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From: dhinds@elaine18.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: $/CPUmark is a worthless measure
Message-ID: <1991Apr3.030504.13438@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 3 Apr 91 03:05:04 GMT
References: <2004@kuling.UUCP> <32580014@hpcuhe.cup.hp.com> <1991Apr3.010831.3603@ico.isc.com>
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In article <1991Apr3.010831.3603@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>$/SPECmark, or $/any-CPU-benchmark, is about as useful for comparing
>systems as lines-of-code/day for comparing programmers...

>People don't buy CPUs.  They buy systems.  This discussion has focused on
>workstations.  That means disk, memory, keyboard, display, and maybe a
>network card.

    Come on, there are a significant number of users for which this is a
significant number.  Lots of people use workstations primarily as compute
servers, and would be very interested in knowing simply how much CPU power
they get per dollar, with the minimum number of frills.

>The only thing the big numbers-in-lights $/SPECstuff (usually to three
>significant figures!!) emphasis produces is more incentive for manufac-
>turers to produce low-ball "wheels extra" system configurations--as if
>they needed any such incentive.  Face it, if you want to give your product
>a cheap boost, which is easier: speed up the CPU or take hardware out of
>the bottom-of-the-line?

Hey, if I have X dollars to spend today, for my purposes, I will go out
and buy the lowest of the low-ball configurations of the fastest CPU I
can find, because that is the bottom line for the work I do.  Sure, this
number stinks for most purposes, but it isn't useless.  If the company
goes out of its way to put a superfast CPU in a supercheap stripped-down
box, for me, that is a great deal.

 -David Hinds
  dhinds@cb-iris.stanford.edu