Bang for the Buck, comparing Celerons to Xeons (and PIIIs?)

[Alan DuBoff]

George Bonser wrote:

> real    2m57.413s
> user    4m38.690s
> sys     0m21.870s
> 
> The dual 366 Celeron @5550 was:
> 
> real    1m57.180s
> user    3m29.450s
> sys     0m16.220s
> 
> Dual P-III 500:
> 
> real    2m10.220s
> user    3m47.150s
> sys     0m19.000s

George,

Your numbers are completely different than mine. You show a substantially
lower real time than you do user/sys. As an example, I show the following for
my dual Celeron:

real	4m23.739s
user	4m11.700s
sys	0m17.510s

My dual Xeons show:

real    3m38.532s
user    3m22.530s
sys     0m13.120s

Maybe I don't understand what real time is vs. user/sys, I thought real time
should be about the same as user and sys combined.

At least it is on both of my systems. Why does your systems spend so much less
time there?

> But actual compile times will depend on configuration of kernel options (these
> are not standard Debian kernel .config files)

Yes, mine are just straight xconfig and save it, they are not the kernel I
build for the machines. I did that so I knew they would be similar, as well as
doing the apt-get upgrade to make sure each machine was running the same
compilers. The only thing that is different is that I am running a 2.2.7
kernel on my dual Xeon box, while I compiled the exact same kernel code,
2.2.12 with a patch from a few days ago when I grabbed it from kernel.org.

> I have beaten these
> systems to DEATH and have not had a problem with overheating, sig 11 faults or
> anything. On the other hand, I have a pair of Celeron 366's that will not
> overclock at ALL. I have these systems running the distributed-net client to
> keep the CPU's at 100% useage so they stay about as hot as they can get.

They are ok, but I would give the nod to the Xeons. They seem to run a lot
hotter than the Celerons though, understandable, the heat sinks are like
waffle irons...<G> In fact, I heard they will ship the next Xeons with a
refrigerator attached to them, which is good, you can store cold ones in your
system.:-/

> Oh, and if you should decide to run that distributed-net client on those dual
> Celerons, you might join the Debian Linux Power Users (2.2.12 SMP) team. We
> were rated the #597 team yesterday ... with only three people.

I'm not sure what the distributed-net client is.

I was thinking of going to the 2.3.18 kernel on my dual Celeron box, since
Linus seemed to imply at LinuxWorld that a lot of work had been put into the
SMP code, and that it will scale well to 8 processors. That is important as
Intel had announced 8 way support for Xeons. Up until now there really haven't
been working 8-way systems other than NCR, or Seimens. At least that is my
understanding, most everyone selling 4 ways are all using the Intel mobos
(SC450NX and AD450NX).

> Note the dual 450 box is without air conditioning of any sort in the South Bay.

As I recall, you live very close to me, like down by Stevens Creek and Miller.
I don't have any air conditioning either, but I have well cooled systems, they
are both in SuperMicro 760a cases, my dual Xeon has a 400watt redundant
cooling PS (2 fans on it) loaded up with CPU and drive fans, I'm fond of fans
in systems...;-) My dual Celerons only have a 300watt PS, but it is also
redundant cooling. These are nice cases...maybe a bit big for some people, but
I like the ventialation on them.

I don't understand your numbers above, I'm watching my Xeons compile right now
and it shows consisten numbers, with real time being very close to the
combination of user time and sys time.

-- 

Alan DuBoff
Software Orchestration, Inc.