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Date:      Tue, 06 Mar 2001 07:46:37 -0500
From:      Michael Sinz <msinz@wgate.com>
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Machines are getting too damn fast
Message-ID:  <3AA4DC2D.F72208C7@wgate.com>
References:  <bulk.40201.20010305175418@hub.freebsd.org>

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Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com> wrote:
> Subject: Re: Machines are getting too damn fast
> 
> :throughput.  For example, on the PIII-850 (116MHz FSB and SDRAM, its
> :overclocked) here on my desk with 256KB L2 cache:
> :
> :dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=512k count=4000
> :4000+0 records in
> :4000+0 records out
> :2097152000 bytes transferred in 8.229456 secs (254834825 bytes/sec)
> :
> :dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=128k count=16000
> :16000+0 records in
> :16000+0 records out
> :2097152000 bytes transferred in 1.204001 secs (1741819224 bytes/sec)
> :
> :Now THAT is a significant difference.  :-)
> 
>     Interesting.  I get very different results with the 1.3 GHz P4.  The
>     best I seem to get is 1.4 GBytes/sec.  I'm not sure what the L2 cache
>     is on the box, but it's definitely a consumer model.
> 
>     dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=512k count=4000
>     2097152000 bytes transferred in 2.363903 secs (887156520 bytes/sec)
> 
>     dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=128k count=16000
>     2097152000 bytes transferred in 1.471046 secs (1425619621 bytes/sec)
> 
>     If I use lower block sizes the syscall overhead blows up the
>     performance (it gets lower rather then higher).  So I figure I don't
>     have as much L2 as on your system.

The P4 has other issues when you don't do straight line code.
Any branch mis-predictions cost a minimum of 20 cycles due to the
pipeline plus whatever cache/fetch/decode hits you may get on the
actual target.  This may be why you get lower values than a PIII or
Athelon.  (Both have significantly lower penalty for branch mis-prediction)

-- 
Michael Sinz ---- Worldgate Communications ---- msinz@wgate.com
A master's secrets are only as good as
	the master's ability to explain them to others.

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