Can a large RS/6000 easily replace a Convex?

[Johan Haas]

We are considering to replace our current Convex C1 with a mix 
of RS/6000 systems instead of upgrading to a Convex C2.

I would like to hear if e.g. the model 550 is any good to serve
as a machine for, say, 8 PhD. students (like myself).
We do a lot of program development, but also do finite difference
simulations that run easily 10 hours on our C1.

I know that the MIPS/MFLOPS performance of the 550 is superior
to that of the Convex, but there are rumours that the multiuser
performance of RISC machines is very bad. Is this true?

Another issue is the single precision Floating Point performance
that --according to a lettr to Unix World-- can be worse than the
double precision performance. We do most of our work in single
precision.

I would appreciate any comments


Johan de Haas     tel. +31 15 785188   E-mail: johan at dutnak2.tudelft.nl
Lab. of Seismics & Acoustics             Delft University of Technology
P.O Box 5046, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
--
Johan de Haas     tel. +31 15 785188   E-mail: johan at dutnak2.tudelft.nl
Lab. of Seismics & Acoustics             Delft University of Technology
P.O Box 5046, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands