Myrinet vs FastEthernet

[Martin Kunz]

Hi All

I have a rather general question which many of you will dislike for
this reason - but any comments are welcome. I just hope I haven't
overlooked a FAQ covering all this... please accept my apologies
already now ;-) Well, here it is:

What are your impressions concerning Myrinet compared to Fast Ethernet?
Has anybody ever used both for some time? Is it worth the added cost,
or, rather: was it worth the added cost for your code? (and what code
are you running?) Any experiences concerning scalability (for medium
sized systems, 128 to 256 nodes)? Is it better in every respect compared
to Fast Ethernet (apart from cost)? How much faster did your code
run? (And do you know why?)

(Are there any benchmark results out there? I saw the netperf site
and had the impression that Myrinet mainly improves the *speed* by
about a factor four, but doesn't do much to the *latency* for that
specific benchmark? But I'm not sure if I understood the results
correctly...)

Any experience with system stability and general convenience/handling
of the hardware and drivers?

How about the new generation (Myrinet 2000 if I remember correctly)?

Any crucial points one shouldn't neglect? Other comments?
(i.e. I'm interested in whatever scraps of knowledge concerning
Myrinet are floating around the community... :-) )

Thanks a lot!

Martin

--
Martin Kunz			Astrophysics
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phone +44 (0)1865 273 306	Oxford University 
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