NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/arch/10779

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-15 | 1.8 KB

Xref: sparky comp.arch:10779 comp.benchmarks:1699
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!ira.uka.de!uka!i11s10!wolpers
From: [e-mail] (Andreas Wolpers)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.benchmarks
Subject: Lisp performance (on Sparc SS2, SS10-30, HP720)
Date: 16 Nov 1992 11:54:03 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 34
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: i11s10.ira.uka.de

Hello everybody,

I'm having a minor problem on which I would welcome any comments:
Since I'll have some money to spend real soon now, I've been pondering
whether we should switch from Sun to HP. The usual benchmark results
suggest that a change might result in faster execution of our pet
program, a large "theorem prover" written in Lisp.

From the SpecInt92 results, one should expect a performance increase
of about a factor of 2 when switching from a SS2 to either s SS10-30
or HP720. Unfortunately, on both machines turned out to but just
30% faster than a SS2 when running our system (for which ps NEVER
shows a resident set under 3-4 MB, not even on an 8MB machine).

Any explanations at hand? Did we encounter a bottleneck between
CPU and memory, or what? What performace should I expect from
a SS10-41 or SS10-52 (which have a larger cache, but still not
large enough to hold the Lisp's resident set. And if I'm not
mistaken, the large cache results in a longer time spent for
non-cache memory accesses (6 cycles instead of 3)). What
performace should I expect from a HP735?

I can buy enough memory so that disk speed is no criterion.
Should I wait for machines with 8MB of cache? Should I shoot myself?
Should I give YOU the money? :-)

Sigh,

Andreas
--
Andreas Wolpers
e-mail: [e-mail]
phone:  [phone]
fax:    [phone]