Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!udel!nigel.ee.udel.edu!mccalpin From: mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu (John D. McCalpin) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: National Semiconductor's Swordfish microprocessor Message-ID: Date: 25 Feb 91 21:42:59 GMT References: <49343@apple.Apple.COM> <1991Feb20.210752.19367@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> <5430@taux01.nsc.com> <46175@mips.mips.COM> Sender: usenet@ee.udel.edu Organization: College of Marine Studies, U. Del. Lines: 29 Nntp-Posting-Host: perelandra.cms.udel.edu In-reply-to: mash@mips.COM's message of 25 Feb 91 21:21:13 GMT >>> On 25 Feb 91 21:21:13 GMT, mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) said: John> In article <5430@taux01.nsc.com> gideon@nsc.nsc.com (Gideon Intrater) writes: >The Swordfish delivers more than 110,000 dhrystones/sec on a 25Mhz bus. John> [...] I would observe that the number of dhrystones related to John> bus speed is kind of irrelevant for a processor with on-chip John> I-cache and write-back D-cache of any reasonable size.... Perhaps Gideon mentioned the bus speed since he wanted to say a 25 MHz cpu, but did not want to get into the details of what that meant, re possible internal clock-doubling, etc.... While we are on the topic, maybe John can tell us how is it that MIPS has managed to produce the CPU with the lowest ratio of "real" MIPS to dhrystone 1.1 MIPS among all the modern RISC processors? I don't know how the SPARC does, but I keep on seeing outrageous dhrystone 1.1 MIPS numbers for 88000 and RIOS machines -- the ratios are something like twice the ratios for the MIPS cpu's.... This low ratio for the MIPS processors seems to be some indication that the marketing department was not exercising adequate control over the design of the R2000/R3000. :-) -- John D. McCalpin mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu Assistant Professor mccalpin@brahms.udel.edu College of Marine Studies, U. Del. J.MCCALPIN/OMNET Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com