Benchmark performance Under AIX
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg96478] Benchmark performance Under AIX
- From: "Coleman, Mark" <Mark.Coleman at LibertyMutual.com>
- Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 03:11:16 -0500 (EST)
Greetings,
I've been doing some benchmark testing of a new IBM Server running AIX
that we use for Mathematica. In particular I am using the
MathematicaMark6 tests that come with Mathematica v6.03. I've gotten
a puzzling result and I was wondering if anyone else on MathGroup has
seem a similar issue.
Briefly, we have Grid-Mathematica installed on an 6-CPU p500 series
IBM server (the machine uses PowerPC Power6 CPUs at 4.2 Ghz each) with
32Gb of Ram, running ver 5.3 of 64bit AIX (IBM's Unix). I've been
comparing the performance of this machine versus my standard 2Ghz
Laptop running Windows 2000. (Note: I am not making use of any grid
capabilities on the server)
Given the configurations of each machine, I would expect the server to
be as much as 2x as fast as my laptop, given the difference in CPU
speeds if nothing else. But this is not the case. The server results in
a MathematicaMark6 score of 1.37 versus 1.67 for my laptop. I've traced
the difference to Test #5 (Elementary Functions). The benchmark code for
this test is:
Test 5:Elementary Functions
Module[{m1,m2},Timing[SeedRandom[1];m1=RandomArray[Real,{},{2000000}];
m2=RandomArray[Real,{},{2000000}];
Do[E^m1;Sin[m1];ArcTan[m1,m2],{30}]]]
This code takes 6.06 seconds on my laptop and 26.8 seconds on the
server!
I'm wondering if there is a known issue on AIX (or UNIX systems more
generally) that might account for this?
Thanks,
Mark