Just in advance, take also a closer look under P4-NeXT, the shown system is faster than the depicted one here, but drivers etc. remain the same. Most of the components are brand new, or still available. If not, it is noted as used. When asking for a system, please ask also for availability of single components, I possibly can help. Please note that the operating system was not part of the distribution, but I will send you the necessary divers to be set if needed, or surge the NeXT-Step package.
Enough said, lets go into details. The system makes use of a socket 478 based industry main board, which in turn utilizes a Pentium IV with 3GHz and more. Several components are changed for better reliability. The board provides three different kinds of busses, i.e. ISA, PCI, and AGP up to 8x. For a NeXT the usual components come into play.
So lets start with a simple Tensor test under NeXT-Step:
OK, before going into more benchmark details some pictures. The case can be in NeXT-Color, what is not very impressive. You will also see that this case made into the P4-NeXT.
Hmm, not really. The system comes along with a very powerful switching power supply, not one of these cheap ones, holding from 12PM to noon. At the bottom you can see the mounted four EIDE drives with 0,64TBytes, and the noisy 9GB SCSI above. From the front a 120mm blower will cool down the drives to a minimum without being noisy. On the left side at the bottom the usual cards as described above. From top to bottom, MATROX graphic adapter, Adaptec SCSI adapter, 3Com ethernet card, digital TV receiver, spare place for ISA or PCI, SoundBlaster 16, US-Robotics modem.
Have you seen the spare space above the disc drives with the silent blower on the right? Well here you will find the OpenStep drives:
Having the Disk I/O from Tensor in mind you may want to see how fast the drives really are, well the 9GB NeXT-Step drive on left, the 36GB Cheetah for OpenStep on the right:
Still not enough and need more benchmarks? OK, the last comparisons are the well known ByteBench's. First, the base is NeXT-Step, the other OpenStep.
Source File for target machine results: pgms/ByteBenchP4_OpenStep.base pgms/index.base /tmp/4334.dat INDEX VALUES TEST BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 without register variables 4135425.5 3488795.6 0.8 Dhrystone 2 using register variables 4082058.6 3463669.0 0.8 Arithmetic Test (type = arithoh) 15766610.4 15767198.6 1.0 Arithmetic Test (type = register) 457671.5 438670.1 1.0 Arithmetic Test (type = short) 487874.4 479043.1 1.0 Arithmetic Test (type = int) 457440.5 440107.5 1.0 Arithmetic Test (type = long) 457743.8 440282.9 1.0 Arithmetic Test (type = float) 767524.0 746378.5 1.0 Arithmetic Test (type = double) 767439.4 745535.9 1.0 System Call Overhead Test 288525.4 300359.4 1.0 Pipe Throughput Test 443590.5 436887.9 1.0 Pipe-based Context Switching Test 89539.0 92415.0 1.0 Process Creation Test 2975.4 2294.0 0.8 Execl Throughput Test 1546.2 372.3 0.2 File Read (10 seconds) 835653.0 806724.0 1.0 File Write (10 seconds) 4566.0 17697.0 3.9 File Copy (10 seconds) 4918.0 15305.0 3.1 File Read (30 seconds) 803481.0 809081.0 1.0 File Write (30 seconds) 4275.0 17833.0 4.2 File Copy (30 seconds) 4533.0 11783.0 2.6 C Compiler Test 315.9 1063.0 3.4 Shell scripts (1 concurrent) 389.3 1752.3 4.5 Shell scripts (2 concurrent) 181.0 911.7 5.0 Shell scripts (4 concurrent) 91.3 445.7 4.9 Shell scripts (8 concurrent) 47.0 221.3 4.7 Dc: sqrt(2) to 99 decimal places 45611.4 19332.7 0.4 Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi 70217.0 50935.1 0.7 ========= SUM of 27 items 51.9 AVERAGE 1.9
As system inherent, the disk i/o differs due to the fact of different disc drives. These would be most probably the same with same drives, but as mentioned above, OpenStep is always slower than NeXT-Step, except the Shell/Task switch. BTW, the compiler was 2.7.2 under NeXT-Step (opensource) and 2.7.2 under OpenStep (OpenStep).
To put the results in respect to other architectures, two last ByteBench's. The first is OpenStep vs. original NeXT:
Source File for target machine results: pgms/ByteBenchNeXTstation.base pgms/index.base /tmp/5075.dat INDEX VALUES TEST BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 without register variables 3488795.6 25789.2 0.0 Dhrystone 2 using register variables 3463669.0 25811.2 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = arithoh) 15767198.6 45990.9 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = register) 438670.1 3026.8 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = short) 479043.1 3400.9 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = int) 440107.5 3017.9 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = long) 440282.9 3012.2 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = float) 746378.5 2553.3 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = double) 745535.9 2554.9 0.0 System Call Overhead Test 300359.4 6277.3 0.0 Pipe Throughput Test 436887.9 2856.9 0.0 Pipe-based Context Switching Test 92415.0 1211.9 0.0 Process Creation Test 2294.0 39.0 0.0 Execl Throughput Test 372.3 29.7 0.1 File Read (10 seconds) 806724.0 15742.0 0.0 File Write (10 seconds) 17697.0 428.0 0.0 File Copy (10 seconds) 15305.0 372.0 0.0 File Read (30 seconds) 809081.0 16394.0 0.0 File Write (30 seconds) 17833.0 354.0 0.0 File Copy (30 seconds) 11783.0 218.0 0.0 C Compiler Test 1063.0 25.7 0.0 Shell scripts (1 concurrent) 1752.3 31.0 0.0 Shell scripts (2 concurrent) 911.7 16.9 0.0 Shell scripts (4 concurrent) 445.7 8.6 0.0 Shell scripts (8 concurrent) 221.3 3.8 0.0 Dc: sqrt(2) to 99 decimal places 19332.7 776.0 0.0 Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi 50935.1 342.2 0.0 ========= SUM of 27 items 0.5 AVERAGE 0.0
You say this is not fair, more than a decade between both? OK, want to compare this NeXT dream against a 2002 IBM Mainframe? Here is the last comparison, file write not included, because the Mainframe had Linux on it with a RAM-disk, so file write is no real file write and therefore skipped:
Source File for target machine results: pgms/ByteBenchS390G6.base pgms/index.base /tmp/5371.dat INDEX VALUES TEST BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 without register variables 3488795.6 547808.4 0.2 Dhrystone 2 using register variables 3463669.0 547026.2 0.2 Arithmetic Test (type = arithoh) 15767198.6 1293552.8 0.1 Arithmetic Test (type = register) 438670.1 108506.9 0.2 Arithmetic Test (type = short) 479043.1 106554.3 0.2 Arithmetic Test (type = int) 440107.5 108525.2 0.2 Arithmetic Test (type = long) 440282.9 108948.0 0.2 Arithmetic Test (type = float) 746378.5 35100.6 0.0 Arithmetic Test (type = double) 745535.9 44878.0 0.1 System Call Overhead Test 300359.4 274911.2 0.9 Pipe Throughput Test 436887.9 279618.8 0.6 Pipe-based Context Switching Test 92415.0 74697.3 0.8 Process Creation Test 2294.0 3067.7 1.3 Execl Throughput Test 372.3 562.3 1.5 File Read (10 seconds) 806724.0 731069.0 0.9 File Copy (10 seconds) 15305.0 11234.0 0.7 File Read (30 seconds) 809081.0 732527.0 0.9 File Copy (30 seconds) 11783.0 7001.0 0.6 C Compiler Test 1063.0 358.0 0.3 Shell scripts (1 concurrent) 1752.3 814.8 0.5 Shell scripts (2 concurrent) 911.7 478.2 0.5 Shell scripts (4 concurrent) 445.7 243.9 0.5 Shell scripts (8 concurrent) 221.3 137.6 0.6 Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi 50935.1 6929.1 0.1 ========= SUM of 24 items 12.5 AVERAGE 0.5
© Dr. Henry Koplien