Very Computer

Here's my question:

Is there a performance difference between a 5, 10, or 20?  During a
recent exercise we conducted, that users were complaining about their
clients being too slow.  They asked to be upgraded to a Sparc 20 to
alleviate their woes.  Walking around doing a dmesg grep -i cpu, we
found that the 5's or 10's actually had a faster processor than the
20's.  Sometimes the RAM was higher on the 20's, sometimes not.   Is
there some sort of performance rating on different models published
somewhere?  Or is it dependent on the architecture of the box itself?
My suggestion was to walk around and pencil in an extra 0 on the case
so they'd think they had a higher model !  Customer service!!

If this is too vague, please let me know and I'll try to be as
specific as I can without compromising security.

Boz
(no certifications as of yet)

Each of the 5, 10, and 20 was offered with various models of processors.
Beware of simply comparing processors by MHz rating, since at least
three different families of processors are involved here (SuperSPARC
and/or hyperSPARC in the 10 and 20, MicroSPARC in the 5).

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Benchmarks of all these systems are at www.spec.org.  If one had to take a
broad swipe and compare performance on these systems, something like this
could be done:

10 < 5 < 20

Note that this is a _very_ broad swipe.  However, these machines are all old
and I certainly wouldn't spend any money on new Sparc 5 or 20 systems.  You're
money would be much better spent on something like an Ultra 5.  Newer
equipment, faster all around, 24 bit color and a 64 bit chip.

More expensive in the short term, but better in the long run, IMHO.

--

: Here's my question:

: Is there a performance difference between a 5, 10, or 20?  During a

Check out http://www.specbench.org/ for standard ratings on
Sun (other other) hardware.

-Jimmy

win there, too :-)

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"initiating.. 'getting the hell out of here' maneouver" - Lennier, babylon5

Let's take a look at the numbers.  Ignoring multiple cpu's as I don't think
that was part of the original question, one can look at Spec95:

                   INT95    FP95
Sparc 10/40         1.0      1.0
Sparc 10/40         1.13     1.38    (using newer compiler)

Sparc  5/110        1.59     1.99
Sparc  5/170        3.53     3.0

Sparc 20/71         3.11     3.1     (actually 75 Mhz).
Sparc 20/151        4.02     4.73

Which could be used to observe that, in a broad swipe,

10 < 5 < 20

when using Spec 95.

One could get faster 10's.  On Specint92, a 10/51 is 1.3 times faster than the
10/40.    Using this, one might conclude that that the 10/51 was comparable to
a 5/85 in performance.

I think it's interesting to note that the 5/170 is comparable to the fastest
SuperSparc based 20.  (There was rumors of a 90Mhz Sparc 20, but I don't think
it ever made it to market).

--

Boz

Quote:>One could get faster 10's.  On Specint92, a 10/51 is 1.3 times faster than the
>10/40.    Using this, one might conclude that that the 10/51 was comparable to
>a 5/85 in performance.

Quote:>I think it's interesting to note that the 5/170 is comparable to the fastest
>SuperSparc based 20.  (There was rumors of a 90Mhz Sparc 20, but I don't think
>it ever made it to market).

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions.  They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

Quote:> >I think it's interesting to note that the 5/170 is comparable to the fastest
> >SuperSparc based 20.  (There was rumors of a 90Mhz Sparc 20, but I don't think
> >it ever made it to market).

> No, there's only been a 85MHz module for the Sun4d servers.  It was too
> hot for the desktop.

They mostly support both Mbus (sun4m) and Xdbus (only with SuperCACHE, sun4d).
Some modules are Mbus only and teh HyperSPARC modules are Mbus only.

The difference between the sun4d and sun4m kernels isn't big; they share
the same MMU code.

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions.  They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.