Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!vsnyder
From: vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: What's a fair comparison?
Keywords: Atari Motorola Intel GNU C ZEOS benchmark
Message-ID: <1991May30.223629.13096@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 30 May 91 22:36:29 GMT
References: <1991May30.145023.1684@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Van Snyder)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 26

In article <1991May30.145023.1684@chinet.chi.il.us> saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes:
>I seem to be involved in what is fast becoming a shouting match about relative
>price and performance of Atari computers vs those based on Intel chips.  One
>of the main problems is knowing what to compare with which.  So how about we
>pick some fair yardsticks.  Atari isn't 'Joes Garage Computer Manufactorie',
>and shouldn't have prices compared with it.  I'll suggest ZEOS as a company
>whose prices are widely advertized, and whose quality is comparable to Atari
>(I rate both of them very good for service, by the way.  Start your own thread
>if you want to talk about service).  Often as not, ZEOS machines are the least
>expensive ones included in those comparative reviews magazines have so much
>fun with.  Cross-platform benchmarks are damn near impossible (Byte magazine
>has had several articles on the subject), but I'll modestly propose as a 
>benchmark the time for GNU C to compile itself, with all temporary files on
>hard disk.  Any other suggestions?
>
Some of the benchmarks people commonly use are Dhrystone (integer performance),
Whetstone (Floating point performance), Linpack (Floating point performance),
Livermore loops (Floating point performance), SpecMark (Overall system
performance, but belongs to SPEC Inc).  The advantage of using these is that
you don't have to re-do the benchmarks on the other machines, which you
might not own.  I've seen dhrystone for the ST, maybe at atari.archive?

-- 
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