howie@triton.tamu.edu (MATT_K_HOWARD) (09/07/90)
Has Apple actually started shipping the 32K Cache Card for the IIci? If so, is there anyone reading this who has used it and wouldn't mind sharing your impressions on it with the rest of us? Now that there seems to be about 6 companies (Apple, Daystar, Micron, Silcone, and two no-names) vending SRAM boards I could really use some input from owner/drivers of these boards before I lay down the $s. I must admit I'm most interested in making FORTRAN code execute as fast as possible on my IIci. I've found that Absoft's MacFortran II compiler produces the fastest executing code of all the FORTRAN compilers. To make things as speedy as possible I, (1) run in B/W mode, (2) Don't use the optional MWRE window MacFortran provides, (3) remove all the INITS, (4) run under Finder, and (5) have a modest control pannel cache (64k). Depending on the benchmark, a IIci in this mode executes at speeds in the VAX8300,785,3600,6250 range. Its roughly 0.5 to 0.3 times the speed of a VAX8650 (but its mine all mine.) I've run the single precision Whetsone on a stock IIci and a IIci with a DayStar fastcache. I only noticed about a 10% performance increase. This doesn't seem like very much. What sort of codes receive the maximum benefit from a cache card? Speed freaks want to know. PS. Perhaps you've seen the advertisement for MacFortran II which boasts a IIci executing 3871 single precision Whetstones. Thats a conservative value available when running multifinder and color. Way to go Absoft! Matt