Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Moto's data predicts 68040 performance well below 20 MIPS
Message-ID: <13266@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 17 Jul 90 22:39:08 GMT
References: <40088@mips.mips.COM> <14900009@hpdmd48boi.hp.com>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 23

In article <14900009@hpdmd48boi.hp.com> sritacco@hpdmd48boi.hp.com (Steve Ritacco) writes:
>Some machines SPEC numbers and MIPS ratings are almost the same.
>Remember that the VAX 11/780 has a SPEC mark of 1.

However, the classic "MIPS" rating, which gradually became standardized as
VAX 11/780 MIPS, doesn't include floating point performance.  SPECmarks 
contain quite a bit of floating point information.  Even if the SPECmarks,
when designed, were scaled to make a VAX 11/780 equal to 1 at some point
(eg, an impossible task given compiler/OS variations), that is still not
the same as permanently equating VAX MIPS and SPECmark ratings.  

Certainly the SPECmark is a better number for overall machine performance,
though as I understand it, the reason that all the SPEC benchmarks are
quoted in a report, as well as the composite that gives you a SPEC number,
is that no one considers the single SPECmark number to be all-telling.  It
is also meaningless to quote a "SPECmark for the 68040", since that's a
system benchmark.  Certainly "SPECmark for the VAX 11/780" and "SPECmark
for the HP 9000/360" are meaningful numbers, at least as far as these 
things go.
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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	"I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM