DEC Alpha - Performance

Performance

To illustrate the comparative performance of Alpha-based systems, some SPEC performance numbers (SPECint95, SPECfp95) are listed below. Note that the SPEC results claim to report the measured performance of a whole computer system (CPU, bus, memory, compiler optimizer), not just the CPU. Also note that the benchmark and scale changed from 1992 to 1995. However, the figures give a rough impression of the performance of the Alpha architecture (64-bit), compared with the contemporary HP (64-bit) and Intel-based offerings (32-bit). Perhaps the most obvious trend is that while Intel could always get reasonably close to Alpha in integer performance, in floating point performance the difference was considerable. On the other side, HP (PA-RISC) is also reasonably close to Alpha, but these CPUs are running at significantly lower clock rates (MHz).

System CPU MHz integer floating point
SPEC Benchmark 1995 Performance comparison (using SPECint95 and SPECfp95 Result )
AlphaServer 8400 5/350 21164 (EV5) 350 10.1 14.2
Intel Alder System (200 MHz, 256KB L2) Pentium Pro 200 8.9 6.75
HP 9000 C160 PA 8000 160 10.4 16.3
System CPU MHz integer floating point
2000 Performance comparison (using SPECint95 and SPECfp95 Result)
AlphaServer ES40 6/833 21264 (EV6) 833 50.0 100.0
Intel VC820 motherboard Pentium III 1000 46.8 31.9
HP 9000 C3600 PA-8600 552 42.1 64.0

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