[rescue] Advice on Octanes

Dave McGuire mcguire at neurotica.com
Tue Sep 23 17:33:26 CDT 2003


On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 06:15 PM, Francisco Javier 
Mesa-Martinez wrote:
>>>> The memory system of the Octane is on par if not slower than a
>>>> P3-800, the
>>>> P3 destroys the R10K in raw computation power, hence the Octane can
>>>> have
>>>> all the memory bw it wants, but since it is running a
>>>> computationally and
>>>> not data bound process it just can not compete with the P3 in those
>>>> tasks.
>>>
>>>    That's interesting.  Then why is my Octane (a 200MHz R10K) so much
>>> faster doing PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING than my cow-orker's 650MHz P3?
>>>
>>>    I call "bullshit".
>>>
>>
>> I'll second that.  According to what I know, the Octane has 1GBps of
>> dedicated memory bandwidth.  A computer with PC133 RAM has about 1 
>> GBps
>> of memory bandwidth - but it's not dedicated.  That means that the x86
>> system's memory subsystem is going to be, in practice, very much 
>> slower
>> because it also has to support PCI and AGP ports, as well as anything
>> else on the bus.  So, in a system with PC133 memory on a 133Mhz FSB, 
>> the
>> Octane is going to beat it up, take it's lunch money, and send it home
>> crying.
>
> I recommend a remedial computer architecture class before making such
> statements, thanks :).

   Classes != reality.  Sorry to burst YOUR bubble.  All the classes in 
the world won't make one number larger than another.

       -Dave

--
Dave McGuire                      "My tummy hurts now, but my soul
St. Petersburg, FL                 feels a little better."     -Ed



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