Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: $/CPUmark is a worthless measure
Message-ID: <3312@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 3 Apr 91 16:58:03 GMT
References: <2004@kuling.UUCP> <32580014@hpcuhe.cup.hp.com> <1991Apr3.010831.3603@ico.isc.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 25

In article <1991Apr3.010831.3603@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:

| 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.  (Or does it?  One of the egregious bogus comparisons here
| actually compared $/SPECxyzzy for machines with and without disks!)

  Actually most people do buy CPUs. Because no matter who builds the
CPU, chances are that the disk was built by people who build disks for
other CPU vendors. Yes, there are exceptions, a few companies are
willing and able to build their own, or at least have them built to
proprietary specs.

  Most of us are willing to buy a system and add the disk we need, be it
ESDI, SMD, SCSI, or whatever. On workstations this is almost always
true, on large systems the chances of a some proprietary parts
increases, even if it's only the drive electronics.

  And some applications are so CPU intensive that they are insensitive
to i/o performance. Would that the CPU were fast enough to make i/o an
issue again.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
        "Most of the VAX instructions are in microcode,
         but halt and no-op are in hardware for efficiency"