In article <1994Nov16.145923.34092@miavx1>, [log in to unmask]
(Aaron Porter) writes:
> Kent Covert ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
> : That's a fair question...
>
> : Model:                          DEC 4000-710 AXP
> : CPU:                            One DECchip 21064 / 190 Mhz
> : Caches:                         8KB Instruction Cache, 8 KB Data Cache,
> :                                   4 MB processor cache
> : TPS:                            300
> : SPECint92:                      93.8
> : SPECrate92:                     188.4
> : LINPACK 1000x1000 (DP MFLOPS):  145.6
> : Memory:                         256 MB
> : Hard Disks:                     Two 2GB SCSI-2, Six 1GB Fast SCSI
> : Total disk space:               10 GB
> : CD-ROM Drives:                  5
> : OS:                             OpenVMS 6.1 AXP
> : Anything else that I've forgotten?
 
>       Eeek.  No wonder it sometimes lags.  At least the memory is of
> the right magnatude, but 190 Mhz isn't really all that fast nowadays.  I
> shudder to think what it was like before!
 
Be cautious with this information.  Mhz are probably the WORST comparison
of processor speed.  You cannot use Mhz to compare the Alpha chip to a
Intel X86 chip.  Even in the Intel chips, you can't use Mhz to compare
speeds.  For example, a 33 Mhz 486 is a lot faster than a 33 Mhz 386 due to
the internal structure of the chip.
 
In relation to the Alpha chips, the chip is a RISC based processor.  The
chip has 190 Million cycles/second, but it can execute up to 4 instructions
simultaneously in each of those cycles!  It's a 64-bit processor compared
to a 32-bit X86 chip (which goes into 16-bit mode when using a "real"-mode
application (I think)).  In addition, the chip has built-in pipelining - a
feature that used to be available only with vector processors.
 
DEC just released a new Alpha chip called the DECchip 21164 that runs at
300 Mhz and issues 1.2 billion instructions per second.
 
If you want to compare performance, use something like SPECint92 and
SPECfp92 or TPS.  These are "supposedly" a better comparison between
processors.  By the way, the label above that says SPECrate92 should have
said SPECfp92...I mis-typed it.  SPECrate is a completely different
performance specification that I didn't list.
 
Another interesting comparision is that the Alpha chip only has 1.68
million transistors.  The latest Pentiums have 3.1 million transistors.
The PowerPC chip has 2.8 million transistors.  I don't know how this
impacts performace or heat dissipation or anything else...it was just an
interesting statistic.
 
--
                                     Kent Covert, Software Coordinator
                                     Miami Computing and Information Services
                                     Miami University, Oxford, OH
                                     [log in to unmask]  (internet)
                                     kacovert@miavx1                 (bitnet)