*BSD News Article 90872


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From: dillon@flea.best.net (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.sys.sgi.misc
Subject: Re: no such thing as a "general user community"
Date: 12 Mar 1997 13:16:59 -0800
Organization: BEST Internet Communications, Inc.
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Message-ID: <5g76gb$6c6@flea.best.net>
References: <331BB7DD.28EC@net5.net> <331E7AFE.54DC@earthlink.net> <5g5bb9$ft$1@kayrad.ziplink.net> <5g6rr5$jgo@REX.RE.uokhsc.edu>
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:In article <5g6rr5$jgo@REX.RE.uokhsc.edu>,
:Benjamin Z. Goldsteen <benjamin-goldsteen@uokhsc.edu> wrote:
:>mi@rtfm.ziplink.net (Mikhail Teterin) writes:
:>
:>>Honorable fastbit@earthlink.net
:>>      wrote on 06 Mar (in article <331E7AFE.54DC@earthlink.net>):
:>
:>>=Mikhail Teterin wrote:
:>
:>>>> 
:>>>> Nope. PentiumPRO-200 with 512 cache, lots of RAM and disks, decent
:>>>> video will cost you 6-8K$ at most. Add $200 dollars for a commercial
:...
:>
:>>Nope, and I clearly indicate this in my previous post. Further, I found
:>>out, the machine we have is, actually even worse -- R4000 (not 4400) and
:>>running on 100Mhz. So, may be 5000 is really a great improvement over
:>>what I have.
:>
:>Based on PowerAnimator times posted by others, an O2 is about 2-3 faster
:>than the CPU your machine has.
:>
:>It isn't a good idea to make broad statements based on guesses (or in this
:>case, incorrect data).
:>
:>>=The O2 with 128MB simply FLIES; there is no comparison with 200Mhz PPro
:>>=boxes,
:...
:
:>>This is because of a good graphics, somthing SGI has been known for for
:>>a long time. Not the only reason one needs a good machine. How about
:>>compilation times?
:>
:>Of course, different machines are best suited to different taskes.  For
:>example, an O2 would make a poor laptop.  I wouldn't drop one on a
:>secretary's desk either (overkill at best).
:>
:>If you don't need graphics, an O2 is probably going to be more expensive
:>simply because it includes a lot of graphics hardware.  A O200 makes a
:>better CPU server.

:>>And what about my other reasons against SGI, such as expensive hardware
:>>upgrades? "No-no you need an SGI aproved external CDROM"... Sun, BTW,
:>>wised up and made a PCI motherboard for Sparc (announced today, IMHO).
:>>The MB will fit ATX case...
:>
:>I've given up on hardware upgrades.  They hardly ever seem worth it (for the
:>most part, buy what you need and replace when it is no longer is what you
:>need).  

:>>And why does OS cost 3,000 dollars (I suppose, it comes installed on the
:>>new machines, but how about upgrades)?
:>
:>The OS is free is you maintain software support.  SGI penalizes you pretty
:>hard if you don't.
:>-- 
:>Benjamin Z. Goldsteen

     These are all goods comments.  I'll inject some of my own... we
     have ppro 200 boxes, SGI challenge L's, S's, and Indy's.  I have
     come to the following conclusions:

     * From a raw horsepower perspective, a pentium pro 200 is roughly 
       equivalent to a MIPS R4400 @ 200 MHz.  SGI boxes tend to have
       more memory bandwidth, but Intel has proven the effectiveness
       of a compact instruction set and the newer ppro chipsets are getting
       close in terms of memory bandwidth.  A ppro 200 can get away with
       a 256K or 512K cache whereas the minimum you can get away with on
       an R4400 is about a megabyte.  I dunno re: R5000/R10K caches.  The
       main problem is that the 32 bit fixed instruction size with the MIPS
       chip requires a larger instruction cache for the same performance
       over a pentium.  MIPS chips are generally much better at floating
       point, but that is their only real advantage.

       The only other traditional advantage that vendor supported boxes
       have is ECC memory.  But that's gone now too... A pentium pro 200
       motherboard with the natoma (or better) chipset does ECC with parity
       memory.  This has made pentium pro boxes AS RELIABLE hardware-wise as
       vendorized boxes (sun, sgi for the most part).

     * While MIPS cpus are cheaper to make, the vendors currently shipping 
       boxes around them charge a premium that still makes Pentium boxes half
       as expensive for the same capability.  Intel is able to charge a 
       premium for pentium pro's and STILL have the final box be cheaper.

       (and, p.s., I like MIPS chips a whole lot better then pentiums, so it's
       hard for me to say this!).
 
     * FreeBSD is lightyears ahead of IRIX, especially when you start 
       stressing the machine.  This makes a huge difference.  Add to that
       the fact that SGI does not make their source code available, fixing
       problems with IRIX becomes an exercise in futility.  It took us
       over a year and major blood boiling to get basic problems with both 
       IRIX 5.3 and 6.x fixed, and I have little confidence in any of our
       SGI boxes even now.  SGI also insisted on charging us insane prices 
       for every little thing, and insisted on charging us to essentially 
       beta test their software... we got so tired of it that several of 
       the machine placeouts we have done (replacing SGI's with pentium 
       boxes) has been SOLELY to avoid paying licencing fees to SGI.

     * SGI may still be marginally ahead in graphics on their low end
       machines (and are still way ahead on the high end machines), but
       that is their only real advantage and they are facing stiff 
       competition from PC / PCI video card makers.

       As a desktop environment, many people swear by SGI, but SGI's have
       a lot of shared library and graphics support baggage that offsets
       most of the advantages you get with their graphics hardware.  For
       what MOST people use these boxes for, FreeBSD/Pentium environments
       are actually faster.  Much faster.  Netscape loads about five times 
       faster on my ppro 200 then on my Indy.  xterm load ten times
       as fast on my ppro 200 box.  Admittedly, my Indy is only a 132 MHz 
       R4600, but it's still significant.

     * Modern single-cpu boxes running modern operating systems (p.s. NT is
       not considered a modern operating system) are more then sufficient 
       to handle modern day I/O loads.  Our newsreader box, with 256MB
       of ram and 250 reader processes and the disks going like hell,
       have cpu's (pentium pro 200's) that are 80% idle.  80 fucking percent!

       What this means is that a single-cpu platform can generally saturate
       whatever I/O you throw at it and still have plenty of suds left over.

       This trend has turned the larger minicomputers into expensive
       deskweights for all but the most shared-memory-parallel-processing-
       intensive applications.

       This trend has also capped the curve on cpu speeds, at least for the
       moment.  Until disk and networking technology catches up, the difference
       between a 200 MIPS cpu and a 400 MIPS cpu will be for naught.  

    Basically, we are moving just about everything we have onto rack mount 
    pentium pro platforms and running FreeBSD.  I'll tell you, FreeBSD is 
    like a breath of fresh air compared to IRIX.  Modern manual pages, modern
    system commands, modern kernel core.  I am much less stressed now then I
    was 6 months ago.

						-Matt