Re: [OT?] MHz vs. MIPS in processors

From: Ian Bell (ruffrecords_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 09:17:21 +0100

Dennis Clark wrote:

> Chaos Master <chaosmater@pop.com.br.invalid> wrote:
> : Hello people.
>
> : Reading some stuff about workstations, I find that the workstation
> : speeds were measured in MIPS (Million Instructions per Second).
>
> : Q: For someone new in the area, what is the biggest difference between
> : telling processor speeds in MIPS and in MHz?
>
> The biggest difference is that MHz is a real quantifiable value of clock
> speed, MIPS is a highly subjective marketing fluff word of little value.
>

Personally I would have said it was the other way round. I know many chips
that used a higher frequency oscillator and internally divided it. Quoting
the oscillator frequency of these is quite misleading. MIPS on the other
hand is clearly quantifiable no matter what the clock speed. OTOH 10 MIPS
of crap instructions may be no better than 5MIPS of a highly optimised
instruction set.

Ian