partha@sbcs.UUCP (Partha Dasgupta) (08/06/84)
The following are some performance figures for a VAX780, a VAX750, the new Pyramid and a SUN-1. They are not standardized benchmarks, but do provide some comparisons.... The 780 has Berkeley 4.1, while all the others ran 4.2bsd. 1) C-CARD : A CPU intensive, recursive card arranging routine, written in C. 2) P-CARD : The exact same program, written in Pascal. 3) GREP : The command "grep 11 /usr/dict/words". Has considerable CPU and i/o activity. 4) SWAP : A tough one. Initializes a 1 Meg integer array twice. Uses 4 Meg bytes of core (2 Meg on SUN), and causes a lot of swapping, possibly thrashing. It favors the SUN, but the SUN has a slower swapping disk, and less core. Part I: Low Load tests This part was done at low load. I was the only person logged in. The data shows the CPU time used by the user process and the system, and the elapsed time. The elapsed time for VAX780 is omitted as there were a lot of background stuff running. 1) C-CARD User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX-780 6.8s 0.1s -- VAX-750 13.3s 0.1s 14s SUN 13.9s 0.1s 14s Pyramid 3.4s 0.1s 4s 2) P-CARD User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 23.3s 1.0s -- VAX750 32.5s 0.4s 33s SUN 41.0s 0.4s 42s Pyramid 3.4s 0.1s 4s 3) GREP User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 3.4s 0.8s -- VAX750 6.8s 0.9s 8s SUN 6.8s 0.9s 8s Pyramid 3.3s 0.5s 4s 4) SWAP! (Note the dramatic rise in system CPU times. Caused by swapping too much?) User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 13.6s 11.5s --- VAX750 22.7s 23.1s 1:30s SUN 33.1s 158.0s 5:56s Pyramid 5.4s 5.9s 0:58s Part II : High load testing. This was done by loading the system by up to 20 processes of the same command. 1) to 3) was run as 20 simultaneous processes. Naturally load average reached nearly 20. The figures are averages, per process. The SWAP! program could not be handled in large numbers. The Pyramid allowed 6 processes before saying "No more core". The 780, 750 and SUN gave up after 3 processes. The figures are for 5 processes on Pyramid and 3 on 780/750/SUN. 1) C-CARD (20 processes) User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 6.8s 0.2s 2:15s VAX750 13.4s 0.4s 4:37s SUN 16.0s 0.6s 5:28s Pyramid 3.4s 0.1s 1:04s 2)P-CARD (20 processes) User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 (no data) VAX750 33.5s 0.6s 11:10s SUN 47.8s 3.9 16:00s Pyramid 3.4s 0.1s 1:06s (!!) 3) GREP (20 processes) User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 3.5s 0.9s 1:20s VAX750 7.0s 0.8s 2:45s SUN 7.5s 1.4s 2:50s Pyramid 4.0s 0.5s 1:20s 4) SWAP! : This program brought all the systems to their knees. They probably thrashed badly. Even echoing characters on the terminal seemed to be a problem! The sun especially has a small slow swapping disk and was the hardest hit. User-CPU System-CPU Elapsed time VAX780 (3 processes) 14.0s 14.0s 3:40s VAX750 (3 processes) 23.5s 23.1s 4:26s SUN (3 processes) 35.6s 104.0s 13:00s Pyramid (3 processes) 5.9s(!) 6.0s 2:30s Pyramid (5 processes) 5.9s 6.0s 4:17s Thus the Pyramid-90 seems to be a winner. However the tiny SUN's performance was astounding. It matched the 750 all the time, except for the SWAP program, but then its disk is mainly to blame. Makes one wonder whether a 750 is really worth it, when a el-cheapo M68000 can get this sort of performance. (There has been a lot of mud slinging at the Sun on the net. I agree its not very impressive when run on its bitmap screen in single user mode, but on the ethernet, with a couple of users logged in it really looks as good (or bad?) as a 750. Wonder if you would notice it if someone yanked out your 750, and put in a Sun....) Partha Dasgupta SUNY Stony Brook ...allegra!sbcs!partha
msc@qubix.UUCP (Mark Callow) (08/08/84)
These benchmarks would have been interesting but I have to treat them
as questionable due to the claim of running them on a Sun-1 under
4.2BSD. There is no such beast (unless you did it yourself; if so
I like to know how you dealt with page faults).
You might have a Sun-1.5 running 4.1c (which Sun have referred to
as the Berkeley Beta Release of 4.2). The Sun-1.5 is very slow
due to an additional wait state Sun had to add. The 4.1c release
(Sun 0.4) is very unloved around here. People found it slow and
liable to crash.
Now a Sun-2 running 4.2 (Sun Release 1.1) is a very different proposition.
It is fast (Our users perceive it as twice as fast as Sun1.5/4.1c). It
is also reliable. It would make a very nice personal computer.
--
From the TARDIS of Mark Callow
msc@qubix.UUCP, qubix!msc@decwrl.ARPA
...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!qubix!msc, ...{amd,ihnp4,ittvax}!qubix!msc
"Nothing shocks me. I'm an Engineer."partha@sbcs.UUCP (Partha Dasgupta) (08/11/84)
I had posted some benchmarks on VAX780/750 Sun and Pyramid a few days back. I regret there was an error, the SUN used was not a SUN-1 as I had said but a SUN-2. Sorry. I stand corrected. Partha Dasgupta SUNY/Stony Brook.
eric@milo.UUCP (08/12/84)
I must beg to differ. I currently have on loan a Sun-1 from Sun which has 4.2 running on it. It may no longer be a product, but it does exist. -- eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric
mann@CSL-Vax.ARPA (Tim Mann) (08/14/84)
I think that people are confusing the difference between Sun-1 and Sun-2 with the difference between the Sun Model 100 and 120. The Model 100 is the old style unit with the black and white metal case and the backplane under the monitor. These originally came with Sun-1 processors, but can be upgraded to be Sun-2's. The Model 120 is the new style with the grey plastic case and the backplane in a separate box. Model 120's all have Sun-2 processors. Around here we talk about the Sun-1/100, the Sun-2/100, and the Sun-2/120 to make the distinction clear. (We'll ignore the 150 and 170 for now.) At any rate, 4.2 Unix runs only on Sun-2 processors, and definitely not on Sun-1's. (To further confuse the issue, there were some "Sun-1.5" processors shipped which ran 4.1c Unix. These should all have been upgraded to Sun-2's by this time.) --Tim