From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1ET3tp-0005m4-Qd for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:54:02 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with SMTP id j9LKosK6025628; Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:50:54 GMT Received: from sccrmhc12.comcast.net (sccrmhc12.comcast.net [204.127.202.56]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id j9LKlGhm022499 for ; Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:47:16 GMT Received: from [24.22.104.124] (c-24-22-104-124.hsd1.or.comcast.net[24.22.104.124]) by comcast.net (sccrmhc12) with ESMTP id <2005102120494701200fio05e>; Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:49:52 +0000 Message-ID: <4359545F.6040503@comcast.net> Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:49:35 -0700 From: Rob User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] i386 vs amd64/ forget my Python comparisons References: <43583153.2070603@comcast.net> <1129899295.31014.3.camel@alain.oneredshoe.net> <43591F11.9000300@comcast.net> <4359435D.6040507@asmallpond.org> In-Reply-To: <4359435D.6040507@asmallpond.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 092cbd8c-1bab-4009-bb7b-bdf93986f906 X-Archives-Hash: 73fd0a7851a43999cf3db9e2e993fe39 Richard Fish wrote: > Rob wrote: > >> I don't want to start a 64bit vs 32 bit war, or a Windows versus *nix >> war, but it has been my experience so far that the fastest benchmarks >> for a highly computation intensive program written in Numeric Python >> came on my 3.5Ghz P4 laptop with hyperthreading- on Windows. Also, >> running the same program on an AMD Opteron gave me a slower speed no >> matter what OS I was using. > > > Did you recompile or install a 64-bit version of python for the > Opteron? If not, you are comparing a 32-bit processor doing 64-bit > computations using 32-bit instructions to a 64-bit processor doing > 64-bit computations using 32-bit instructions, which is probably not > what you intended. > >> I am baffled by the behavior. The only thing I can figure might be >> occuring would be that the *nix 64 bit toolchains are much younger than >> the 32 bit ones. But as the 32 bit Numeric Python on Windows is still >> 3x faster than the *nix equivalents, I have asked Activestate, the >> Windows Python provider, if they do anything special when compiling the >> code and they say no. I think they said that they use some ordinary MS >> comiler. >> >> > > Well, MS makes _very_ good compilers, from a speed standpoint. It's > difficult to find an objective comparision between the Visual C++ > compiler and GCC, but it would not surprise me at all if the VC++ > produced code that was 10-30% faster for many cases. > > For example, VC++.NET can use "whole program optimization", where much > of the optimization is delayed until the linking step, when data from > all comilation units (.o files) can be used to make decisions. This > results in more inline functions, more unreachable code being deleted, > better function ordering, and so on. > > As for being 3x faster on Windows, that seems a bit strange to me. Were > the "*nix" versions of python compiled specifically for the processor? > Running code 'optimized' for a 386 on a modern processor would account > for this difference in performance. > > Note that the OS should make very little difference here. You could > probably do a similar comparison using the ActiveState python on Windows > vs the cygwin version of python. > > -Richard > Hi Richard, After going to Tom's Hardware and looking at the dizzying array of processors, chipsets, etc, and all of the benchmarks, I think my comparisons need to be more highly defined just on that basis alone. So forget my email, haha. In the end, what matters to me the most is time spent emerging Gentoo ports and perhaps trying to get Python working faster. I used a stage 3 tarball when setting up this computer. Maybe I will try upgrading Python. I saw that there is a utility for doing so, However, in any case I think this Laptop is damned fast. I believe I compiled Gentoo's Xorg x11-base in about 10 minutes. The laptop uses an Intel 3.4Ghz P4 4-E Prescott with 1Gig of DDR-2 memory. I also didn't know that it supported AMD64/EM64T. I got that from SiSoft Sandra. This laptop is huge, weighs alot, and emits large amounts of hot air when compiling. I bought it as a desktop replacement as sitting on a chair in front of a monitor is problematic for me due to back problems. I believe this unit is one of those where some of HP's batteries melted. I saw that in the news. So far mine has not. Sincerely, Rob -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list