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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!frankensun.altair.com!wlbr!news.cerf.net!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!netnews.nwnet.net!nwnet.net!not-for-mail From: aad@nwnet.net (Anthony D'Atri) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison) Date: 8 Jan 1996 10:21:34 -0800 Organization: NorthWestNet, Bellevue, WA Lines: 70 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <4crnbe$8a@olympus.nwnet.net> References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: aad@nwnet.net NNTP-Posting-Host: olympus.nwnet.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1826 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:1960 comp.unix.solaris:56543 comp.unix.aix:68127 >Method: I have compared the three different platforms on price using >specific manufacturers' system prices You used *LIST* prices? Unix-architecture machines are often sold at steep discounts. If the vendor, eg., Sun, won't give you the usual 20-40% discount off of list, then you can do at least as well by buying equivalent machines from somebody like Axil, Integrix, or Tatung. >SPEC benchmarks. I know that the SPEC benchmarks are not truly >indicative of the overall system performance, but from some of my >experience the CPU benchmarks do correlate with the performance of the >machine as a whole. I've recently read that some (many? most?) of the MS-DOS-architecture machines can't cache more than, say, 64M or 128M of memory, and that memory above that will be uncached. This is both amazing and scary. >many instance way more than twice) the horsepower per $. The >UltraSparcs seem to have better $/perf. ratios compared to the older >Super/Hyper Sun models, but not anywhere near the P6/200 machines. They're also 64-bit machines, which means that various software is going to be unstable on them for a while yet. Alphas have been out for several years, and people are still figuring out how to port things to them reliably. >Since SunOS is not supported by the new UltraSparcs Uh, yes it is. What do you think they run? MS-DOS? OS/360? CTSS? >then I may as well run Solaris on a P6/200 significantly cheaper. I've read several claims that SunOS on x86 machines is relatively hungrier and slower than other Unices on the same hardware. >All of the systems are configured with 64Megs of RAM, 4.3 gig Hds, some >graphics card (not very important for servers), and no monitors. ... >(1) Am I correct for the most part, or am I making some fatal mistakes? I can see a few: o You only consider SPARC machines from Sun. You might find that considering machines from Axil, Tatung, or Integrix would change the cost significantly. o You probably aren't considering discounts from Sun (and probabl IBM, too) o You're throwing in framebuffers that are almost certainly not comparable. For a network-services machine, you don't need *any* graphics device for a Sun, at least. The graphics hardware in Suns is generally a much different beast from the price-point cheap stuff in an MS-DOS-market machine. The latter rarely can usably support a million pixels, and probably don't offer the speed and acceleration that the Sun card probably does. As such, the Sun card is going going to cost more, especially list. I suggest pricing a configuration without a framebuffer to be more fair. I don't think you mentioned monitors, but if you're including a monitor with the Suns, then that's another mistake. MS-DOS machines seem to rarely be sold with decent monitors. I rarely see one as large as 17", and they're almost always spherical, and almost always can't handle even close to 1M pixels without flickering. I don't think Sun sells anything smaller than 17" now, and I believe that they only sell cylindrical Sonys doing at least 1152x900. Again, this is a different beast from an MS-DOS monitor, so's it's gonna cost more. You don't need one for a Sun, so don't price it in. o You're probably pricing the Sun and IBM machines with memory and disks OEM'd from Sun and IBM, respectively. Buying both elsewhere would probably save a good bit of $$. I'm not saying that the totals will necessarily change so dramatically as to be obviously in favor of the native-Unix platform, but if you're going to