Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks: RS6000 v. SS-1+

[Irvin Lustig]

In article <1991Jan30.003004.74 at intek01.uucp>, mark at intek01.uucp (Mark McWiggins) writes:
|> The most recent version of Unix Review contains a rather flamish
|> letter from someone who claims that his RS6000's don't perform
|> appreciably better in the application they're running than do 
|> SparcStation 1+'s, and are much harder to port software to, as well.
|> 
|> Any comments on this from RS6000 users?  Thanks in advance.
|> 
Our Fortran application screams on an RS6000 530.  It is about 6 to 7 times faster
than on a Sparcstation 1+.  You must make sure you use the optimization options
in the compiler to see this type of performance.  As for porting the application
from other Unix platforms, it was much easier to port this particular application
to the RS6000 than to the Sun (we were porting from a Silicon Graphics box - the
Fortran uses no graphics).  This is because the Sun Fortran compiler had some bugs
in it. 

We have also found that IBM's level of support for bugs and other problems is
far better than anything we've received from Sun. After our recent experience with Sun,
we are stunned that they have been so successful in selling workstations.    

	-Irvin Lustig
	Assistant Professor
	Princeton University
	Department of Civil Engineering and Operations Research
	irv%basie at princeton.edu
	(Currently visiting Rice University - irv at rice.edu)