[Bioclusters] altivec-HMMER bechmark results from Erik Lindahl - 6x faster than dual Athlon

[Eric Engelhard]

On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 12:03:55PM -0500, chris dagdigian wrote:
> Dave Waddell wrote:
> > Don't want to start a processor war but the current Intel chip is a
> > 3.06GHz Pentium 4 not a 1GHz Pentium 3. IMHO, benchmark results should
> > match current hardware or don't make them at all.
> > 
> 
> > IMHO, benchmark results should
> >> match current hardware or don't make them at all.
> 
> I agree, but:
> 
> Current hardware != fastest possible hardware, especially for this 
> mailing list...
> 
> Since a huge percentage of the bioclusters that I've seen, built and 
> learned about are running dual Pentium III 1U rackmount systems the 
> benchmarks are real and actually useful for many people in this forum, 
> especially for those who are considering purchasing hardware in the near 
> term. The data is interesting enough to make some people consider 
> eval'ing a G4 box in their decision process. Apple is not something one 
> normally consideres when building such systems.

Well said. I built out Sagres' cluster a couple years ago with dual 866
PIII 2U boxes. They still meet the original pipeline specifications, but
they aren't anywhere near cutting edge.

I have not used Apple, but would not hesitate mix them in if they had the
optimal solution for a particular problem. Of course, I would also want to
compare Apple with the current best from AMD and Intel.

I tend to balance out performance per node with total cost of ownership.

RLX Technologies gave a presentation at CVBIG (www.cvbig.org) about their
Intel and Transmeta based blade servers, and specifically, their BLAST
solution. RLX may not be the fastest option _per blade_, but they certainly
offer much when it comes to space, cooling, energy, and management.

My .02

Eric
-- 
Eric Engelhard - www.cvbig.org - www.appliedgenex.com