rjn@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Bob Niland) (07/20/88)
re: "Does anyone have any experience and/or comments on comparing
a HP 9000 Series 500 system with a Intel 386-based machine..."
That is not a comparison of peer processors. The 500 uses a CPU chip that
first shipped in 1983, whereas the i386 is 1988 vintage. Five years is
nearly "forever" in the computer business. The s500 "Focus-I" and
"Focus-II" chips are considered to provide about 1.0 MIPS per CPU board,
with up to 3 CPU boards per processor. The Series 500 has not been the top
end of the HP9000 family for some time.
A more interesting comparison would be between an i386 machine and the top
end of the Series 300 (MC68030) family or with the Series 800 (HP-PA RISC)
family. The 300s are rated at up to 6 MIPS and the 800s up to 14 MIPS.
I don't know what the claims are for i386 performance.
Bob Niland ARPA:rjn%hpfcrjn@hplabs.HP.COM UUCP:[hpfcse|hplabs]!hpfcla!rjnfritz@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) (07/20/88)
My personal opinion (not an official statement of HP, etc. etc. blah woof): I've never done a direct comparison, but it's entirely possible that the 386 Vectra could equal the s500's performance. The s500, after all, is 1980 technology. As industry price/performance ratios keep improving, it's inevitable that older architectures will be surpassed. If you decide you want to stay with UN*X (HP-UX in particular), you might want to consider the HP9000 Series 300 machines. These are 680x0-based machines that beat the s500's price/perf ratio handily. They range from $5000 + disc for a low-end 318M (768x1024 bitmapped monochrome display, 4MB RAM, etc.) to maxed-out 3-D graphics superworkstations. Some of the systems can be upgraded to 68030's if you decide you need more horsepower. If you need MS-DOS / OS/2 compatibility, though, the 386 Vectra is certainly a good alternative. Gary Fritz
gates@hpfcmr.HP.COM (Bill Gates) (07/21/88)
>Does anyone have any experience and/or comments on comparing >a HP 9000 Series 500 system with a Intel 386-based machine.... Nowadays, HP offers many machines running HP-UX with greater horsepower than the Series 500. I don't know much about the 386-based Vectra, but the Series 300 line (specifically the Model 350 and 360) and the Series 800 line (all models) are more powerful than the older Series 500 family. Check with your local HP sales representative. Bill Gates
daver@hpcvca.HP.COM (David Rabinowitz) (07/21/88)
The 9000/550 was introduced several years ago and is no longer sold. It might be more relevant to compare the new 386 machine with a 9000/360 or 9000/835, which are current product offerings.
kluft@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Ian Kluft) (07/21/88)
pat@rocksanne.UUCP (Peter A Torpey) writes: > Does anyone have any experience and/or comments on comparing > a HP 9000 Series 500 system with a Intel 386-based machine (perhaps like > the HP Vectra line)? I've benchmarked my HP model 550 against > one of the 386-based Compaq machines (with a 387 co-processor) and have > come out with very similar performance - (Actually, the Compaq machine was > running in MS-DOS with a Fortran compiler that did not even take advantage > of the 32-bit architecture). Although I've always liked HP's performance > and support, it seems like there may actually be more horsepower in the 386 > than in the model 550, pluse its cheaper, plus it is compatible > with all sorts of thrid-party software and hardware. I wouldn't be surprised about the 386 catching up with the 500 series. The 500 series, while still fully supported by HP, probably hasn't been in production for at least a year. On the low end, it has been replaced by the 300 Series (running Motorola 68020 CPU's). On the high end, the 800 Series (HP Spectrum/RISC SPU's) replaces it. However, since I'm in R&D, I can never remember their prices. [Note: our marketing people can give official state- ments on this. I'm not in marketing so this isn't official.] ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ian Kluft RAS Lab UUCP: hplabs!hprasor!kluft HP Systems Technology Division ARPA: kluft@hpda.hp.com Cupertino, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------
dgs@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Dan Schmidt) (07/23/88)
I have not had too much direct experience with 386 machines but what you reported about performance is not unexpected. The HP550 you have is quite old (as computers go) and the 386 machines are the latest high-end PCs out. A Vectra RS/20 (or 25Mhz when it comes out) running some sort of UN*IX sounds like it would meet your needs. You can even get MS-DOS to run on top of unix and open DOS windows for any of the many DOS applications you want. Dan Schmidt HP Graphics Lab Ft. Collins, Co. dgs%hpfcdgs@hplabs.hp.com
rclark@bgphp1.UUCP (Roger N. Clark) (07/28/88)
> Does anyone have any experience and/or comments on comparing > a HP 9000 Series 500 system with a Intel 386-based machine (perhaps like > the HP Vectra line)? > .... The assertions that the HP9000 series 500 is slower than the 300 and 800 series is not exactly true. Neither are the 386 machines faster in certain cases. Of course you can always find a benchmark that will show one machines strength. HP doesn't seem to know how good of a machine they have in the 500. The 500 excells in a number crunching multiuser (or multitasking) environment. The following benchmarks demonstrate some points. For example, the Byte sieve benchmark shows the 350 to be very fast: SYSTEM sieve.c rsieve.c fsieve.f cbench.c fbench.f dbench.f u+s u+s u+s u+s u+s u+s =============================================================================== HP9000 s835 0.11 0 0.11 0 0.17 0 0.05 0 0.04 0 0.05 0 HP9000 s825 0.14 0 0.14 0 0.26 0 0.17 0 0.10 0 0.17 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP9000 s350 FPA 0.74 0 0.46 0 0.64 0 0.33 0 0.15 0 0.17 0 HP9000 s350 68881 0.74 0 0.46 0 0.64 0 0.33 0 0.15 0 0.21 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP9000 s500 FPA 2.7 0.0 2.7 0.0 3.1 0.0 0.79 0 0.65 0 0.90 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Compaq 386/20 w80387 0.39 Compaq Portable III 12 MHz MS C 5.0 w/ 80287 1.1 IBM-AT MS F77 80287 4.7 4.8 4.9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cray-1 Fortran 0.11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sieve.c is the Byte benchmark, rsieve.c uses registers, fsieve.f is in fortran, and the cbench and fbench are my own invention that just does a bunch of +, -, *, /, sin, cos, sqrt, log, etc. On the face of it, it does look like the series 500 is slow. But the above benchmarks are separated into to categories: 1) array indexing (the sieve) and 2) compute power. I put the Cray in there to illustrate how benchmarks can be used to give a false picture: no one ine their right mind would say a Compaq 382/20 is less than 4 times slower than a Cray 1! Maybe that's indicated by the sieve, but just try doing some REAL problems! When the 2 are combined (array indexing and floating point computation) the picture changes: A Multitasking, CPU intensive Benchmark ("weird box filter" in Fortran) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of Tasks System 1 2 3 4 5 7 10 12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HP9000/835 HP-UX:2.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.4 3.4 4.9 5.9 HP9000/825 HP-UX:1.2 1.9 3.8 5.7 7.6 9.5 13.3 19.1 22.8 HP9000/500 3 CPUs 5.9 6.0 6.3 8.4 10.5 14.7 21.5 27.8 HP9000/840 HP-UX:1.2 2.1 3.9 5.8 7.8 10.9 16.2 26.0 32.3 HP9000/350 FPA UX6.0 2.7 5.2 7.9 10.5 13.2 18.4 26.4 31.6 HP9000/500 2 CPUs 5.9 6.1 9.1 14.1 16.9 25.4 35.8 43.0 HP9000/320 no FPA 11.4 22.7 33.8 45.2 56.4 80.2 119.4 143 Compaq Portable III/40: 12 MHz True Basic 122. " with 80287 119. with MS C 5.0 7 IBM-PC AT +80287 7.2 - - - - - - - IBM-PC no 8087 1111. - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The "weird box filter" does +, -, /, * on a 200 by 200 array and the result goes into a 200 by 200 array. In a compute intensive multitasking environment, the series 500 looks very good (at least for this benchmark). If you have one task to run, and it fits in the memory of a 386 machine, then it is probably the cheapest way to go. If you need multitasking then the 500 is impressive! Of course, if you are buying new machines, a 350 is probably cheaper. BUT WAIT... What if you have to do complex floating point? Here is a complex floating point benchmark: Complex BENCHMARKS SYSTEM Complex.f u s real %cpu =============================================================================== Cray XMP/48 3.9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP 9000/825 94.4 0.3 96 99% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP 9040 Unix FPA 271.1 0.3 279 97% <--- 1 cpu only ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP 9000/350 (A) 423.1 0.2 424 100% HP 9000/350 (B) 442.8 0.1 443 100% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now we see a single cpu 500 much faster than the 350, and in a multitasking compute heavy environment with 3 cpus, the series 500 would be similar to an 825 (e.g. to run 3 jobs, the 825 would take about 283 seconds, the 500 about 300 seconds)! Note that the 350 (A) is with a 68881 and (B) is with the FPA; the FPA is slower than using the 68881 alone!!!!! Both ran HPUX6.0. My conclusion (as I've posted to the net before): The HP9000 series 500 is a DAMN GOOD MACHINE. Its fast, and never crashes. This is borne out by many users doing varied compute, edit, compile, debug, nroff, etc. jobs. The 500 holds up very well under load. Try that on a compaq 386 running OS/2 or Unix: it will roll over an die long before the 500 does. If you have an application that many people need to run, do a careful cost-benefit analysis before you buy everyone PC's; I have often seen that it is cheaper to buy multiuser workstations/minis and still get the same response, plus you have MUCH easier time sharing data bases and peripherals. SUPPORT THE 500! (If you are interested in the actual benchmarks, I can post them or email them; the box filter benchmark was posted a few months ago). Finally: use your exact application when benchmarking a machine before deciding what to buy if speed is that important! If you have a 500, it might be worth keeping a while unless you need things like NFS (would somebody please put NFS on the 500!). I'm still pissed HP pulled the rug out from those who bought the 500. I can understand why, but it doesn't make it any easier these days when budgets are so tight. I just wish HP gave more for the 500 in the upgrade program to the 800 series. Roger N. Clark (stuck with a 500; not unhappy but I want NFS) bgphp1!rclark
raveling@vaxb.isi.edu (Paul Raveling) (08/03/88)
[This was an attempted email reply, but it didn't make it through the mailers] Interesting results... I'll cast a vote for posting the benchmarks (including the box filter benchmark -- I must have missed it the first time around). If you don't post, I'd appreciate copies to try on assorted machines here. BTW, a multi-CPU approach seems to me to be the appropriate architecture for purportedly high performance workstations, but anything using a Unix kernel will be fighting OS architecture to utilize multiple processes (and processors) efficiently. --------------------- Paul Raveling Raveling@vaxb.isi.edu
scf@statware.UUCP (Steve Fullerton) (08/03/88)
We have an HP9000/550 with 2 CPU's and 5.5 Mb of RAM and a 20 Mhz 80386
with 20 Mhz 80387, 4 Mb RAM running SCO Xenix 386.
While I haven't done much in the area of `real' benchmarks comparing
the two machines, we are a software development company and the only
meaningful benchmark for us is how fast an application runs in our
package. Using this as a ruler, the 80386 is about 4 times the speed
of the HP9000/550 (1 task vs. 1 task). We are not using an ESDI disk
so the I/O throughput on the HP9000/550 is much better than the 80386.
We have had our HP9000/550 for over two years and it has been a real
workhorse but as I write this message, HP is here installing our new
Series 825. The trade-in program ends October 1st and while the hardware
credits aren't the greatest, the software credits will save you a lot
of money. In order to minimize the cost of the upgrade we bought an older
HP9000/540 from HP with 15 1/4 Mb RAM cards for around $1,000 and then
turned around and traded it in on the Series 825 for around $5,000 in
hardware credit (strangely enough, an older Model 540 is worth more as
a trade-in than the Model 550). This still leaves us with the Model 550
which we will sell through to one of the HP equipment resellers.
HP's bottom line is that they want to sell Series 8xx computers and the
salesmen will get as creative as possible in order to make a sale. We
liked the Model 550 but its reign is over.
--
Steve Fullerton Statware, Inc.
scf%statware.uucp@cs.orst.edu 260 SW Madison Ave, Suite 109
orstcs!statware!scf Corvallis, OR 97333
503/753-5382