"There are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." With apologies to Mark Twain (or possibly Benjamin Disraeli or maybe Henry Du Pré Labouchère), benchmarks have been used and abused ever since there have been computers. Like the question about when the first auto race was held (“as soon as the second automobile was built”), the question of who makes the fastest computer has beguiled and bedeviled engineers for ages. Now, just maybe, we may be making progress toward settling that dispute.

The bigger the computer, the bigger the benchmark. Conversely, testing just the microprocessor by itself requires only the simplest of code loops – or so it might appear. But even the simplest benchmark distorts the true nature of the processor you’re testing, as any “marketing engineer” can tell you. No matter what you measure – clock speed, arithmetic agility, procedural proficiency, or what have you – you’re always leaving something out. No synthetic test can truly encapsulate all the goodness (and badness) of a microprocessor.