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Subject: Re: Crafty 16.18 benchmarks on UltraSparc and Athlon

Author: Eugene Nalimov

Date: 10:40:42 09/17/99

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On September 17, 1999 at 13:20:59, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On September 17, 1999 at 11:57:52, Owen Lyne wrote:
>[snip]
>>What kind of price are we talking about though? I thought alphas were
>>in a whole different price range....? You don't see them at tyour local
>>computer shop unfortunately (or if you do, I want to visit
>>your shop!).
>$3500 for a Linux ready box.
>http://www.dec.com/hpc/news/news_pr100599a.html

For $3.5k you can buy state-of-the-art Intel system, with at least two CPUs.
Yes, each of CPUs will be slower than single 466MHz 21264. But two of them will
be faster.

And I suspect that you can buy not state-of-the-art, but "normal" dual-CPU Intel
system as fast as that Alpha system for $3.5k/2 = $1.75k. Or even $3.5k/3 =
$1.2k.

I agree that in the full configuration huge Alpha system will be faster than the
biggest Intel-based system. But it'll cost *much* more. Of course there are
applications where you need that performance regardless of the price, but I
think that for majority of people/tasks price is very important.

Eugene

>>And is it not the case that Alpha and NT are going their separate ways in
>>future? Much as I dislike being in the Microsoft majority (ie owning
>>and using their software) there is is still much catching up to be
>>done to make other options match up all round (though for specific purposes,
>>there have been and are plenty of viable options, of course). As a general
>>purpose home office, chess computer and games machine (as in Quake,
>>Command and Conquer, Civilisation, car racing games etc) Wintel has the bases
>>covered - Linux is gradually filling in gaps and anything else is a stretch?
>>For a workplace environment, not such a stretch... And even there,
>>perhaps Linux on Intel/AMD type boxes is a way to go... For pretty
>>good value processing, if not the eyepopping NPS ;)
>Something to keep in mind:
>NT for Alpha is dead.  Kaput, terminal, R.I.P. (Formal COMPAQ announcement).
>Too bad.
>But you can still use:
>0. Tru64 UNIX
>1. OpenVMS
>2. Linux



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