Very Computer

[ Article crossposted from comp.sys.hp.hardware ]
[ Author was Marc Lefranc ]
[ Posted on 19 Jun 1995 16:29:27 GMT ]

According to HP specs, the new 715/100XC (the XC stands for extended
cache, I have been told) has better SPECint and SPECfp ratings than
the 735/99. Of course, the bigger cache helps, but I would like to
know if this will hold for most programs. Will a small program not
using much mermory also run faster on the 715 ? What are the strengths
and weaknesses of the two boxes ?

Any feedback is welcome.
Thank you very much in advance.
Marc.

--
________________________________________________________________________
| Marc Lefranc, Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne (URA CNRS 249) |
| Bat P5, UFR de Physique                                              |
| Universite des Sciences et Technologies de Lille                     |
| F-59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq CEDEX (FRANCE)                             |

|______________________________________________________________________|

--
________________________________________________________________________
| Marc Lefranc, Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne (URA CNRS 249) |
| Bat P5, UFR de Physique                                              |
| Universite des Sciences et Technologies de Lille                     |
| F-59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq CEDEX (FRANCE)                             |

|______________________________________________________________________|

I have never seen the point in the 735. We bought a pair of 715/80s for the
same price as a single 735/100. Guess which gives us more bang for our buck.
--
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your
mouth in a meeting with the users and prove it." (Ancient programming proverb)

NB: As I am a gibberring idiot any views expressed here are NOT the views

I've found that the 715/100 (not XC) and 735/99 perform about the same for most
compute intensive jobs (although the 735 seems a bit slower for heavy floating
point applications).  However, as you move to more disk I/O (either lots of
reads/writes or swapping/paging), the 735 and its FWD SCSI wins.

Of course, the 715 kicks it in the pricing category.

dillon

I wonder whether these performance figures were from the same release of the
compiler. The advances in the optomiser often make for big differences in the
quoted numbers.

--

Ken Green Computer Consultancy  
                  22 Matthews Chase, Binfield, Berkshire, RG42 4UR.  U.K.

Your mileage may vary.  If your only concern is SPECint/SPECfp, go
with the 715.  But we wanted to support multiple users (students) in
an Xterminal-laden environment, and went with the 735 and fast-wide
SCSI disks; their much higher I/O bandwidth gives an easily noticable
performance boost over the 715/100's we have when they swap or do
anything else involving the disk.
--
Stephen Walton, California State University, Northridge

We looked at both.  The 715 is cheaper, but we want to run a lot of
X-Terminals off it, and I believe it's limited to 250MB or memory.
The 735 is much more expandable (I forget how much).

I hate buying a computer that is max'ed out to start with.

*----------------------------------------------------------------*
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:  
: >According to HP specs, the new 715/100XC (the XC stands for extended
: >cache, I have been told) has better SPECint and SPECfp ratings than
: >the 735/99. Of course, the bigger cache helps, but I would like to
: >know if this will hold for most programs. Will a small program not
: >using much mermory also run faster on the 715 ? What are the strengths
: >and weaknesses of the two boxes ?
:  
: We looked at both.  The 715 is cheaper, but we want to run a lot of
: X-Terminals off it, and I believe it's limited to 250MB or memory.
: The 735 is much more expandable (I forget how much).

        400Mb
:  
: I hate buying a computer that is max'ed out to start with.
:  

        Me too - look at the new K series - the K400 can take 2Gb RAM
        and I heard a rumour that it is due to be doubled soon !

--
Alan Massey, Computer Systems Manager, Philips Semiconductors, Southampton, UK

Tel   : +44 (0)1703 316450                      Fax : +44 (0)1703 316305

Quote:>    Me too - look at the new K series - the K400 can take 2Gb RAM
>    and I heard a rumour that it is due to be doubled soon !

Will the chip set from the K,L series (7200) be available as a board swap
upgrade to the 735 machine, or has HP marked those boxes dead for
upgrades in the future?

Tony Burzio
AETC
San Diego, CA

: Will the chip set from the K,L series (7200) be available as a board
: swap upgrade to the 735 machine, or has HP marked those boxes dead
: for upgrades in the future?

I haven't heard of anything along those lines - board upgrade to 7200
for 735's. It is worthwhile to note that the chassis/bus used by the
735 has had four performance points during its lifetime (since
'91?), going from one to the next has been through board swaps:

        9000/720 (50 MHz) \ the "original" snakes workstations
        9000/730 (60 MHz) /

        9000/735/99
        9000/735/125

rick jones

My sales rep told me last fall that the 735 was a dead end, the only boxes
that would support future enhancements in the workstation line would be 712,
715, and J.  725, 735, and 755 would be discontinued.

--
Doug Siebert              || "Usenet is essentially Letters to the Editor
University of Iowa        ||  without the editor.  Editors don't appreciate

 > Me too - look at the new K series - the K400 can take 2Gb RAM
 > and I heard a rumour that it is due to be doubled soon !

Quote:>   Will the chip set from the K,L series (7200) be available as a board swap
>   upgrade to the 735 machine, or has HP marked those boxes dead for
>   upgrades in the future?

I spoke to an HP sales engineer and he said the 735/125 was the end
of the line and the 735 weren't going to be worth much for trade in.
No more upgrades for the 73X or 75X series, but the 715/100 and 725/?
boxes might get one more. Different chassis.

I assume the K series uses different memory, is that correct?

Dan (I speak for no organization) O'Connell

Seismotectonics Group, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Denver Federal Center, P.O. Box 25007 D-8330, Denver, CO 80225
"We do custom earthquakes (for food)"
                  or
"Just more roadkill on the information superhighway"

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                  /  \
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                          \/        \/

FIAT: Oozing rust from every pore, it disintegrated across the floor...
(Proud owner of auto-recyling FIAT)

With the PA7200, the maximum possible is 3.75GB, the physical address space
above this point is researved for the IO subsystem. The K & J series are
AFAIK ready to acept the PA8000 CPU when its ready. The PA8000 supports a
40bit physical address space, so going beyond the current memory level would
be easy. I doudt thats theres enough space in the K series box to allow you to
install 1TB of RAM though :-)

--

Ken Green Computer Consultancy  
                  22 Matthews Chase, Binfield, Berkshire, RG42 4UR.  U.K.

: >  Me too - look at the new K series - the K400 can take 2Gb RAM
: >  and I heard a rumour that it is due to be doubled soon !

: With the PA7200, the maximum possible is 3.75GB, the physical address space
: above this point is researved for the IO subsystem. The K & J series are
: AFAIK ready to acept the PA8000 CPU when its ready. The PA8000 supports a
: 40bit physical address space, so going beyond the current memory level would
: be easy. I doudt thats theres enough space in the K series box to allow you to
: install 1TB of RAM though :-)

        Judging by the other followups in this thread, it looks like I've
        started something by mentioning the K series. Maybe I should give
        a little more info and hopefully someone from the HP sales
        organisation can then take over - after all, I'm not really
        qualified to do their job for them.

        The K series (aka kittyhawk) are, strictly speaking, 800 series
        machines and as such don't have graphics heads. They come in 3 models
        as follows :

                K100    - 1 CPU, max 512Mb Ram, limited expandability
                K200    - 1-4 CPUs, max 1Gb Ram, limited expandability
                K400    - 1-4 CPUs, max 2Gb Ram, lots of expandability

        They all require HP-UX 10, at which OS revision the differences between
        700 series and 800 series are minimal, so it is feasible to use a
        K series machine, with X stations to provide the graphics, as one or
        more workstations.

        A K400 with 2GB Ram is currently priced roughly equivalent to 3.3 x
        HP735 with 400Mb Ram each (their maximum).

        There is a high-end workstation, the J series (aka skyhawk), which
        comes in a 1 or 2 cpu version, (not sure about the Ram, but I think
        512Mb is max - maybe 1 Gb). This is a 700 series machine and comes
        with a graphics head. It is expensive compared against the HP735.

                No guarantees about the accuracy of this info - but it is
        what I believe to be true.

--
Alan Massey, Computer Systems Manager, Philips Semiconductors, Southampton, UK

Tel   : +44 (0)1703 316450                      Fax : +44 (0)1703 316305

Quote:>    There is a high-end workstation, the J series (aka skyhawk), which
>    comes in a 1 or 2 cpu version, (not sure about the Ram, but I think
>    512Mb is max - maybe 1 Gb). This is a 700 series machine and comes
>    with a graphics head. It is expensive compared against the HP735.

Ahhh, now I know what that HP questionnaire meant when it asked, "Would
you be tempted to leave HP if we were not the best price-performance
choice in the marketplace?".  The answer is and will always be:  YES!!!
They aren't Microsoft, after all.  We have a choice! :-)

.. One really annoyed HP735 owner ...

Tony Burzio
AETC
San Diego, CA

.....
(Discussion about how much RAM you can stick in a K series box deleted)
.....
|>  
|>   A K400 with 2GB Ram is currently priced roughly equivalent to 3.3 x
|>   HP735 with 400Mb Ram each (their maximum).
|>  
|>   There is a high-end workstation, the J series (aka skyhawk), which
|>   comes in a 1 or 2 cpu version, (not sure about the Ram, but I think
|>   512Mb is max - maybe 1 Gb). This is a 700 series machine and comes
|>   with a graphics head. It is expensive compared against the HP735.
|>

Well according the the hp web pages (in a press release):
http://www.dmo.hp.com/csopress/95jun12a.html
The base price for the uni-processor J200 and J210 (with 32MB RAM
and 1gig disk) is $33,770 and $41,770.
My (admittedly outdated) 94/95 HP Direct catalog list entry level
735 prices at 30,395 and 39,495 for the 99 and 125Mhz models.
The configurations may be slightly different, and the prices on 735's have
most assuredly dropped since then but I still wouldn't call the J series machines "expensive" compared to the 735's.  
Oh, yeah. The J series boxes each hold 1Gb of Ram.
They ain't as cheap as the K-series but you can get the 120Mhz chip
and the nifty new graphics boards....

Amazing what you can find on the web
Sean Fox