What type of program can contrast performance of processors?

[studyCPU]

Hi,

I am studying different superscalar CPU:
Digital Alpha 21264,
HP-PA8500,
IBM Power3,
Intel Pentium Pro/II/III,
MIPS R10000

I have studied the architecture of these processors, but I don't how to contrast them by different programs.

Can anyone give me some hints?? Thanks a lot!

[debs3759]

I would recommend looking into Linpack. It's the industry standard for measuring processor performance and can be compiled/run an most (if not all) platforms. If you don't find precompiled binaries for every platform, just find the most up-to-date compiler (or at least one that supports all the features of the processor) and compile it.

Supercomputer performance is almost always measured using Linpack code, and it is also one of the most widely used apps for stress testing PCs, so it definitely works across a wide range of architectures and impementations, from single processors with a couple of cores up to supercomputers with thousands of nodes.

I haven't looked into it for anything other than PCs running Windows, but I do know it is widely used in various implementations.