[Python-Dev] Are we collecting benchmark results across machines

[Dan Sugalski]

At 4:26 PM -0800 12/31/03, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>  > Well, add in:
>>
>>  real    1m20.412s
>>  user    1m1.580s
>>  sys     0m2.100s
>>
>>  for this somewhat creaky 600MHz G3 iBook...
>
>I've been looking at user times only, but on that box the discrepancy
>between user and real time is enormous!

Yeah, that's not uncommon. I'm not sure if there's a problem with the 
time command, or if it's something else. This is a laptop (currently 
on battery power, though with reduced performance turned off) and 
it's got a 100MHz main memory bus, which is definitely a limiting 
factor once code slips out of L1 cache. It's faster than my Gameboy, 
but some days I wonder how much... :)

>It also suggests that a 600 MHz G3 and a 650 P3 are pretty close, and
>contrary to what Apple seems to claim, the G3's MHz rating isn't worth
>much more than a P3's MHz rating.

Possibly. I'm not sure it's necessarily the best machine for that 
comparison, given the power/performance tradeoffs with laptops. I may 
give it a whirl on one of the G3 desktop machines around here to see 
how much bus speed matters. (I won't be surprised, given the likely 
working set for an interpreter, to find that bus speed makes more of 
a difference than CPU speed)

>Could you run pystone too?
>
>   python -c 'from test.pystone import main; main(); main(); main()'
>
>and then report the smallest pystones/second value.

Smallest is:

Pystone(1.1) time for 50000 passes = 6.61
This machine benchmarks at 7564.3 pystones/second

-- 
                                         Dan

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Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
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