My keyrate seems a bit slow

[Jeff]

My K6-2 300 can only push 468k/keys per second, a far cry from what I have heard other comprable CPU's do. I have a 1MB Soyo5EHM motherboard, and im running on the 100Mhz bus speed. Is this right, or does it seem slow to you?

[spdsk8r]

That seems very slow... I have a P2 300 (66X4.5) and I can get all the way up to 837k/keys sec... If you want, you can run it through dos while you're not using the system, that will let it run at the full speed. D/L the dos ver. and copy the buff-in.rc5 to the folder where the dos ver. is and copy the buff-out.rc5 back to the Win ver. folder so you can submit them when you're done.

[Jeff]

Ok, ill try that when I have a few minutes. I may also give overclocking my CPU now that its nice and burnt in, that may help too. Any K6 users have faster keyrates?

[izzzy12k]

I have an AMD K6-2 350 - 64MB SDRAM(not pc100) running at 400 MHZ. I only have 512KB cache. I used to get 520KKeys at 350, but now get 670KKeys at 400MHz. Not sure if that is good for an AMD but it works for me .

izzzy12k

[Jeff]

Well, I tried the DOS client, and I have to say that is is so much faster, but it being in DOS, is kind of useless to me. I overclocked my CPU (I have bad luck) to 3x112 at 2.4v and got into safe mode to see almost 560k/keys per second. I guess the K6-2 is just a fairly weak CPU when it comes to running the RC5 algorithim due to the slow L2 cache, going by the performance increase I got when increasing the bus speed a bit. For the DES, though, I get 3 Mkeys/second.

[This message has been edited by Jeff (edited 03-10-99).]

[spdsk8r]

another thing you might want to check, is that your CPU doesn't have power saving on. I had this problem when I first started, BIOS would make my CPU run at 50% after 5 min. of not being used. Check your BIOS and Win Power saving settings. Also, make sure no programs are running in the background that you can't see. This can slow your keyrate too.

By the way, what is your keyrate in dos with an AMD 300? I'm curious how it compares to the Intel CPU's

[The Magicman]

Jeff:
~470 to 500 KKEys/s is ok for a K6(2,3) @ 300MHz (Roughly 1.66 KKey/s per MHz)

> I guess the K6-2 is just a fairly weak CPU > when it comes to running the RC5
>algorithim due to the slow L2 cache,
Nope!
Try disabling your L2 cache, you won't see a big difference in RC5 performance.
A celeron (0KB Cache is as fast as a CeleronA , PeeToo or even a Xeon at the same clock speed. (Roughly 2.77 KKeys/s per MHz)
This is because the core routine (the one that does the calculations) fits entierly into the L1 cache. AFIAK it's only ~ 100 OP codes in size.

The reason why the K&(2,3)sucks in comparison to the Pentium II class CPUS (Cel, CelA ....)
is because:

1. the ROTL (Bit rotate left) operation is slower (RC5 makes excessive use of it)

2. The P2 code is heavily optimized(down to mannualy rearranging instuctions to use it's 2 pipelines nearly all the time)

It's a different thing with DES.
My K6-2 337 outperforms a CelA 416 in DES.
This is because the intructions used in DES are faster (in clock cycles) on the K6(2,3).

BTW:
There's one good thing to say baout K&'s RC5 performance:
It get's mor KKEys/s per MHz than a DEC Alpha CPU!!! (1.66 vs. 1.01KKey/s per MHz)
This is because HAS NO ROTL instuction at all (it's a RISC CPU) so it has to be emulated.

If you want to learm more about RC% and DES speed of vaious CPU visit the official Distributed.Net CPU speed comparison site at:
http://www.distributed.net/speed/speed.html


cu

The Magicman
Team Anandtech RC5 (No offense)

[Jeff]

I don't know how to check my keyrate in dos, but is seems much faster. Thanks to everyone for the info, and Magicman, Im part of team Anandtech, too.

[The Magicman]

Jeff:
A quick lock in the .log file should be enough.

As long as "Our" BBS is down we have to lock elsewrer for Cow input....
BTW:
I hope they fry the eggs of the guy who atacked the BBS program/server in case the ever get him....
=8-(

cu

The Magicman
Team Anandtech RC5

[AstroBren]

Hi,
400 - 500 kkeys sec is fine for K6-2. Don't know why it goes faster in DOS.

I once got a K6-2 for a system I was making for a friend. They didn't want it for a week so I decided to "burn it in" using RC5. It was a K6-2 350MHz and the keyrate was approx 580kkeys/sec.

However on my PII 464MHz (overclocked 300MHz SL2YK) I get 1.3MKeys/sec and on the Celeron 415MHz (overclocked 333 Malay on a LX board) I get 1.1MKeys/sec.

Magicman, do you really think that someone broke our BBS or rather crashed it? I thought it just became "overloaded" with all the messages - thats what Anand said.

Brendan,
Team Anandtech - our BBS is down.

[The Magicman]

quote:
(Anand on the main page of Anandtech - BBS Status)
"It also looks like we had a fairly large
security problem with the BBS that could
explain a few of the "accidents" we had
with the server"

Sounds like a hacker to me....

Sorry for the off topic

[Jeff]

A)The Anandtech BBS is down right now
B)I am a hardware freak and that was the first place I saw that would be nice to join
c)There are a lot of us - Team Anandtech is one of the largest RC5 teams and you are bound to see us around

Jeff
Team Anandtech

[spdsk8r]

This is sysopt... why is everyone working for anandtech?

[Becks]

LOL, I was just looking at this bbs and saw this thread, hehe our bbs goes down and we leach off another

Sorry for this post

-Becks

[radocon]

We forgive you Beck