Am 04.07.2014 03:34, schrieb Anthony D. Baye:

> Note: Parse time on the newer machine was faster by almost a whole second, but
> Trace time was a bit more than twice as long.
>
> Any ideas why this might be?

Maybe because the G5 uses an entirely different processor architecture? ;-)

The IBM PowerPC architecture originates in the high performance 
computing sector, where high precision floating point number crunching 
is daily business, and the typical occupation of a CPU is to do just that.

The Intel x64 architecture originates in the personal computing sector, 
where daily business means office work, internet browsing and gaming, 
and the typical occupation of a CPU is to wait for other system 
components (most notably memory).

As a matter of fact, POV-Ray is a very unconventional piece of software 
to run on a personal computer, in that it keeps the CPU core itself 
extremely busy, as indicated not by the CPU meter (which cannot 
distinguish between cores busy computing and cores busy waiting for 
memory access to complete), but by CPU temperature. If you want to push 
your computer's cooling system to its limits, POV-Ray is the ideal tool.

On poorly designed systems, the POV-Ray performance bottleneck may 
actually be not the CPU itself, but the cooling system, which may cause 
smart CPUs to enter thermal throttling. (And in such a case you better 
hope the CPU /is/ smart; otherwise, permanent damage is a real possibility.)

Post a reply to this message