[Simh] What is the best machine to run simh?

[Boucher, François]

Hi to all!

I am about to purchase some hardware to implement a 6 nodes VAX-VMS cluster.
All nodes will be running simh-vax.

In this setup, CPU performances will be of high importance.  I would like from members of the simh mailing list that they share their performance results.
So everybody that has to implement a simh setup could know what machine type and OS would be the best.

Also, to compare every machine with a common point of comparison, the same
Benchmark should be used. I propose the freely downloadable benchmark from SRI International: http://www.softresint.eu/downloads/pt_vax.exe
You can also download the same in .zip format:
http://www.softresint.eu/downloads/pt_vax.zip

To run the benchmark, simply do: run pt_vax.exe
It takes a few minutes, and displays results on screen.

Just for your info, my vax's speed record is obtained with a HP DL360 G5 equipped with 2 dual core CPUs Intel 5160, 4MB L2 cache, 3.0GHz, inline optimisations done.  Pasted here are my benchmark result and /proc/cpuinfo from the host machine, running Linux.

$ run pt_vax
Emulated VAX CPU comparative performance test, version 1.0
Copyright 2006 Software Resources International.
This test is not suitable to measure overall system performance.
No rights can be derived from the execution or the output of this test
Adjusting test length for fixed and floating point to 10 seconds/unit
Test started on Mon Jan 21 16:31:40 2008, for a MicroVAX 3900 Series CPU with VMS V7.3

Sequential test results:

               MIPs       Dhrystones   VUPs
Run 0          22.2        58823       31.2
Run 1          22.2        58823       31.2
Run 2          22.2        58823       31.0
Run 3          25.0        58823       31.0
---------------------------------------------
Average        22.9        58823       31.1

Interleaved test results:

               MIPs       Dhrystones   VUPs
Run0           22.2        58823       31.2
Run1           22.2        58823       31.2
Run2           22.2        58823       31.2
Run 3          22.2        58823       31.2
---------------------------------------------
Average        22.2        58823       31.2

Test ended on Mon Jan 21 16:35:32 2008, checksum A8CC98F0
$ 

Output from /proc/cpuinfo:
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU            5160  @ 3.00GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 3000.260
cache size      : 4096 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca lahf_lm
bogomips        : 6004.48

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Best regards,

Francois Boucher ing.