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Subject: Re: proposal on machine speed at WMCCC

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:17:25 10/23/97

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On October 23, 1997 at 15:39:05, Chris Whittington wrote:

>
>For Bob and Bruce:
>
>Class above = 2 times. As in speed doubling every 18 months, RAM price
>halving every whenever.
>
>2 times is a class above and unacceptable IMO. 1.5 times I personally
>find too much. 1.3 I could live with.
>
>Bruce says he is just short of 2 times with his 500 alpha. Plus then the
>AMD 233's are now going to be AMD 200's.
>
>Bob can't quantify it well because of the 64 bitness.
>
>So I'll buy this: we stop arguing over 500 alphas. IMO they are still
>too much, but I'll stop arguing it.
>
>Bob and Bruce are confident they'll get 500's. They are less confident
>that the 766's will turn up. Bob and Bruce both say they don't want to
>try and get a class above, just they want to stay competitive. Don't we
>all.
>
>So, peace proposal, you guys perform on 500 alphas, leave the 766's in
>their boxes, don't use them at the tourney, don't give them out to
>others. What Dark Thought will do, Dark Thought will do, but I hope they
>can run of 500 as well.
>
>So guys, how about it, peace and moderate alphas ?


I don't have a firm "766".  But my concern would be for someone to ask
for such a machine, get a company to jump thru several hoops to get 3 of
them assembled, tested, and shipped, with the promise that they would
get
showcased at an event that would generate a reasonable amount of
publicity,
particularly if they do well.

This is the reason I would hate to revert to an AMD machine, period.  We
asked for, and DEC responded with a machine, they are paying for
shipping,
installing software, and so forth.  We'd look foolish if they visited
and
found us on an AMD.  They probably wouldn't say anything, but we'd never
get another loaner from them.

I've planned on a plain /500 from the day DEC said "yes".  We'd hoped
for
a 766, but I'm still skeptical that the machine will function at that
clock
rate.  IE I wonder if they have run a chess engine that beats on the
integer
functional units within the cpu, to see if eventually heat build-up
becomes
intolerable?  So that was an outside shot for us anyway.

>
>And for next year, lets discuss:
>
>a) no two types of sponsor machines as at Paderborn
>
>b) nobody more than 1.3 times the provided machines ...
>

I think you are asking for trouble.  Either make it uniform platform or
not.  But 1.3 is a problem.  IE how do we decide on 1.3?  What benchmark
do we run?  If I am getting 1.4, can't I just fake my node count by 10%
internally to make it look only 1.3x faster?

I really believe there will be a 1ghz PPC next year.  How fast you run
depends on how you are written and whether you have studied that
architecture or not.

I'd say go uniform, period, if this is perceived as a problem.  Cut the
macs out, the alphas out, the MIPS out, IBM workstations out, everyone
except for an Intel X86 at YYY mhz.  If you want it to be fair, that's
the only way.  Otherwise, it is simply too hard to compare machine A to
machine B, since programs vary.  And using a program is a dangerous
thing
anyway as that then becomes open to skullduggery.


>
>
>Chris Whittington



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