[ On Friday, May 9, 2003 at 11:25:51 (+0200), Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [Exim] OT: Sizing a virus checking engine
>
> Well virus-checking is pretty CPU-intensive(but not as cpu-intensive as
> SpamAssassin!), and according to our internal tests all of our Sun's
> (some Fire V120, som E450 and E220 and so on) have been dramatically
> outperformed by our Intel Xeon 2,0Ghz Maschines with such tasks.
> I do think that for such a task Intel-based system are far more better
> suited than Sun - Systems due to there incredible CPU-frequencies(and no
> - I don't think you need 4GB of RAM just for Virusscanning).
You should, indeed "MUST", ignore CPU frequencies when comparing processors.
You should also look at system implementations, not just CPUs. The
system (and memory) bus, DRAM architecture, etc. all play important
factors with CPU-intensive jobs.
Look at the SPECint_rate2000 numbers for the whole system to get an idea
of how different systems compare:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/
You'll also want to verify that the virus scanner was compiled by the
vendor with the best compiler available for the target system
(e.g. Intel's compiler for iapX86 systems, Sun's SunPro compiler for
sparc64 systems, Digital's compiler for Alpha, SGI's compiler for MIPS
based systems, etc.). GCC still sucks badly when it comes to getting
every ounce of performance out of a CPU.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098; <g.a.woods@???>; <woods@???>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
