decent performance from G4 Macs?

[Ron Chen]

--- Mark Hahn <hahn at physics.mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> > --- Mark Hahn <hahn at physics.mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> > > I'm doing some benchmarks to evaluate whether
> > > current Macs would make suitable nodes for a
> serial
> > > farm (lots of nodes, preferably fast CPU and
> dram,
> > > but no serious interconnect.)
> > 
> > Physics or bioscience code?
> 
> why does it matter?  we're not trying specifically
> to run BLAST, 
> if that's what you're asking.  I don't see any
> reason why the 
> department would matter, but it's a mixture of math,
> chem,
> physics, astro, biologists, and perhaps a few
> psychologists.
> 
> > > I've tried a variety of real codes and
> benchmarks,
> > > but can't seem to get something like a Mac
> G4/800 
> > > with PC133 to perform anywhere close to even a
> > > P4/1.7/i845/PC133.
> > > 
> > > I'm using either the gcc 2.95 that comes with
> OSX or
> > > a recent 3.1 snapshot (which is MUCH better, but
> > > still bad).
> > 
> > What compiler are you using for the P4? 
> 
> I'm pretty happy with recent snapshots of gcc 3.1
> (pre-release).
> (still mystified why gnu fortran people are stuck at
> F77, but...)
> 
> > > is it just that the performance Apple brags
> about is
> > > strictly in-cache, and/or when doing something
> ah
> > > specialized like single-precision SIMD
> > >(altivec/velocity engine)?
> > 
> > Apple has some libraries that take advantage of
> the
> > Altivec instructions.
> 
> linpack/lapack/atlas/fftw?
> 
> > AFAIK, there are several people using MacOS X in
> > clusters, the SGE (Sun Grid Engine) project has a
> port
> > for Mac OS X.
> 
> which doesn't give me ANY data on performance.
> 

You can use a better compiler for the PPC:

http://www.absoft.com/newproductpage.html


Also, I did not say that SGE would provide you ANY
data on performance -- all I said was that you could
find people using Mac OS X/G4 machines in the cluster
world. (or if you don't like SGE, you can choose PBS,
they also have a Mac OS X port)

-Ron

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