Gregory Boduch wrote:

> As a side note, there seems to be a problem with the Pentium Pro cpu. A
> Linux benchmark called Oscillates,  which simply tries to send as many
> wavetable-lookup oscillators as it can to the dsp, returns a score of 42
> oscillators on a P200 w/ 32Meg, 36 oscilators on a P166 MMX, and only
> 28 on a PPro 200 w/ 32Meg and 27 on a dual PPro 180 w/ 32Meg.
>
If you REALLY want to compare several Intel CPUs with some benchmark,
you should do the following:

1) install some 32-bit Microsoft OS (I'm very sorry, but you
   CANNOT neglect this -- see below),

2) use Intel Reference C Compiler (aka Proton) to compile your
   benchmark with proper "target optimizations" flags for each
   of your CPUs.

You cannot use non-MS or non-32bit OS since Proton does not support them.
You should not use compiler other then Proton since in such a case
chances are your compiler will generate more "blended" (Intel's term)
code then necessary -- i.e. insufficiently tuned.

It doesn't mean that Proton is the very best: it simply means that
it should be used for benchmarking. I use Symantec C for the work
but Proton for benchmarks and selective optimizing.

Next problem -- good *CPU* benchmark must NOT contain any I/O
calls or library function calls WITHIN the test loop. Oscillates
obviously does not follow this guideline.

P6 is by no means worse -- but it is MUCH more sensitive to all this.

And in general, we should compare computers, not CPUs.

Regards,
Vadim.