Well, in all fairness... your Athlon is clocked 3.5 times higher than my Netra and happens to be the architecture for which both Python and gcc likely receive hefty optimization (x86). The Netra X1 is also sub-$1000, fits in 1U and has some really nice Lights-Out Management features (I can poweroff/poweron via external console or have the watchdog automatically reboot a stalled system, among other things). There's also Sun's support, which - good or bad (I've had the former) - you just can't get for a commodity PC. I don't dispute Athlon price/performance (writing this on an Athlon atm)... The UltraSparc II isn't exactly a performance leader these days, if it ever was. We're talking about a chip that was originally released over 5 years ago. But the Netra is not intended to be a speed demon, just a solid web server. That's what we bought it for... =) At 08:23 PM 12/2/2001 +0100, Dieter Maurer wrote:
Paul Horbal writes:
Just to throw in some more performance tests for those interested... .... Results:
Sun Netra X1 (UltraSparc IIe 400 MHz) ---- gcc ~= 4000 pystones/sec Forte ~= 4370 pystones/sec A 800 USD AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz PC under Linux with "gcc" features
17,543 pystones/sec
its a factor of 4 faster and (I think) about a factor of 4 less expensive...
Dieter