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From: dgh@sun.uucp (David Hough)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.68k,net.micro.16k
Subject: Re: Floating Point Comparisons
Message-ID: <2088@sun.uucp>
Date: Thu, 28-Mar-85 22:08:18 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.2088
Posted: Thu Mar 28 22:08:18 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Apr-85 03:17:46 EST
References: <133@cfa.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgh@sun.UUCP (David Hough)
Distribution: net
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.micro:9876 net.micro.68k:698 net.micro.16k:306
Summary: 

In article <133@cfa.UUCP> ward@cfa.UUCP (Steve Ward) writes:
>
>Here are some timing specifications for register-to-register floating
>point instructions on a variety of computers and microprocessors.
>These specificatons are taken from literature provided by the vendors.

Unfortunately such comparisons don't convey very much useful information.
What is more relevant is a comparison of execution times for a real
program compiled by a real compiler running on a real system.  
Unfortunately marketeers seldom are interested in providing useful
verifiable information.

The only benchmark that I know that is widely cited and realistic for
a problem of actual computational interest is the "Linpack" benchmark
published by Dongarra and others.

The benchmark solves 100x100 systems of linear equations using routines
from the Linpack library.  32 bit floating point times range from 35 
milliseconds to 2813 seconds.  64 bit floating point times range from
21 milliseconds to 149 seconds.

Detailed results are available from Jack Dongarra at Argonne.

David Hough