[rescue] point of pride in SGI R10k vs. 1Ghz x86...

[Brian Hechinger]

> He played with it, zipped up a couple layers, then went into Fractal
> generation, then later added a Plasma layer and finished up with
> Gimpressionist.  All of these take some serious CPU time, especially
> when doing a 1280x1024 true color image.
> 
> It was almost as fast as his shiny new 1Ghz Athlon, he said.  Say equal
> to a 900Mhz Athlon.  His Athlon has the DDR RAM btw as well.
> 
> So the R10k in this case feels as fast as something with 4-5 times the
> clock speed of x86.

keep in mind that the R10K isn't doing all the work.  that's what the gfx H/W
is for.  that's what makes them SGI machines. :)

> (I once benched some compilation under x86 vs a SM51 on an old SS10. 
> the SM51 is about as fast as a P166MMX in that case, or a >2.5
> multiplier over x86.)

because the SS10 has significantly better I/O and is a better designed chip.
more proof that Mhz don't mean fast.

-brian