UX vs Windoze

[Nobody's Hero]

We are testing an fairly cpu intensive app on UX and on Win2K. UX box has 3 180 MhZ cpu's. The w2k server has 1 900 Mhz CPU. Why does HP-UX with a slower CPU speed out perform the w2k box? Is it because windoze is pushing that fancy Gui all the time?

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Robert,

It's RISC: Reduced Instruction Set Computing. It's much more efficient. An HP-UX was designed from the ground up to run (and run well) on it.

Pete

[harry d brown jr]

Because unix has a scheduler that can truly multitask, something windoze wish it had.


live free or die
harry

[fg_1]

Robert

BIIIGGGGG DIFFERENCE between PA-RISC Based processors and Pentium Intel Based processors.

Much faster I/O processing power in a PA-RISC processor.

Good site here that explains each type of processor.

http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/direct/newsletter5/node1.html

Gl

Frank G.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Robert,

Another possible reason is that the app is multi-threaded & can execute on all 3 CPUs at once on the HP-UX system. Check a glance or top output while it (and only it) is running. If all 3 CPUs are cranking - it's multi-threaded.

Rgds,
Jeff

[John Payne_2]

You may find the difference even more extreme if you purchase a newer server with 8700 processors. (like the 650MhZ or 750Mhz)

The nice thing about HPUX is you can tune it better also. (There's always something you can do.)

Have fun.

John

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

All truth's about the CPU's aside, what's the disk setup? HP-UX does not run on IDE ([fast] ATA) disks, but on (Ultra)(Wide)SCISI(160/320).

These disks are not only faster by itself (most of the time), but they unload the CPU(s) because the disk IO is controlled by the SCSI controler, where IDE disks take a lot of the main CPU for control and memory moves. Newer IDE disks make good use of DMA, but it's still the main processor that has to direct the disks.

[Tim Medford]

John is correct about the mhz speed. We just bought a new rp5470 with dual 875mhz PA8700 CPUs. It is a SCREAMER!

We run Oracle on the machine. It handles way more volume than the Quad pentium machines running Squirrel Server.

[John Bolene]

This reminds me about MIPS...Meaningless Indicators of Performance Statistics

The same can be said about Mhz and Ghz, not all of them are created equally.

Also the OS can have a big difference.

We installed Debian Linux on an HP machine for testing. It did not perform nearly as fast as the same machine did on HPUX.

[Chris Wilshaw]

Simple answer - UNIX WORKS!!

[Chuck J]

Windoze is a product of Bill Gates that's why. No seriously, Windoze is much more CPU intensive, they OS itself uses alot of memory. Unix is simple it runs simple scripts and doesn't require as much as a Windoze system. It never has and never will. People choose Windoze because the nice little GUI is easy to use. People who know how to admin Unix choose it anyday.

Chuck J

[John Dvorchak]

I think we have consensus that Windoze is an overly bloated OS and UNIX is not. Also consider the following:
1. UNIX is taking adavtage of the SMP (Symetrical Multi Processing) allowing it to not only multi task but you have the advantage of using more than one processor simultaneously.

2. I guess point one pretty much covers it.

[Ian Dennison_1]

I think it comes down to the history and design philosophy of each platform and OS,...

Windows - originally single user on low-spec hardware, so no real pressure to optimise and some legacy of "all mine" resource management.

UNIX - Designed for multi-processing and sharing, severely optimised and a legacy of "share and share alike".

NB. Watch your Analyst / Programmers; a Windoze based programmer will (generally) write code quickly that has no consideration for resources; an old Mainframe / UNIX Programmer will (generally) write tighter, more efficient code that uses resources in the best way possible.

Just my bias! Ian

[Mark Landin]

There are numerous reasons box A may outperform box B. In fact, Box B might outperform box B on a different type of task. It's all very general.

Your HP-UX system and your WIndows system have the following fundamental differences:
1) CPU architecture and speed
2) Memory bandwidth (and probably quantity)
3) Disk I/O characteristics (IDE vs. SCSI; RAID vs. non-RAID; overall throughput, etc)
4) O/S design
5) Application implementation. Just becuase the same app is available on two platforms doesn't mean that it didn't get "tuned" for a particular platform.

In short, if you really want to know WHY your HP-UX system is handling this task better than your Windows system, there are a multitude of things to look at. There are too many factors involved to point the performance finger at the OS.

(Note: nowhere did I say that Windows is "better" than UNIX or vice versa, although that seems to be the conclusion that everyone is drawing...)