Cray vs. PC Benchmark

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Article #243

#243

From: Clark L. Coleman
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 1990 19:21

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The September 17, 1990 issue of PC WEEK has an advertisement on pages 56-57
from Everex. The ad claims the following Dhrystone benchmarks:

 Everex STEP 486/33  :  34,000 Dhrystones (19.4 MIPS)
 CRAY-X-MP/48        :  17,857 Dhrystones
 IBM 3083            :  16,666 Dhrystones

Is the explanation :

 1) The Everex compiler got rid of a worthless inner loop in a stupid
     benchmark.

 2) The i486-based PC is really faster on this scalar benchmark than
     a Cray X-MP/48.

 3) They figured out some way to hamper the Cray for the benchmark.

 4) They're lying.

 5) None of the above.

I realize that Dhrystones are not meaningful for supercomputer applications,
but I thought that the scalar integer MIPS of a Cray would still exceed a
PC. Is there any independent source of Cray performance on this test?
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"We cannot talk of freedom unless we have private property." -- Gavriil Popov,
Mayor of Moscow, September 11, 1990. |||  clc5q@virginia.edu

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!udel!haven!uvaarpa!murdoch!shamash.cs.Virginia.EDU!clc5q
From: clc5q@shamash.cs.Virginia.EDU (Clark L. Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Cray vs. PC Benchmark
Message-ID: <1990Oct9.192119.4453@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 9 Oct 90 19:21:19 GMT
Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Reply-To: clc5q@shamash.cs.Virginia.EDU (Clark L. Coleman)
Organization: University of Virginia Computer Science Department
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