Sparcs and PA-Riscs Suck big time

R.D. Silverman · 2006-08-01, 15:29

I finally got some free time and have finished my port of my
lattice siever to HP and SUN workstations.

They SUCK.

They are 10 to 15 times slower than my
home PC.

It's not just the integer arithmetic portions of the code; the sieve
code is significantly slower as well.

Even though I have some of these machines available for use during
evening hours (9PM - 6AM), it isn't worth the effort to manage them.

Not all the speed difference is explained by clock rate. The HP's run
at 875MHz, a factor of 4 slower. I think the SUNs run at 1.2GHz, a
factor of 3 slower.

I also found that AES runs a lot slower on these machines than on PC's.

Why does anyone buy them?

(workstations, I mean; servers are a different
story). They are not anywhere close to price/performance competitive.

dsouza123 · 2006-08-01, 22:34

Perhaps HP and SUN workstations using those types of CPUs
(maybe at slightly faster speeds, SUN 1.3 or 1.6 GHz UltraSparc IIIi)
are used by companies with expensive programs with licenses only
for those types of systems or the programs aren't available in x86/x86-64
versions.

A HP workstation with the slightly faster 1.1 GHz
PA-RISC CPU is currently being sold but most of their
workstations models are now x86 based.

SUN also sells Opteron based workstations.
HP sells Xeon and Opteron based workstations.

2006-08-01, 15:29	#1
R.D. Silverman Nov 2003 2²×5×373 Posts	Sparcs and PA-Riscs Suck big time I finally got some free time and have finished my port of my lattice siever to HP and SUN workstations. They SUCK. They are 10 to 15 times slower than my home PC. It's not just the integer arithmetic portions of the code; the sieve code is significantly slower as well. Even though I have some of these machines available for use during evening hours (9PM - 6AM), it isn't worth the effort to manage them. Not all the speed difference is explained by clock rate. The HP's run at 875MHz, a factor of 4 slower. I think the SUNs run at 1.2GHz, a factor of 3 slower. I also found that AES runs a lot slower on these machines than on PC's. Why does anyone buy them? (workstations, I mean; servers are a different story). They are not anywhere close to price/performance competitive.

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2006-08-01, 22:34	#2
dsouza123 Sep 2002 2·331 Posts	Perhaps HP and SUN workstations using those types of CPUs (maybe at slightly faster speeds, SUN 1.3 or 1.6 GHz UltraSparc IIIi) are used by companies with expensive programs with licenses only for those types of systems or the programs aren't available in x86/x86-64 versions. A HP workstation with the slightly faster 1.1 GHz PA-RISC CPU is currently being sold but most of their workstations models are now x86 based. SUN also sells Opteron based workstations. HP sells Xeon and Opteron based workstations.