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Date:      Wed, 13 Dec 2000 16:25:29 -0800
From:      Kent Stewart <kstewart@urx.com>
To:        Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
Cc:        jbiquez@icsmx.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: advice with old equipment.
Message-ID:  <3A381379.9F464204@urx.com>
References:  <14904.1150.593498.981432@guru.mired.org>

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Mike Meyer wrote:
> 
> Kent Stewart <kstewart@urx.com> types:
> > Jorge Biquez wrote:
> > >         1 Pentium PRO DOUBLE Processor 200 Mhz. 256 RAM.2 Disks of 4 GB each one.
> > >         1 Pentium II 350 Mhz. 128 RAM. 2 Disks of 4 GB each one.
> > > My question is. What would be your advice on which machine will perform
> > > better with FreeBSD? and Why?
> > Well, it depends on the P-II 350. If you have one with PC-100 memory,
> > it can out perform the dual machine by 50% because of the memory
> > bandwidth. The rule of 1.8 times the cpu speed for duals would have
> > the PPro only out performing a P-II 350 with PC-66 memory. If you need
> > parallel processes, then the dual machine can be faster but I can't
> > guess when.
> 
> Unless I've been misinformed, the PIIs internal cache is only half
> speed, wherease the PPro is full speed. So for memory access that are
> cache hits, the PPro will give you 200MHz speed, but the PII will only
> get 175MHz.

So, from a cache standpoint it would be an advantage with the PPro.
One of the effects I see with the Celeron and P-II & III's is that
Setiathome runs about 1.5 times faster on the non-Celeron cpu's
because of the memory. A Celeron is also a full-speed cache. I also
thought that the PPro's memory would only be PC-66. So the end
comparison could be all over the place depending on what you are
doing. A buildworld on the Celeron 433 is a little bit faster than a
buildworld on a Abit BX6 rev 2 with a P-II 400. The Abit board is
about 10% slower than a SuperMicro with the same speed cpu. Never have
figured that one out.

> 
> I've been told by reliable people that the PPro's benchmark at 190% of
> the speed of PIIs at same clockrate because of this. This implies that
> the cache hit rate is pretty high for the application in question,
> though.

I'll add this to my trivia database for benchmarking.

Kent

> 
> > I think a lot of people have webservers on older system. I think
> > either would be adequate unless your have a lot of cgi and then you
> > never have a fast enough cpu? The older one with 256MB does have an
> > advantage because when you start swapping. The effective memory speed
> > drops more than a factor of 2 or so. I usually tell people that it is
> > 10ns vs 10ms but that isn't always a realworld fact.
> 
> Yup - disk through put is the crucial issue for a web server that's
> not building most of it's pages on the fly. In that case, the system
> clock - not the cpu clock - is what will matter.
> 
>         <mike
> --
> Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>                      http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
> Independent WWW/Unix/FreeBSD consultant,        email for more information.
> 
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-- 
Kent Stewart
Richland, WA

mailto:kbstew99@hotmail.com
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