Com 226 comp trouble shooting II theory book
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| System Comparisons: Benchmarks are often used to compare a system to one or more competing machines (or to compare a newer system to older machines. Just flip through any issue of PC Magazine or Byte, and you’ll see a flurry of PC ads all quoting numerical performance numbers backed up by benchmarks. You might also run a benchmark to establish the overall performance of anew system before making a purchase decision. Upgrade Improvements : Benchmarks are frequently used to gauge the value of an upgrade. By running the benchmark before and after the upgrade process, you can get a numerical assessment of just how much that new CPU, RAM, drive, or motherboard might have improved (or hindered) system performance. - Diagnostics Benchmarks sometimes have role in system diagnostics. Systems that are performing poorly can be benchmarked as key components are checked or reconfigured. This helps the technician isolate and correct performance problems far more reliably than simple visual observations. Avoiding Benchmark Problems One of the most serious problems encountered with benchmarks is the integrity of their numbers. You’ve probably heard that statistics can lie and the same thing is true of benchmarks. In order for benchmarks to provide you with reliable results, you must take some precautions - Note the complete system configuration When you run a benchmark and achieve a result, be sure to note the entire system configuration (i.e., CPU, RAM, cache, OS version, etc. - Run the same benchmark on every system Benchmarks are still software, and the way in which benchmark code is written can impact the way it produces results on a given computer. Often, two different versions of the same benchmark will yield two different results. When you use benchmarks for comparisons between systems, be sure to use the same program and version number. - Minimize hardware differences between hardware platforms A computer is an assembly of many interdependent sub-assemblies (i.e., motherboard, drive controllers, drives, CPU, etc, but when a benchmark is run to compare a difference between systems, that difference can be masked by other elements in the system. For example, suppose you’re using a benchmark to test the hard-drive data transfer on two systems. Different hard drives and drive controllers will yield different results (that’s expected. However, even if you’re using identical drives and controllers, other differences between the systems (such as BIOS versions, TSRs, OS differences, or motherboard chipsets) can also influence different results. - Run the benchmarks under the same load The results generated by a benchmark do not guarantee that same level of performance under “real-world” applications. This was one of the flaws of early computer benchmarking—small, tightly written benchmark code resulted in artificially high performance, but the system still performed poorly when real applications were used. Use benchmarks that make use of (or simulate) actual programs, or otherwise simulate your true workload. Download 1.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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