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Assignment 4: Comparing SystemsHow do we tell if one computer is faster than another? Will a 2.4 GHz Intel processor run twice as fast as a 1.2 GHz PowerPC? If computer A runs program P twice as fast as computer B, can we expect computer A to run program Q twice as fast as well? To give you some appreciation of the subtleties of these questions, this assignment will have you actually benchmark several different machines with several different applications.
You are to work in teams of one, two, or three (your choice). Each
team must send an e-mail message listing its members to
There are lots of extra credit opportunities on this assignment. If you’re looking for some points this would be an easy way to get some. We are giving you three benchmark programs, all written in C:
You are to compile and run all three programs on machines with three different ISAs. The easiest three to pick are probably a PC (x86), a Sun (SPARC), and a (not-too-recent) Macintosh (PowerPC). You are not to choose any two machines with the same ISA (e.g., a Pentium III and a Pentium 4), though you may add these for extra credit. You may want to choose team members who are familiar with machines you don’t use much, and vice versa. LATE BREAKING NEWS: PowerPC binaries for the Macintosh are available HERE. | ||
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C compilers are readily available on PCs and Suns in the CSUG labs, and
on various public machines around campus. Most of the csug
machines are Pentium 4s, but
For each program on each machine, you should measure program run time in
seconds. Read the header of each source file for information on
run-time parameters. Choose parameters that give you run times on
the order of a minute, so you have 2–3 significant digits of
accuracy if measuring with a stopwatch. Be sure to use the same
parameters on all machines, so you can make head-to-head
comparisons. Note that for the You should try to make sure that the machine you are using is otherwise unloaded at the time you collect your results, and you should probably take the minimum over several runs in order to weed out the effect of other random activity stealing time away from your benchmarks.
On Unix-based systems (including Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X)
you can measure run time using the
You should also make note of the advertised clock speed in MHz for each
machine. On most machines there is a software tool or
configuration file that will give you this information. On a Sun,
run
What to hand inAfter collecting and discussing results within your group, you are to describe those results in a file namedREADME.pdf, in Adobe
Portable Document Format. I assume that you will discuss the
content extensively with your partner (if any), but you must compose and
hand in your own writeup— no sharing of text allowed. This
will help convince me that everyone understands the results.
You may create your writeup in whatever word processor you like,
but you must convert it to PDF. Uniformity of format makes life
much easier for the grader, and almost anything can be converted
to PDF. Be sure
to preview your file with
If you don’t have a favorite word processor, I strongly recommend
that you learn to use LaTeX. It has a bit of a “learning
curve”, but it’s the document system of choice for all
of mathematics and most of computer science. Every CS major should
know how to use it. You can easily locate Latex tutorials on the
net. If you want to become an expert, I recommend the Guide to
LaTeX by Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly. Note that if
you use LaTeX you can generate PDF directly using
You may create your bar graphs using any tool you like
(Excel,
Your
To turn in your writeup, put it in a directory by itself and run
/u/cs252/bin/TURNIN . comparing_systems
Watch the BlackBoard discussion group for
any updates.
Extra Credit suggestions
DUE DATES:For the list of group members: noon, Tuesday, March 3. For the final write-up: 11:59pm, Friday, March 6.
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