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From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k,comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth Inc 68020/80386 benchmark.
Message-ID: <1289@nrcvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Nov-87 12:46:50 EST
Article-I.D.: nrcvax.1289
Posted: Mon Nov 16 12:46:50 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Nov-87 05:45:42 EST
References: <970@sugar.UUCP>
Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt)
Organization: The Frobboz Magic Dungeon Co., Inc.
Lines: 35
Summary: Benchmarks?  What benchmarks?
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.m68k:647 comp.lang.forth:232

>Fort In.c apparently benchmarked the 68020 and the 80386 under Polyforth.
>The 80386 was consistently faster. Does anyone know the details of the
>Polyforth inner interpreter for these two machines? I can't get a DTC
>Forth NEXT in under 2 instructions on the 68000. The 6809 and PDP-11 can
>both do it in 1. What about the 80386?
>-- 
>-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
>-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

I have yet to see any published benchmarks between the Motorola and
Intel processors that reflect anything other than what the authors set
out to 'prove'.  Every benchmark I have read in print has either been
tampered with by the introduction of bugs in one or the other side to
favor one particular view, or depends entirely on the quality of
whatever compiler/interpreter is being used in the benchmark test.

In this case, I would guess that a close look at the Polyforth
implementations on both machines would disclose certain inefficiencies
that work out to favor the 386.  From such a comparison we can deduce
very little about the performance of either machine; only of the
Polyforth implementations.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only way to obtain a
true comparison between the machines themselves, the only way to
estimate either's potential power is to have experts on each machine
carfully choose a suite of benchmark tests that overall favors neither
machine, hand-code in assembly language the best possible coding for
each benchmark, and run them on full-speed machines (or calculate the
timing manually).  The issue of the availability of efficient
compilers or systems that fully utilize the potential of each machine
is relavent but entirely separate from the machine performance
comparison.


						--i