Subject: Re: slow 21164 Alphas (Re: Raptor 3 rendering service)
From: Mark Thompson <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 00:44:38 -0500

Andrew Hofman <[email-masked]> writes:
>>On average, it was
>>only 1.75x faster than my 21064a clocked at 300MHz.

>Check out the July 1995 issue of VTU, page 50.
>Two of these scenes are Texture Examples and Space Fighters.

The problem is, these are terrible scenes for benchmarking. I did all
my tests with the scenes I render from day to day. They are complex and
designed to be as render efficient as possible. When working with such
scenes, you will find that the difference is much smaller. Simple
or inefficient scenes can yield much more unpredictable data, and I
did see some evidence of 2x increases in a couple tests (but none that
used material representative of real work).

>The 21064 system you tested must have been exceptionally good
>to yield that kind of performance vs. a 21164/300.

I will say that its one very quick and cost effective system.

>By the way, exactly how much faster *was* the EV5?

In my tests, worst case was 1.4x, best case 2x, and average was 1.74x.
And generally, most of my real world scenes hovered very close to the
above mentioned average.

What I would really like to know is how the 266 MHz systems perform
when you clock boost them to 300, and if they run reliably at that
speed. My 275 MHz 21064a has been running rock solid at 300 for nearly
a year now.
  *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
  *           Mark Thompson           http://www.mv.com/ipusers/fusion  *
  *         Fusion Films, Inc.              [email-masked]          *
  * Director of Animation and Special FX      (603) 424-1829            *
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