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From: andy@solitary.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Binaries and Max Speed
Message-ID: <5847@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 1 Jan 89 02:49:34 GMT
References: <22745@apple> <2700003@prisma>
Sender: news@polya.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: andy@solitary.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 20

In article <2700003@prisma> mo@prisma writes:
[More on the discussion about SPARC runtime stall vs MIPS NOPs:
 Dave thinks that MIPS will be disadvantaged because a binary
 compatible SPARC that manages to avoid load stalls will run
 3% faster than one that doesn't, while the NOPs will always
 be there in MIPS code that isn't recompiled for an implementation
 that can avoid load stalls.]
>Running the same binaries, but faster, is clearly a win.

I don't know of any applications where one can't recompile to get the
last 3% if it is really important.  Perhaps someone can give an
example of one.  The requirements are simple - a 3% difference in
runtime is very important AND you don't get to recompile before
running the application on a different system.  (The deck is a bit
stacked as there are very few applications where 3% matters.)

-andy
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