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From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Towards A Meaningful Performance Measure
Message-ID: <3947@sol.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 09:54:55 EST
Article-I.D.: sol.3947
Posted: Thu Nov  5 09:54:55 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 03:06:01 EST
References: <861@winchester.UUCP> <2993@phri.UUCP> <864@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <3907@sol.ARPA> <881@mips.UUCP>
Reply-To: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 16
Keywords: benchmarks

In article <881@mips.UUCP> hansen@mips.UUCP (Craig Hansen) writes:
>When competitors say their machine is 10X a VAX 780, when using trussed up
>benchmarks and a markedly inferior compiler/OS on the VAX, DEC should by all
>rights be screaming bloody murder. Should DEC claim that their VAX 780 is 1.5
>times faster than their VAX 780?

DEC can and should claim that their 780/VMS/vcc configuration is 1.5 times the
(hypothetical) standard 780/4.2/pcc configuration.  DEC may also pick the
benchmarks that show their machine in its best light and publish those figures.
Remember, that a Vax Relative Performance figure must be taken in the context
of the benchmarks used to measure the performance.  If someone does not feel
the benchmark set is fair to their machine, they are free to use another.
-- 
  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-9499	University of Rochester
		      crowl@cs.rochester.edu	Computer Science Department
...!{allegra,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!crowl	Rochester, New York,  14627