Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!olivea!tymix!cirrusl!sunstorm!dhesi From: dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: New SparcStation Message-ID: <2810@cirrusl.UUCP> Date: 18 Dec 90 01:49:03 GMT References: <184127@<1990Dec13> <3300233@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@cirrusl.UUCP Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc. Lines: 25 In <3300233@m.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: I think it's a laugh that Sun quotes "28.5 mips".... Sheesh. This tells me Sun doesn't know anything about "significant digits". Assuming an uncertainty of 1.0, It's just as valid to say 28.0 +/- 1.0 as to say 28.5 +/- 1.0. But if the best available estimate is 28.5 rather than 28.0, then it's more accurate (and less misleading) to say 28.5 rather than 28.0 or 28. The questions you should be asking are: (a) What is the uncertainty in the quoted MIPS figure, and (b) why didn't Sun specify that too? What if the best available estimate, based on (say) LINPACK, *is* indeed 28.5 rather than 28? (Actually Sun's MIPS figures assumes a better C compiler. The MIPS rating using the SunOS 4.0.3 C compiler is closer to 24. This is the rating you should use when comparing various Sun machines, because all Suns will soon be running the same C compiler that the SPARCstation-2 comes with.) -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi