On Fri, Jan 28, 2005 at 10:06:25AM -0800, Fred Townsend wrote: > I suspect the answer to your question is like the answer to the joke as > to why they use lawyers in place of rats for some laboratory tests. > > The answer is 'There are certain things even rats won't do.' > > I suspect there are certain things that even software can't do. Does a > sprinter carry a stop watch so they can measure their own time in the > 100 yard dash? To be accurate you need a reference point and that can be > very difficult for the UUT to do. > > Simply stated I question the accuracy of the software, particularly > where different architectures are used.
Well, usually the reference is the good old XT-system timer clock of the mainboard. Should be accurate for at least 200ppm(!?). I think the reference is not the question. The software itself tries to eliminate influce of CPU speed and other things e.g. by measuring the loops with and without RAM. (and I think it is running itself from free video memory to be able to test the whole ram). So I would think all values in the range of +-10% can be treated as the "same speed" because of this uncertainities. Actually my experiences with VIA chipsets shows that these chipsets are usually slower - because of some bugs and quirks of the hardware (e.g. the PCI-burst modes are terrible with VIA, a bt848 frame grabber works nicely only in boards with intel chipsets). In a windows system most speed brake is the harddisc (e.g. at startup), so users do not really feel the speed of the RAM accesses ;-). M. -- Author: Matthias Weingart INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Hosting, San Diego, California -- http://www.fatcity.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
