Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!kahn
From: kahn@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Shahin Kahn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: Cray vs. PC Benchmark
Message-ID: <1990Oct17.043732.20776@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 17 Oct 90 04:37:32 GMT
References: <38230@ut-emx.uucp> <42097@mips.mips.COM>
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Lines: 22

In article <42097@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
>SPEC as it sits, is hardly close to "the whole truth", and of course
>didn't intend to be.  I'd be very suspicious of anything that claimed to
>be the whole truth, as opposed to a better approximation to reality.
>For supercomputers, Perfect Club probably tells you more.

One comment on SPEC.  It is a workstation benchmark as far as I can see.

For supercomputers, even Perfect is not. (Some of the codes in there may be).

What is the point of running a 12 second, 16 MByte problem on a supercomputer?
And Nothing, just about, scales up linearly!  So it is useless to run
a small version of a big problem.
And, it is not always the case that you increase the dimensions and run the 
program again and you have a supercomputer application!  
At some point you need new code, new algorithm, new science.
I think in some areas applications are not being developed as fast as 
hardware is!
Can it be that too many scientists are busy making back-ups of their pc's?!

Shahin.
disclaimer,etc.