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From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Fastest 88k
Message-ID: <42586@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 31 Oct 90 20:04:44 GMT
References: <1172@iceman.jcu.oz>
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Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
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In article <1172@iceman.jcu.oz> cpca@iceman.jcu.oz (C Adams) writes:
>I have recently hear about an advertisement claiming 60 MIPS for an
>88k based machine (from motorola).  I find this figure way too high,
>at least for a single CPU system.
>
>So, what is the fastest 88k around? I'd like to know the clockspeed
>and some meaningless MIPS figures.

The fastest 88K for which SPEC numbers have been published
was the  33MHz Motorola 8612, with 2 88200 chips, which was
published Winter 1990.
(However, note that, unless something has changed recently, neither
the Motorola systems products nor any DG products are yet shipped at 33MHz.)

Regarding mips-ratings, there is a fairly confusing state.  In particular,
it is sad, but true, that mips-ratings are pretty arbitrary.
Hedre is a small table, taken from "Your Mileage May Vary", Issue 2.0,
which summarizes a lot of SPEC data.
SPEC Intgr = Integer Subset of SPEC, which corresponds pretty closely to
many people's idea of a real-VAX-mip.
SPEC Float = FLoat susbset of SPEC
SPECmark = SPECmark, all 10 benchmarks, somewhat loaded towards FP.
Publ mips = rating the vendor assigns
Integer % = SPEC integer / (published mips)
Publ data: 2 = Winter 90, 3 = Spring 90, 4 = Summer 90, c = estimated
	(The 2 MPC numbers were estimated by giving them the same performance
	as the earlier 8864SP machines, even though those have 4X bigger
	caches.)

SPEC	SPEC 	SPEC	Publ	Integer	Date	System
Intgr	Float	mark	mips	%	Publ
11.3	8.3	9.4	16.0	71%	3	DG AV410, 20MHz, 32K cache
15.3	11.3	12.7	20.0	76%	2	DG AV6200, 25MHz, 32K

14.6	10.8	12.2	17.0	86%	2	Motorola 8864SP, 20MHz, 128K
18.3	13.5	15.2	21.0	87%	2	Motorola 8864SP, 25MHz, 128K
21.4	15.8	17.8	25.0	85%	2	Motorola 8612, 33MHz, 32K
14.6	10.8	12.2	27.0	54%	c	Motorola MPC-100, 20MHz, 32K
18.3	13.5	15.2	33.8	54%	c	Motorola MPC-200, 25MHz, 32K

19.4	16.8	17.8	20.0	97%	4	MIPS Magnum, 25MHz, 64K

Also, there's a new DG product, the AV100, which runs at 16.7MHz, and is
now labeled 17 mips, for a new low cost of $235/mips.
As illustrated above, when calibrated against realistic integer benchmarks,
the industry's idea of a mips varies by factor of almost 2,
ranging from 54% to 97%. Above,  I picked the two ends of the spectrum.
the number of product lines in each % group is as follows:
<60%	3
60-70%	3
70-80%	2
80-90%	4
90-100%	3

(There are no existing product lines, for which the SPEC integer number
is higher than the claimed vax-mips number.  surprise :-)
Of course, in such an environment, it is unclear what is meant by 3 digits
of accuracy in a cost/mips number....

A little explanation might be need to explain the difference between the
earlier Motorola products (whose integer % is around 86%),
and the later ones, which are around 54%.
The later ones apparently switched to Dhrystone 1.1, probably following
IBM, boosting the mips-rating by >50%, although the performance
probably stayed about the same (compiler improvements versus smaller
cache, probably cancel, within a few percent.) 

To answer the original question, the 60MIPS number is probably for
a two-processor system (MPC-200 with 2 CPUs), gotten by adding
the MIPS together.
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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