Finding the The Power of CDC Computers

[Borek]

http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1966-72-06/S0002-9904-1966-11654-3/

Funny thing, this:

#define p5(__i__) (__i__*__i__*__i__*__i__*__i__)

int main(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    __int64 i, j, k, l, m;

    for (i = 1;i < 200;i++)
        for (j = 1;j < i;j++)
            for (k = 1;k < j;k++)
                for (l = 1;l < k;l++)
                    for (m = 1;m < k;m++)
                        if (p5(i) == p5(j) + p5(k) + p5(l) + p5(m))
                            printf("%I64d -> %I64d %I64d %I64d %I64d\n",i,j,k,l,m);

    return 0;
}

finds their solution in around 2 sec on my i7 (compiled to x64, no idea what code optimizations are done automatically and there are plenty of things that can be done) so it can be up to 8 times faster if split between threads. I wonder how long it took on CDC.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Probably a long time. My cell phone is more powerful than the early Crays.

 

[robphy]

Some possibly useful data points:
https://computerprogramsandresults....-to-eulers-conjecture-on-sums-of-like-powers/
http://euler.free.fr/eslp/others.htm

 

[SteamKing]

According to Wiki, the CDC 6600 maxed out at about 3 MFLOPS, with about 0.5 MFLOP sustained when running Fortran programs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600

Not bad for a 50-year old design with a clock speed of about 40 MHz.

By contrast, the Intel Core i7 family performs safely in GFLOP territory, with one model (the 6-core i7 980 XE) maxing out at 109 GFLOPS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS

GPUs are now capable of operating in Tera FLOP territory, though.

 

[dlgoff]

Ahhh... Magnetic core memory. No wonder things are faster now.

 

[Borek]

According to Wiki, the CDC 6600 maxed out at about 3 MFLOPS

This problem doesn't call for flops, it is all integers (outside of the 32 bit territory though).

 

[SteamKing]

This problem doesn't call for flops, it is all integers (outside of the 32 bit territory though).

Just trying to provide a rough gauge of performance between two systems designed 50 years apart.

Like the disclaimers say, your performance may vary.