Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 20:15:44 -1000 (HST) From: Vincent Poy <vince@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET> To: Charles Burns <burnscharlesn@hotmail.com> Cc: <lplist@closedsrc.org>, <jgowdy@home.com>, <kris@obsecurity.org>, <mwlist@lanfear.com>, <freebsd@sysmach.com>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: the AMD factor in FreeBSD Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.31.0104182008040.4840-100000@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET> In-Reply-To: <F28CdLgT9jeEWWnHg4U00005ada@hotmail.com>
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On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, Charles Burns wrote: > > Jeremiah has a very good point on the price/performance ratio > >since the AMD wins a few times over the Intel's in terms of performance. > >I know this might be offtopic but I was looking at the distributed.net rc5 > >and the AMD does 3.5 keys/sec per Mhz on the Athlon while the Intel > >PII/PIII/Celeron's all do 3.3 keys/sec per Mhz but the PowerPC G4 does > >like 8.1 keys/sec per Mhz which seems to smoke the Intel/AMD platforms. > >Now, since Mac OSX is out which is based on FreeBSD even though their > >kernel is Mach based, would a G4 400 like the Cube be more powerful than a > >1Ghz AMD or Intel? > > The G4 is overall a superior processor to the Athlon, P3 and especially the > P4, but there are more factors than that to consider. Hmmm, what makes the G4 actually more superior? I know Apple always raves about the G4 as a supercomputer and that the G4-450 can do over 3 billion instructions per second, is there some kind of reference that shows what the equivelent is for the Intel/AMD side? > *If you will be using FreeBSD, you will probably be using GCC. GCC is much > more optimized for x86 processors than G4 processors. True since gcc atleast is what is used for the world builds. > *Many of the G4's PUs are optimized for efficiency rather than clockspeed. > This does make them faster at the same clockspeed, but many times clockspeed > ends up being more important. Quick example: The K6 processors have a VERY > good branch prediction unit--much better than even the Athlon's--BUT--they > were not designed with high clockspeeds in mind and were flaky at above > around 600MHz. The G4 also has a much shorter pipeline--same story. You're right about the K6 since the K6 I think has a faster core but it can't go above a certain clockspeed. I thought the only reason the G4 is faster tan the Athlon is because the Athlon doesn't have the 1 Meg L2 cache that's on the G4. > *FreeBSD is more mature on the x86 platform. I wasn't even aware of a port > to Mac. (If there is one--I am unsure) FreeBSD is only available on the x86 and Alpha platforms I think. I think Apple basically took the FreeBSD source tree and put it under Darwin which is Mach based. > *Distributed.net uses the FPU much more than the integer units. The G4's > advantages in its FPU performance are greater than its advantages in integer > performance. You won't get the same amazing results on most applications. Hmmm, so I guess even applications like Adobe PhotoShop uses the FPU more than the integer units as well since that's what Apple always uses to compare to the Intel/AMD platform. > If you want to go with a more exotic architecture, go with an Alpha or > something. They are vastly superior in almost every way to the above > mentioned processors. They are a bit pricey though. That's true but where can you even find a Alpha machine these days and do they have any machines that are like compact in size? > Note that the AMD and Intel chips aren't slower because of incompetence. > They need to remain backwards-compatible with the 8086 instruction set and > some of its methods of doing things. The 8086 processor sucks. It's > architecture and design suck. They were never meant for general purpose > computing--more for operating dishwashers and the like. The fact that they > have advanced so far is a testament to the ingenuity of humanity--and to the > stubbornness. > Blame IBM. ;-) Hehe... I thought the AMD/Intel were both CISC while the PowerPC is RISC created by IBM/Motorola/Apple. I guess until the 486, the x86 architecture was no match for workstations. Cheers, Vince - vince@WURLDLINK.NET - Vice President ________ __ ____ Unix Networking Operations - FreeBSD-Real Unix for Free / / / / | / |[__ ] WurldLink Corporation / / / / | / | __] ] San Francisco - Honolulu - Hong Kong / / / / / |/ / | __] ] HongKong Stars/Gravis UltraSound Mailing Lists Admin /_/_/_/_/|___/|_|[____] Almighty1@IRC - oahu.DAL.NET Hawaii's DALnet IRC Network Server Admin To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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