sources contradicting what is on the
above page, including the vendor.

And of course, this is rounded off by the brazen audacity in claiming
that spl of haxial.net is the only voice for truth out of a chorus of misguided, zealous believers. It occured to these news sources to
validate the claims of an independant, established benchmarking company
on the basis that they were paid by Apple (it's not like they were
going to do it for free, after all), but the same scrutiny was not paid
to the counter-claims of an anonymous individual on the internet.

Draw your own conclusions.

digitaleon.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

pack@eos.ucar.edu (Daniel Packman) wrote in message news:<be1j8c$mdl$1@news.ucar.edu>...

While the scalar code (integer and floating point) speed
of the G5 is clearly similar to that of p4 machines,
the big performance gain is still with code that can
be vectorized.

And broken into multiple worksets for parallel processing.

P4 has its "hyperthreading". Dual G5's, with the supporting memory
controller, are the real thing.

Complicating these comparisons is AMD's Opteron platform, which
appears to offer competitive bang-for-the-buck in multiprocessing
applications.

One thing's for sure, the coming year is going to be a good year for
the high-end PC/workstation user... 3-way competition!

=Heywood=
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 19:23:52 GMT, Michael Doster
<michael.doster@verizon.net> wrote:

in article 33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com, Josiah Fizer at >jfizer@classy.com wrote on 7/4/03 2:50 PM:

On 4 Jul 2003 11:46:50 -0700, imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot)
wrote:

pack@eos.ucar.edu (Daniel Packman) wrote in message
news:<be1j8c$mdl$1@news.ucar.edu>...

While the scalar code (integer and floating point) speed
of the G5 is clearly similar to that of p4 machines,
the big performance gain is still with code that can
be vectorized.

And broken into multiple worksets for parallel processing.

P4 has its "hyperthreading". Dual G5's, with the supporting memory
controller, are the real thing.

Complicating these comparisons is AMD's Opteron platform, which
appears to offer competitive bang-for-the-buck in multiprocessing
applications.

One thing's for sure, the coming year is going to be a good year for
the high-end PC/workstation user... 3-way competition!

=Heywood=

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.


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1. You know you're sharing your Sun dualie and the eight-headed beast with >everyone and their mother who happens to be on the same LAN and have access >to all your lovely CPUs?

That would be myself and I for the single and dual and myself and the
end users for the 4 way systems. I'm still setting up the 8 CPU system
I administrate for the dev team to test on.

And

2. Exactly how fast are the CPUs on yours, the two CPU Suns I deal with
daily use 360 MHz Ultra SPARC II and our two 8-headed beasts have 400 MHz >Ultra SPARC II?

Michael

The quads are e450s with four 450mhz UltraSparc II CPUs with 4 megs of
cache per CPU. The eight way system is a Sun Fire 3800 with eight
900mhz (?) UltraSparc III CPUs and 16GB of RAM, not sure of the cache.

My home systems are a dual 400mhz Ultra60 and a single CPU CompactPCI
server running at 333mhz. Despite the low speed, these systems take a
much higher load then the PC and Macintosh boxes I use. On a single
task yes the PC or Mac is faster, however under heavy work loads the
Suns just keep on chugging away while the Intel and Apple boxes grind
to a halt. Different tools for different tasks, overall I like the
Suns better.


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple
talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150
has been out for some two years.

KeS

(Will enjoy seeing an Opteron/Sun/G5 comparison in September, should be interesting.)
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 12:58:13 -0700, Kevin Stevens
<Kevin_Stevens@Hotmail.com> wrote:

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple
talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150
has been out for some two years.

KeS

(Will enjoy seeing an Opteron/Sun/G5 comparison in September, should be >interesting.)

Blade 1000 Dual = ~8000$
Blade 150 = ~1200$

Suns have been 64bit since the Ultrasparc series.


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

If I could just run Painter, DeepPaint and PhotoShop on there ...
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

seebs@plethora.net (Seebs) wrote in message news:<3eff1a53$0$1097$3c090ad1@news.plethora.net>...

In article <flippo-E843C3.06313729062003@news.central.cox.net>,
flip <flippo@mac.com> wrote:

That is, unless you're willing to believe the Presidents of Adobe, >Wolfram, Luxology, and several other apps who presided over side-by-side >tests where the G5 kicked a P4's butt halfway to the moon.

Wolfram I would believe. Adobe? You must be kidding me; believing something because Adobe said it would be just plain stupid.

-s

Steve Jobs owns 90% of Adobe.

An independant "third party" would be more believable.

However, Apple design both the hardware and software - and so are in a
unique position to OPTIMISE their systems.

Charles Douglas Wehner
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <e349085c.0307260933.168d6354@posting.google.com>,
charleswehner@hotmail.com (Charles Douglas Wehner) wrote:

seebs@plethora.net (Seebs) wrote in message news:<3eff1a53$0$1097$3c090ad1@news.plethora.net>...

In article <flippo-E843C3.06313729062003@news.central.cox.net>,
flip <flippo@mac.com> wrote:

That is, unless you're willing to believe the Presidents of Adobe, >Wolfram, Luxology, and several other apps who presided over side-by-side >tests where the G5 kicked a P4's butt halfway to the moon.

Wolfram I would believe. Adobe? You must be kidding me; believing something because Adobe said it would be just plain stupid.

Steve Jobs owns 90% of Adobe.

This will come as a suprise to Adobe.
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <ts2ht-va32.ln1@pursued-with.net>,
Kevin Stevens <Kevin_Stevens@Hotmail.com> wrote:

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple
talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150
has been out for some two years.

KeS

I'm a personal computer user and have never heard of the Blade 100/150.
Could you tell more about it please? What's the price?
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 21:15:03 GMT, <lower@slobovvia.com> wrote:

In article <ts2ht-va32.ln1@pursued-with.net>,
Kevin Stevens <Kevin_Stevens@Hotmail.com> wrote:

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple
talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150
has been out for some two years.

KeS

I'm a personal computer user and have never heard of the Blade 100/150. >Could you tell more about it please? What's the price?

The Blade 100 when it was introduced (not sure you can still get it
from Sun) cost 900$ and was a 500mhz UltraSparc IIi based system. Very
nice little case etc. Go check out Suns web page for the current
systems such as the Blade 150.


----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <mjnbgv09p9d6vuglgvnod1c8au9h4mr39f@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 12:58:13 -0700, Kevin Stevens
<Kevin_Stevens@Hotmail.com> wrote:

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple >talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150
has been out for some two years.

KeS

(Will enjoy seeing an Opteron/Sun/G5 comparison in September, should be >interesting.)

Blade 1000 Dual = ~8000$
Blade 150 = ~1200$

Suns have been 64bit since the Ultrasparc series.

64 bit workstations, not PCs.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade150/
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <flippo-63349A.07070705072003@news.central.cox.net>,
flip <flippo@mac.com> wrote:

In article <ts2ht-va32.ln1@pursued-with.net>,
Kevin Stevens <Kevin_Stevens@Hotmail.com> wrote:

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150
has been out for some two years.

Which happens to be a workstation, not a PC.

That is, unless you're going to join Stutts and Foo in pretending that
you know more about Sun's computers than Sun does.

You mean to tell me that we are not compairing a personal computer?
Then what is he talking about comparing a workstation to a Apple 64 bit computer? It sounds like some more NG BS.
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <lower-BD83F6.08010105072003@zeus-ge0.rdc-kc.rr.com>,
<lower@slobovvia.com> wrote:

In article <flippo-63349A.07070705072003@news.central.cox.net>,
flip <flippo@mac.com> wrote:

In article <ts2ht-va32.ln1@pursued-with.net>,
Kevin Stevens <Kevin_Stevens@Hotmail.com> wrote:

In article <33jbgv8451jjl9umn0c47peprnmlv10sjq@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Go price a Blade 2000 and you'll see. Though it's funny to hear Apple talk about the "first 64-bit personal computer" when the Blade 100/150 has been out for some two years.

Which happens to be a workstation, not a PC.

That is, unless you're going to join Stutts and Foo in pretending that
you know more about Sun's computers than Sun does.

You mean to tell me that we are not compairing a personal computer?
Then what is he talking about comparing a workstation to a Apple 64 bit computer? It sounds like some more NG BS.

Sun calls their Sun Blade a workstation, not a PC.
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <slrnbgdms0.qjh.matt@audrey.boggle.org>,
Matt McLeod <matt@boggle.org> wrote:

In <flippo-FD8FA3.07082405072003@news.central.cox.net>, flip wrote:

In article <mjnbgv09p9d6vuglgvnod1c8au9h4mr39f@4ax.com>,
Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

Blade 1000 Dual = ~8000$
Blade 150 = ~1200$

Suns have been 64bit since the Ultrasparc series.

64 bit workstations, not PCs.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade150/

It's not a very useful differentiation, particularly so at the lower
end (i.e., the Blade 150) where it is effectively a PC with a CPU
that is neither x86 nor PPC compatible.

"Workstation" these days is a term for the marketing people.

Which is exactly what's relevant to Apple's marketing claim.
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Steve Lidie <lusol@cube0.CC.Lehigh.EDU> writes:

Now, now, Sun has never been a player in the multi-CPU, high
performance computing market - their CPUs are too slow and don't
scale. They can't touch, for instance, an SGI system with hundreds
of CPUs, gobs of memory bandwidth, etcetera ...

SGI top-of-the-line Origin 3900 can have 128 CPUs per rack; the Sun
Fire 15K can have 106 CPUs per rack. Wow, big difference. The 3900 can
have 256GB of RAM per rack, the 15K can have 576GB.

Though, to be fair, SGI has "NUMAflex" (or whatever) where these
numbers supposedly can be increased for each "image": the website
says 512 CPUs, and 1TB of RAM.

Saying that Sun's CPUs don't scale is a bit much; I don't think there
are theoretical issues with more CPUs on a Sun, just that no one is
really asking for more (at least, not asking Sun).

(I'm assuming that the Origin 3900 runs IRIX.)

--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot) wrote in message news:<dd5de929.0307041046.488feee@posting.google.com>...

pack@eos.ucar.edu (Daniel Packman) wrote in message news:<be1j8c$mdl$1@news.ucar.edu>...

While the scalar code (integer and floating point) speed
of the G5 is clearly similar to that of p4 machines,
the big performance gain is still with code that can
be vectorized.

And broken into multiple worksets for parallel processing.

P4 has its "hyperthreading". Dual G5's, with the supporting memory controller, are the real thing.

Complicating these comparisons is AMD's Opteron platform, which
appears to offer competitive bang-for-the-buck in multiprocessing applications.

One thing's for sure, the coming year is going to be a good year for
the high-end PC/workstation user... 3-way competition!

=Heywood=

I don't know what vectorization is. My interest is in being able to
run (multiple copies of) matlab as fast as possible. I know it does
not use multiple processors, but I can run multiple matlabs, which
helps.

Does Matlab take advantage of vectorization?

Thanks
Jim
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Steve Lidie <lusol@cube0.CC.Lehigh.EDU> wrote in message news:<be5bc8$hm2@fidoii.CC.Lehigh.EDU>...

In comp.sys.mac.system Josiah Fizer <jfizer@classy.com> wrote:

On 4 Jul 2003 11:46:50 -0700, imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot)
wrote:

pack@eos.ucar.edu (Daniel Packman) wrote in message news:<be1j8c$mdl$1@news.ucar.edu>...

While the scalar code (integer and floating point) speed
of the G5 is clearly similar to that of p4 machines,
the big performance gain is still with code that can
be vectorized.

And broken into multiple worksets for parallel processing.

P4 has its "hyperthreading". Dual G5's, with the supporting memory >>controller, are the real thing.

Complicating these comparisons is AMD's Opteron platform, which
appears to offer competitive bang-for-the-buck in multiprocessing >>applications.

One thing's for sure, the coming year is going to be a good year for
the high-end PC/workstation user... 3-way competition!

=Heywood=

And I'll keep working away on my dual, quad and eight way CPU Sun
systems and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Now, now, Sun has never been a player in the multi-CPU, high
performance computing market - their CPUs are too slow and don't
scale. They can't touch, for instance, an SGI system with hundreds of
CPUs, gobs of memory bandwidth, etcetera ...

Steve

I used a 24 cpu SGI at Princeton. Nothing we ever did could keep more
than one cpu busy, which would get the work done slower than a G3.
Course the prof still got to brag about his super computer that cost
in the upper six figures.
Jim
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

imouttahere@mac.com (Heywood Mogroot) wrote in news:dd5de929.0307041046.488feee@posting.google.com:

One thing's for sure, the coming year is going to be a good year for
the high-end PC/workstation user... 3-way competition!

"If your computer had eyes, you'd look like a statue."
--Unknown
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <12e8gv45er1ub8d3mtfvgstdg40j8onj99@4ax.com>, - ILUVJazz - <ILVJazz@NYOB.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 23:20:31 -0400, Jim Kroger
<jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> wrote:

It it hype or has apple blown away the x86 world?

Any pointers most appreciated.

http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/

Many of the points this guy made have since been discredited, IMO.

He views $1999 as a "misleading" price. (good grief!)

His attacks on Apple's and (particularly) Veritest's integrity are
unjustified and unreasonable.

He seems to _completely_ accept the (IMHO dubious) concept that:

Highest SPEC score === Fastest computer (always, period)

(Treating SPEC numbers as _the_ single defining metric, rather than
one measure among many)

One question this gentleman never stops to ask is:

Do *other* applications on the Intel platform see the radical
improvement in performance that SPEC sees when compiled using
the Intel compiler instead of gcc?

My understanding is that they do *not*.

Intel appears to have added specific optimizations in their compiler to maximize its score on the SPEC benchmark. This is common practice these
days, and is done to varying degrees by all vendors offering a compiler proprietary to their hardware. Tweaking your compiler to get better
benchmark scores is a good move marketing-wise, though it makes the
value of the benchmark itself as a useful comparison tool a bit more questionable. And at this point in time, SPEC is the one to tweak for.

Using gcc instead of the Intel compiler was a reasonable decision, IMHO.

I neither know nor care enough about compiler options and BIOS settings
to make an informed judgement on those issues, but given his general
ranting and hair-splitting mode, I certainly won't take _his_ word
for 'em.

Finally, it is quite clear that for just about any task you throw at it,
a dual G5 will be at worst a few percent slower, and for a few things
2-3 times faster (see the BLAST results) than the fastest dual Xeon
systems today.

Application performance is what matters (to anyone who uses a computer
as a tool, rather than an ego-stroking device), not SPEC results. I
don't know how anyone who watched the keynote demos could not come
away with a least a kernel of doubt about the usefulness of SPEC in the
face of _large_ performance gaps for apps like Mathematica and
Photoshop. For customers looking to buy a machine for running _those_
apps, it is pretty clear that SPEC is an almost useless predictor
of application speed when comparing different platforms. And that the
G5's are indeed _fast_.

Either a dual Xeon or a dual G5 is *way* faster than anything that you
could get in a PC-priced system two years ago. Given the replacement
lifecycles for most desktop users, it is a very small percentage of
people who have the "fastest" PC on their desks at any given time.
And a claim of "fastest" only has a "shelf life" of 3 months or so
anyway, in a fast-paced market like this.

The obsessing over Apple's claim to have the fastest PC is simply
juvenile - no one machine is "fastest" for all applications, and
Apple provided a lot more solid justification and documentation
for their _marketing_ claim than others have done.

This guy's 15 minutes of fame are just about up.

And I fully expect that when people start running real applications
on these systems, that the relative performance characteristics will
be closer to what the application demos showed than whatever SPEC
might claim.

I can't wait.

--
Jim Glidewell
My opinions only
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <6dcb1c5e.0307062144.7e17b67@posting.google.com>,
kroger@princeton.edu (Jim Kroger) wrote:

I don't know what vectorization is. My interest is in being able to
run (multiple copies of) matlab as fast as possible. I know it does
not use multiple processors, but I can run multiple matlabs, which
helps.

Does Matlab take advantage of vectorization?

Thanks
Jim

How does matlab compare to Mathematica? If they are similar enough
then the Mathematica demo might be relevant to your expectations
for a G5 running matlab. In that case, I believe the keynote
demo showed Mathematica running 2x the speed of a 3GHz Pentium/Xeon.
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <3f2a3a45$1@news.unimelb.edu.au>,
"Vladimir Grubor" <vladimirgrubor<nospam>@hotmail.com> wrote:

You are right, I stand corrected. I was under the impression that since it
is a derivative of Power4, which is true 64bit processor, it must run 32 bit apps in emulation mode, like Itanium?

There's no emulation mode. On the Itanium there's essentially an
x86 intepreter built-in. The original specification for the PowerPC
ISA "requires" both 32/64 bit. Though, now that you mention, I wonder
what the processor does when it is in 32b mode and a 64b instruction
comes in?

There is apparently a bit of glue code (called the bridge) that
tells the processor if an executable is 32b or 64b. But the processor
runs full speed either way.

Cheers,

Vlad

P.S. It might be superior, however, for intense computation (i.e. clusters, it is still cheaper to get a bunch of P4s and cluster them than a bunch of PowerPC970s. That is why I prefer PowerPC970 for desktop, but for intense calculations, cheaper to get P4.
Do you agree with this?

That's a very reasonable attitude. What I'm waiting for are the IBM
PPC970 blades. I'd like to see their cost and their performance.

When the 970-based XServes come out you may want to take a look at
them. While "only" competitive with x86 compute farms they do have
some extremely nice management features built-in.
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

kroger@princeton.edu (Jim Kroger) wrote:

Does Matlab take advantage of vectorization?

This is a good question and should probably be addressed to Mathworks;
I have not seen a definitive statement anywhere. It is likely that
they use LAPACK to perform matrix operations, in which case it is
likely that they link to veclib, Apple's Altivec implementation of
lapack. In that case, many matrix operations would be vectorized and
would run exceedingly fast.

However, it is unlikely that this is a major consideration. While
operations that are efficiently vectorizable will run faster on the
G4/G5 than anything out there by a considerable margin, such
performance gains are far from universal -- especially in the
mish-mash of Matlab code. If you really want speed, you need to
program in fortran or c.

Furthermore, given that the G5's scalar performance (ie without
Altivec) is equivalent to other similarly priced desktop systems,
processor performance is not particularly interesting or relevant to
selecting a computer.

-Eric
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <6dcb1c5e.0307062151.55ac9b3e@posting.google.com>,
Jim Kroger <kroger@princeton.edu> wrote:
....

I used a 24 cpu SGI at Princeton. Nothing we ever did could keep more
than one cpu busy, which would get the work done slower than a G3.
Course the prof still got to brag about his super computer that cost
in the upper six figures.

This is contrary to our experience. We are regularly able to
get over 95% utilization of all 32 processors in our O3900
machine. We have found IRIX to be the easiest platform to achieve
parallelism in our code. The autoparalleling system works well.




--
Daniel Packman
NCAR/ACD
pack@ucar.edu
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In comp.sys.mac.system Daniel Packman <pack@eos.ucar.edu> wrote:

In article <6dcb1c5e.0307062151.55ac9b3e@posting.google.com>,
Jim Kroger <kroger@princeton.edu> wrote:
....

I used a 24 cpu SGI at Princeton. Nothing we ever did could keep more
than one cpu busy, which would get the work done slower than a G3.
Course the prof still got to brag about his super computer that cost
in the upper six figures.

This is contrary to our experience. We are regularly able to
get over 95% utilization of all 32 processors in our O3900
machine. We have found IRIX to be the easiest platform to achieve
parallelism in our code. The autoparalleling system works well.

Agreed. Our Origin 3800 w/32 CPUs is 100% busy around the clock, we can't
find enough cycles for everyone ...
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <6dcb1c5e.0307062151.55ac9b3e@posting.google.com>, kroger@princeton.edu (Jim Kroger) wrote:

Steve Lidie <lusol@cube0.CC.Lehigh.EDU> wrote in message news:<be5bc8$hm2@fidoii.CC.Lehigh.EDU>...

Now, now, Sun has never been a player in the multi-CPU, high
performance computing market - their CPUs are too slow and don't
scale. They can't touch, for instance, an SGI system with hundreds of CPUs, gobs of memory bandwidth, etcetera ...

I used a 24 cpu SGI at Princeton. Nothing we ever did could keep more
than one cpu busy, which would get the work done slower than a G3.

Simply because you personally never used an application that scales
well on a SGI Origin is by no means evidence that such beasts do
not exist.

I help administer a 384 CPU Origin 3800. The bulk of the system is being
used for jobs which range from 64 - 128 CPUs, each averaging over 95%
CPU utilization. According to the users of this particular CFD application,
it scales very nearly linearly up well past 128 CPUs.

While their CPU speeds lag slightly behind the latest and greatest
Intel and/or IBM chips, the ability to run a single copy of the OS,
on a system with 384 CPUs and a single shared 384GB memory space,
provides the ability to get very good performance on a wide variety
of parallel codes.

Which, after many years of promises, have finally begun to arrive.

I personally would love to see a G5-based system using SGI's ccNUMA
shared memory architecture...

Cos' I'm still a vector kind of guy... :-)

Course the prof still got to brag about his super computer that cost
in the upper six figures.

Commercial sites don't buy supercomputers for bragging rights.

--
Jim Glidewell
My opinions only
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113