Wonderful comparison of computers

Source:Http://www.yesky.com/20020523/1612649.shtml

No matter how fast the processors on different platforms are ), the factors that actually determine the throughput, available capacity, and the implementation of practical work such as the river are the architecture and operating system. In the business world, these factors depend on platform management and I/O optimization.

We can think of the processor speed in MHz as the RPM of the car engine to be purchased (the number of rotations per minute). RPM does not reflect the speed, number of passengers, and load. The important problem it is dealing with is how many rpm is needed to turn the tires around. For a computer, how many MHz or instructions are required to obtain the next data record from the disk? On different platforms, the difference may reach.

Now, we can think of the operating system as a gearbox or transmission. If the engine speed is 6000 Rpm, the speed can only be a small value for a car with only one gear but not a 5-speed gearbox. What is equally important to power supply and automotive performance is: Is the engine capacity 1 litre or 5 litre? The diesel engine may never exceed 1500 rpm, but its 6-litre capacity and 12-speed automatic transmission can trigger 20 tons of cargo on a truck and 40 passengers on a bus, in addition, each passenger consumes more fuel per mile. It only needs a driver. The principle is the same for different computers. The speed of the latest PC microchip is not much different from today's S/390 enterprise-level servers, but what we cannot compare is that there is only one user who can support one PC in less than one second, and there are thousands of real enterprise-level server users.

Comments: This is a story about ibm s/390 vs Unix servers. It is really amazing to describe. The pursuit of a single high speed cannot effectively solve the performance of the entire system.