IBM HANDBOOK 260 - Manual (Page 28)

10 RS/6000 43P 7043 Models 150 and 260 Handbook
SPEC http://www.specbench.org
Linpack http://www.netlib.no/netlib/benchmark/performance.ps
Unless otherwise indicated for a system, the performance benchmarks were
conducted using AIX Version 4.2 or Version 4.3. IBM C for AIX Version
4.1.0.1 and XL Fortran Version 5.1.1.1 were the compilers used in the
benchmark tests. The preprocessors used in the benchmark tests include
KAP 3.2 for Fortran and KAP/C 1.4.2 from Kuck & Associates and VAST-2
Version 4.01X8 from Pacific-Sierra Research. The preprocessors were
purchased separately from these vendors.
1.5.1 SPEC95 Software Benchmark
SPEC95 is the forward step in the performance measurement of the core of
the system. It covers the CPU, caches, memory, and compiler. The programs
and data sets that make up the suite cannot load entirely into cache, making
the benchmark more representative of real workloads. SPEC has also
standardized the compiler settings so that the results for
base measurements
are more comparable between suppliers.
SPEC95 is a software benchmark produced by the Standard Performance
Evaluation Corp. (SPEC), a non-profit group of computer vendors, systems
integrators, universities, research organizations, publishers, and consultants
throughout the world. It was designed to provide measures of performance
for comparing computational-intensive workloads on different computers
systems.
SPEC95 contains two suites of benchmarks:
CINT95 Measures and compares computational-intensive integer
performance
CFP95 Measures and compares computational-intensive floating point
performance
The two groups of programs are referred to as component-level benchmark
suites because they test the core of the system, CPU, caches, memory, and
compiler, but not the I/O sub-system.
One of the goals of SPEC95 is increased portability; the current offering from
SPEC is for UNIX only, although the member companies have indicated that
the benchmark programs are portable to various flavors of UNIX, Windows
NT, and Open VMS.