The speed of the Python interpreter on the Intel Core 2 Duo test system seems to be better by about 20-25 percent when compared to our hitherto-fastest AMD Opteron system, at an equivalent CPU speed.
I did two Python benchmarks, pystones (simple) and pybench (preferred, complete benchmark suite). The results are:
| Machine | Pystones/sec | Pystns/sec/GHz | Pybench [sec] | Pybench*GHz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCUDS17 | 38759 (~ 99%) | 22866 (~179%) | 48.405 ( -0%) | 82.046 (-46%) |
| SUNUDS99 | 39062 (=100%) | 12777 (=100%) | 49.808 ( =0%) | 152.263 ( =0%) |
| SUNUDS93 | +53763 (~138%) | +22469 (~176%) | -33.007 (-34%) | -78.985 (-48%) |
| SUNUDS94 | 58139 (~149%) | 24325 (~190%) | 31.730 (-36%) | 75.834 (-50%) |
| PCITFIOT02 | 75757 (~194%) | 25311 (~198%) | 20.260 (-59%) | 60.638 (-60%) |
The difference between PCITFIOT02 (Intel Core 2 Duo) and SUNUDS9{3,4} (AMD Opteron) running at an equivalent CPU speed (Pybench*GHz) is 20-22 percent for Core 2 Duo in pybench, and 4-12 percent in pystones.
I have also run some other simple crunch tests, e.g. a stress test of the garbage collection on binary trees, that gave ~25-30 percent speedup for the Core 2 Duo system when compared to AMD Opteron running at an equivalent CPU speed. Therefore I'd guess that the pybench result of 20-22 percent is fairly trustworthy.
Machine details:
- PCUDS17: IBM ThinkPad T42
- CPU = Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.695 GHz OS = Debian GNU/Linux "Sarge" i386 32-bit Python = Python 2.3.5 (#2, Sep 4 2005, 22:01:42) [GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)] on linux2
- SUNUDS99: Sun Fire V65x
- CPU = Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.057 GHz OS = Debian GNU/Linux "Sarge" i386 32-bit Python = Python 2.3.4 (#1, Dec 8 2004, 16:51:14) [GCC 2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease)] on linux2
- SUNUDS93: Sun Fire V20z
- CPU = AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 250 2.393 GHz OS = Debian GNU/Linux "Sarge" amd64 64-bit Python = Python 2.3.4 (#2, Feb 21 2006, 17:44:05) [GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)] on linux2
- SUNUDS94: Sun Fire V20z
- CPU = AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 250 2.390 GHz OS = Debian GNU/Linux "Sarge" amd64 64-bit Python = Python 2.3.5 (#2, Sep 9 2005, 21:37:55) [GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)] on linux2
- PCITFIOT02: ? Core 2 Duo
- CPU = Genuine Intel(R) CPU [Woodcrests 5160?] 2.993 GHz OS = Scientific Linux CERN 4 64-bit Python = Python 2.3.4 (#1, Mar 12 2006, 16:28:27) [GCC 3.4.5 20051201 (Red Hat 3.4.5-2)] on linux2
- Machine notes:
- The Python version numbers and the compiler options differed a bit, so the comparison is not the most accurate there is, but the difference due to this factor should be within ~5% or so, as shown by the difference in SUNUDS9{3,4} results. Moreover, some of the machines such as SUNUDS93 were tested during moderate load, which may account for a couple of percents. Ideally one should install the same OS on the machines and test them when idle; moreover, with the CDS server software to have the precise performance numbers for our concrete application. But the numbers cited above give already quite a good speed estimate.