comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive - RDF feed
type: channel
description: Messages from Usenet group comp.lang.idl-pvwave, compiled by Paulo Penteado
items: Re: Intel iMac IDL performance

Re: Intel iMac IDL performance
type: item
description: On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 15:09:53 -0600, Kenneth Bowman wrote: > Apple loaned us an Intel Dual-Core iMac for a few days for testing. Here is a > quick comparison: > > Intel system specs: > 2 GHz Intel Core Duo (2 cpus) > 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM > 667 MHz bus > OS X 10.4.5 > > PowerPC system specs: > 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 (4 cpus) > 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM > 1.25 GHz bus > OS X 10.4.5 > > We installed the Mac (PowerPC) version of IDL on both. The Intel runs IDL via > emulation software (Rosetta). > > My IDL benchmark code (dominated by 3-D interpolation, random memory access): > PowerPC 31 s > Intel iMac 61 s > > > I played with the IDL demo programs on the Intel iMac and everything that I > tried ran fine. Basic interactive IDL performance is very quick. > > All in all, IDL seems to run fine. Performance is quite respectable for an > emulated system. Native IDL performance (when available) could be comparable to > the G5. Good news. Can you try running your benchmark a few time, Ken? Rosetta is not an emulator, but a caching code translator. When it encounters code it has already translated, it simply uses its cached version of that, which should run somewhat faster, so it's not unusual to have the second and later runs of a given benchmark speed up. Can you also run: IDL> time_test3 a few times? On my PB G4, that takes 3.6s/0.13s total/geom. mean. Sadly, I expect the iBook Intel/MacBook Pro to beat these numbers even under Rosetta. One other good one to try: IDL> a=randomu(sd,100L*!CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS) IDL> t=systime(1) & a=sqrt(a)/(a>0.5) & print,systime(1)-t which shows how well the threading is working on ~40MB of data. On my PBG4, this takes 1.8s. Thanks, JD
creator: JD Smith
date: 2006-02-27T22:35:31-00:00

Re: Intel iMac IDL performance
type: item
description: JD Smith wrote: > On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 15:09:53 -0600, Kenneth Bowman wrote: > >> Apple loaned us an Intel Dual-Core iMac for a few days for testing. Here is a >> quick comparison: >> >> Intel system specs: >> 2 GHz Intel Core Duo (2 cpus) >> 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM >> 667 MHz bus >> OS X 10.4.5 >> >> PowerPC system specs: >> 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 (4 cpus) >> 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM >> 1.25 GHz bus >> OS X 10.4.5 >> >> We installed the Mac (PowerPC) version of IDL on both. The Intel runs IDL via >> emulation software (Rosetta). >> >> My IDL benchmark code (dominated by 3-D interpolation, random memory access): >> PowerPC 31 s >> Intel iMac 61 s >> >> >> I played with the IDL demo programs on the Intel iMac and everything that I >> tried ran fine. Basic interactive IDL performance is very quick. >> >> All in all, IDL seems to run fine. Performance is quite respectable for an >> emulated system. Native IDL performance (when available) could be comparable to >> the G5. > > Good news. Can you try running your benchmark a few time, Ken? > Rosetta is not an emulator, but a caching code translator. When it > encounters code it has already translated, it simply uses its cached > version of that, which should run somewhat faster, so it's not unusual > to have the second and later runs of a given benchmark speed up. Can > you also run: > > IDL> time_test3 > > a few times? On my PB G4, that takes 3.6s/0.13s total/geom. mean. > Sadly, I expect the iBook Intel/MacBook Pro to beat these numbers even > under Rosetta. One other good one to try: > > IDL> a=randomu(sd,100L*!CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS) > IDL> t=systime(1) & a=sqrt(a)/(a>0.5) & print,systime(1)-t > > which shows how well the threading is working on ~40MB of data. On my > PBG4, this takes 1.8s. > > Thanks, > > JD > Hmm. Maybe your PB is dialed back to save battery power. My Pentium 4m @ 2.2 GHz and 512 MB RAM gives this: IDL> a=randomu(sd,100L*!CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS) IDL> t=systime(1) & a=sqrt(a)/(a>0.5) & print,systime(1)-t 0.62500000 IDL> time_test…
creator: Robert Moss
date: 2006-02-28T02:47:15-00:00

Re: Intel iMac IDL performance
type: item
description: In article <pan.2006.02.27.22.35.29.385927@as.arizona.edu>, JD Smith <jdsmith@as.arizona.edu> wrote: > Good news. Can you try running your benchmark a few time, Ken? > Rosetta is not an emulator, but a caching code translator. When it > encounters code it has already translated, it simply uses its cached > version of that, which should run somewhat faster, so it's not unusual > to have the second and later runs of a given benchmark speed up. Can > you also run: > > IDL> time_test3 > > a few times? On my PB G4, that takes 3.6s/0.13s total/geom. mean. > Sadly, I expect the iBook Intel/MacBook Pro to beat these numbers even > under Rosetta. One other good one to try: > > IDL> a=randomu(sd,100L*!CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS) > IDL> t=systime(1) & a=sqrt(a)/(a>0.5) & print,systime(1)-t > > which shows how well the threading is working on ~40MB of data. On my > PBG4, this takes 1.8s. > > Thanks, > > JD Hi, JD. I ran JD's benchmark, along with time_test3 and my personal benchmark. The results are summarized here: http://idl.tamu.edu/mac_bench.php I ran all tests 3 times. Variations between individual runs was at the 10% level. (Re-running did not produce significant changes in speed.) The Intel iMac is faster than my (relatively new) PowerBook G4, but slower than a high end G5 desktop. Multi-threading on the quad-processor G5 seems to work quite well. I ran a few other non-IDL tests. TeX, with the TeXshop front-end, is amazingly fast. Ken
creator: K. Bowman
date: 2006-02-28T20:28:26-00:00

Re: Intel iMac IDL performance
type: item
description: On my dual-AMD Opteron 254, the minimal amount of time for this test, replacing !CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS with the standard preset 100000 and setting the tpool_min_elts to 25, is 0.16 sec. Wolf. JD Smith wrote: > a few times? On my PB G4, that takes 3.6s/0.13s total/geom. mean. > Sadly, I expect the iBook Intel/MacBook Pro to beat these numbers even > under Rosetta. One other good one to try: > > IDL> a=randomu(sd,100L*!CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS) > IDL> t=systime(1) & a=sqrt(a)/(a>0.5) & print,systime(1)-t > > which shows how well the threading is working on ~40MB of data. On my > PBG4, this takes 1.8s.
creator: Wolf Schweitzer
date: 2006-03-08T12:47:08-00:00

Re: Intel iMac IDL performance
type: item
description: On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:47:08 +0100, Wolf Schweitzer wrote: > On my dual-AMD Opteron 254, the minimal amount of time for this test, > replacing !CPU.TPOOL_MIN_ELTS with the standard preset 100000 and setting > the tpool_min_elts to 25, is 0.16 sec. This assumes TPOOL_MIN_ELTS=100000. Setting tpool_min_elts with CPU will reset this, which will make the size of the vector much smaller, and make this somewhat artificial (though I don't doubt a factor of 10, really). I guess I should have put a: cpu,tpool_min_elts=100000 first, to even the playing field. JD
creator: JD Smith
date: 2006-03-10T17:19:03-00:00