What is the SPECint95 benchmark?

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) was created in 1988 to develop a standardized set of relevant benchmarks for evaluating performance of computer systems. The CPU benchmark results contained in this document was taken from the SPECint95 results published by SPEC.

SPEC95 is a software benchmark product which is designed to provide comparable measures of performance for compute-intensive workloads on different computer system. SPEC95 consists of two suites of benchmarks, CINT95 and CFP95. CINT95 measures and compares compute-intensive integer performance while CFP95 measures and compares compute-intensive floating point performance. Both suites of benchmarks emphasize the performance of the computer's processor, the memory architecture and the compiler (performance is more than just the processor).

CINT95 is a set of eight benchmark applications written in C which perform compute-intensive applications such as artificial intelligence, compressing and uncompressing files in memory, string and prime number manipulation, database, and graphic compression. The SPECint95 is the geometric mean of the eight normalized ratios (one for each integer benchmark). The primary services of a Virtual Server (http, ftp, etc) almost exclusively involve integer performance.

SPEC used the SPARCstation 10/40 (40 MHz SuperSPARC with no L2 cache) as a reference machine to normalize the performance metrics used in the SPEC95 suites. Thus a SPECint95 metric of 1 would represent the computing capacity equivalent to a SPARCstation 10/40. A compilation of several SPECint95 metric is shown here for your convenience (the higher the SPECint95 number the better).

Company	System	# CPU	Result	Cost
Intel	Pentium Pro 200 MHz	1	8.09	~$5k
Intel	Pentium II 233 MHz	1	9.47	~$5k
Intel	Pentium II 300 MHz	1	11.7	~$8k
SGI	origin200	4	8.59	$15k+
SGI	origin2000	32	9.48	$100k+
Sun	Sun Ultra 1 Model 170	1	5.56	~$10k
Sun	Sun Ultra Enterprise 450	1	12.1	$80k (?)

We use proven Intel technology which performs very well when compared to much more expensive systems many other hosting providers use. If you think that your web site needs to be hosted on a SGI or Sun system.... think again, equivalent (and in some cases better) performance can be found in much less expensive systems. Because we keep our hardware costs down, you benefit by 1) paying less, and 2) not being placed on an overpopulated system (which is what other hosting providers must do to offset their expensive hardware).

A very good FAQ about SPEC95 can be found at http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu95/news/cpu95qa.html.