jhpark@cs.utexas.edu (Jihun Park) (07/31/90)
I am considering to buy a personal IRIS. I have no information about the Silicon Graphics co. Does anyone know some information about personal IRIS ? May I get some information about price and address(e-mail) of Silicon Graphics co. ? Thanks in advance. --- Jihun Park
gordon@cs.tamu.edu (Dan Gordon) (07/31/90)
The IBM RISC-based 6000 workstations apparently have the same graphics engines as the SGI. However, their processors seem to be much faster (according to figures provided by IBM). Does anybody have any data that compares these machines with the various Silicon Graphics workstations? Please post or email to gordon@cs.tamu.edu Thanks - Dan Gordon.
allenb@sgi.com (Allen Buchinski) (08/01/90)
In article <850@earth.cs.utexas.edu> jhpark@cs.utexas.edu (Jihun Park) writes: >I am considering to buy a personal IRIS. I have no information about the >Silicon Graphics co. Does anyone know some information about personal >IRIS ? May I get some information about price and address(e-mail) of >Silicon Graphics co. ? The best place to get this kind of information is directly from a Silicon Graphics sales representative. In your case, the nearest office is right in Austin. The phone number is 512-459-0994. I'll pass your name along to them so you can start a dialog. Allen Buchinski Silicon Graphics, Mountain View, CA allenb@sgi.com
gad@spatial.com (Gordon A. Durand) (08/02/90)
In article <7009@helios.TAMU.EDU> gordon@cs.tamu.edu (Dan Gordon) writes: >The IBM RISC-based 6000 workstations apparently have the same >graphics engines as the SGI. However, their processors seem to >be much faster (according to figures provided by IBM). Does >anybody have any data that compares these machines with the >various Silicon Graphics workstations? No hard data here, just some opinions formed after trying to use both machines. Anyway, we have a couple of Personal Iris workstations (a 4D20 and a 4D25) and are pretty happy with them. We see some occasional NFS weirdness, but they are a fairly solid platform. The processor is pretty fast and SGI's GL graphics library screams. Unfortunately, the SGI version of X is fairly slow (but getting better). -- FLAME ON -- We recently got two RS/6000s and I think they are pretty much a waste of good electricity. Our local IBM guy has been trying for nearly a month to get one of the machines to work on our ethernet. Still no luck. Also, don't get tricked into believing that AIX is Unix, it's "Unix like". We have been experiencing a lot of grief trying to port C++ to the IBM because of IBM's peculiar variations of the C compiler and linker. The RS/6000 also seems to be rather unstable, we see far too many mysterious system hangs. On the plus side, the machine is generally very fast, although their X is nothing special (my HP9000/375 runs X much faster). My overall impression is that this machine is at about an "alpha state". Perhaps IBM got in too much of a hurry to get to market and thought they could get away with shipping junk. Isn't it nice to know that even the giants screw up :-). -- FLAME OFF -- As always, these are my opinions. For all I know, my employer thinks that the RS/6000 is wonderful. -- ---- Gordon Durand gad@spatial.com Spatial Technology Inc. {ncar,boulder,ico}!spatial!gad 5710 Flatiron Pkwy, Boulder, CO 80301
steve@olympus.wrcr.unr.edu (Stephen Wheatcraft) (08/02/90)
In article <7009@helios.TAMU.EDU> gordon@cs.tamu.edu (Dan Gordon) writes: >The IBM RISC-based 6000 workstations apparently have the same >graphics engines as the SGI. However, their processors seem to >be much faster (according to figures provided by IBM). Does >anybody have any data that compares these machines with the >various Silicon Graphics workstations? Please post or email to > >gordon@cs.tamu.edu > >Thanks - Dan Gordon. I have been doing some benchmark comparisons of IBM R-6000, Sun 3/80, Sun 3/280 and Sillicon Graphics Personal Iris 4-D25TG. I don't have the figures for the SGI machines, but here are the numbers for the others: Sun 3/80 w/ 68881 - non-optimized code 100.8 real 97.4 user 0.6 sys 339.0 real 332.4 user 0.9 sys 52.4 real 49.7 user 0.7 sys 479.8u 3.5s 8:15 97% 0+416k 8+75io 33pf+0w Sun 3/280 w/fpa - non-optimized code 81.6 real 47.4 user 2.6 sys 209.7 real 195.0 user 1.6 sys 38.5 real 35.6 user 0.5 sys 278.3u 5.4s 5:32 85% 0+416k 18+114io 6pf+0w IBM Risc 6000 320 - optimized code 6.0 real 5.9 user 0.0 sys 10.0 real 9.7 user 0.2 sys 8.5 real 8.2 user 0.1 sys Total: 25.85s real 24.07s user 0.63s sys Ratios: Sun 3-80/IBM = 479.8/25.85 = 18.6 Sun 3-280/IBM = 278.3/25.85 = 10.8 The reason that the Sun benchmarks were run using non-optimized code was that the Sun compiler will not optimize my benchmark program. The IBM compiler was able to optimize it. The benchmark is a set of three programs: 1. 2-d fast fourier transform (128x128 points) 2. multi-grid fluid flow (in porous media) solver 3. particle tracking solute transport in porous media The SGI people are currently running the same programs on a SG PI 4D-25TG. I will post the final results here in a few weeks (after I get back from vacation). As you can see, the speed up of the IBM relative to the Sun machines is quite impressive, better than their published mips ratio (27.5/3). Part of the reason is that the Sun compiler would not optimize the second program (for reasons I won't get into!). Nevertheless, these are real numbers, real applications, not pac benchmarks. Steve Wheatcraft Internet: steve@olympus.wrc.unr.edu Desert Research Institute (134.197.1.70) University of Nevada System Bitnet : steve@unsvax.bitnet P.O. Box 60220 AT&T : (702) 673-7393 Reno, NV 89506 FAX : (702) 673-7397
evensen@cgl.ucsf.edu (Erik-Robert Evensen%Kollman) (08/04/90)
I'm new at posting and I just started reading comp.graphics today. Now, I admit that I am not a hard core graphics person (despite my affiliation with CGL) -- my degree is in biochemistry and most of my background is in writing "numerically intensive" molecular dynamics simulation code. However, for the past 9 months I have been writing an application which serves as a front end and model builder for our MD code. This application, by nature, is interactive and I have been working on the graphics interface part of the program for the past month and a half. In the mind of fairness and complete disclosure, I should say that I worked for IBM last summer and I still work very closely with some people at the IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center and count some IBMers among my close friends. I also feel that I have been treated very well by the SE's at the San Francisco branch office. Now, I'm sure that this makes me somewhat biased toward the IBM machine but I would not put my "professional reputation" on the line my posting out and out lies about the IBM RS/6000 systems. That said, I feel compelled to post an opinion which is somewhat different from what I have seen expressed in this news group regarding the IBM RS/6000. I have had a pre-release RIOS (model 320) on my desk for about 3 months now and I am *very* pleased with the machine. I've had very few problems with the machine and my productivity has increased markedly since I got it. The only real problem I've had is that the machine did not recognize anything beyond it's subnet after I rearranged some of the boards to install the "SGI" cards. This problem with solved quickly by the SE who is my contact. I'm not anything resembling a UNIX wizard and the SMIT tool has made administering the system quite easy and feasible for me. The OS (version 9013) has proven to be fairly stable -- and I have beat on it pretty hard. The performance for what I do is almost untouchable when compared to the other workstations I have seen and used. For my MD code, it runs about 3-4 times faster than our SS1's and DECstation 3100. On the same code, the RIOS runs about the same speed as an IBM 3090 model 300e running scalar code -- this machine is no slouch in terms of FP performance. We also have IRISes (IRII?) at our site but I do not use them very extensively. I have benchmarked my MD code on the PI and 4D/GT70 and found that the RIOS runs appx 3 times faster than these machines. All of the above observations are, of course, problem dependent. I can't really compare the interactive graphics performance since I don't have a graphics application which runs on both systems. My seat of the pants impression is that the RIOS is snappier in terms of interactive performance but many may disagree with me; I've only used the IRIS for a short period of time and displaying a very small molecule so my comparison is "uninformed" -- take it with a huge grain of salt. Perhaps the most impressive demonstration of the power of the IBM RS/6000 is in my application (the model builder) I have code which does some of the numerically intensive calculations from the MD code and displays the results (building a PHIGS structure for each iteration) in nearly real time -- that is to say the motion looks almost smooth. I've had another user logged into the machine running the numerical intesive code in the foreground while I was on the console using X windows doing a *large* compile in one window and running my program using the virtual sphere controller to do rotations of a molecular wireframe at the same time -- this represents a relatively large load for the system and it performed like a champ. Of course there was degradation of interactive response but it was by no means unacceptable. The compilers and other development tools are solid in the 9013 release of the code and I expect them to be better in the Golden Code which I'm supposed to get early next week. One of the people I work with (an IBMer) did find a small bug in the xlf compiler in the 9005 release and it was fixed. I have yet to find a problem with the xlc compiler and I have about 25 000 lines of not-always-pretty code in my model builder. As far as whether AIX looks like UNIX or not, from my standpoint it is a very familiar environment and I learned most of my UNIX on a VAX 8650 running BSD and SparcStations running SUNOS. I'm relatively new to UNIX (came from VM/CMS and VMS) and don't do any system programming so my views on this matter may not reflect those of others who are more experienced and / or do "system stuff". I'm sorry this turned into such a long winded exposition but I hope it is useful and informative. I welcome any discussion about the new IBM machines. To summarize my impressions in a phrase -- I'm very impressed with the new machines and would buy one (or several) if it were up to me. Erik-Robert Evensen Computer Graphics Lab University of California San Francisco coming soon to the ivy covered walls in Cambridge, MA...