SPEC CPU2000:
How to use it,
How to interpret it,
How to improve it

Last updated: Thu Aug 3 13:49:01 EDT 2000

SPEC is pleased to announce that a tutorial and discussion on CPU2000 will be held in conjunction with ASPLOS-IX: Ninth International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems. The tutorial and discussion will be held on Sunday, November 12, 2000 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, MA.

Abstract

On June 30, 2000, SPEC stopped accepting results for SPEC CPU95: as technology marches on and computers become more capable, benchmarks need to evolve as well, and provide more of a challenge. SPEC has therefore introduced SPEC CPU2000, as the replacement for SPEC CPU95.

This session is three parts tutorial and one part discussion. The first three parts are presented by John Henning (a developer of SPEC CPU2000).

  I. Technical overview of SPEC CPU2000
 II. Using the suite, including:
      * Unix, Linux, and NT installation notes
      * Tips for ease of use
      * How to obtain a free copy for academic use
III. Interpreting the results, including:
      * What are the metrics?
      * Differences among the benchmarks
      * Implications for ASPLOS
      * Examples using DCPI (Compaq Continuous 
        Profiling Infrastructure)
 IV. Discussion: how can SPEC improve its benchmark 
     products to benefit users, industry, and researchers?  
        Tom Conte (North Carolina State University) 
        and Dirk Grunwald (University of Colorado) 
        will present their answers to this question, 
        and will lead a discussion among all who are 
        present.

Participants will receive a handout containing about 100 pages of information on the benchmarks, their usage, and their interpretation, including DCPI profiles of all benchmarks (to identify hot spots that may benefit from generally applicable optimization efforts).

Target Audiences

All users and consumers of SPEC CPU2000 results

Length of Workshop

1/2 day, morning session

Organizers

John Henning
Compaq Computer Corporation
John.Henning@compaq.com

John Henning is the Secretary for the SPEC CPU Subcommittee, and is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Compaq Computer Corporation. He is the author of "SPEC CPU2000: Measuring CPU Performance in the New Millenium", COMPUTER, July, 2000.

Additional Committee Members

Tom Conte
North Carolina State University
conte@eos.ncsu.edu

Tom Conte is associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University. He currently directs a group of 8-10 Ph.D. students in research funded by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel, Sun, DARPA and NSF, among others. He is also the chief microarchitect of DSP startup Billions of Operations per Second, Inc.

Dirk Grunwald
University of Colorado
grunwald@cs.colorado.edu

Registration

Registration information will be provided at the ASPLOS web site.

Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation