Traditionally, SPEC has not allowed any code changes in its benchmarks. Why are code changes allowed in SPEC HPC2002 and how did SPEC/HPG decide what should be allowed?
SPEC/HPG recognizes that customers who will spend many thousands to millions of dollars on a high-performance computer are willing to invest additional money to optimize their production codes. In addition to delivering more return on investment, code changes are required because there are so many different high-performance architectures; moving an application from one architecture to another is far more involved than porting a single CPU code from one workstation to another. SPEC/HPG realized that since all customers optimize their programs, vendors should be allowed to perform the same level of optimization as a typical customer. There are specific rules that vendors must follow in optimizing codes. These rules were chosen to allow each vendor to show what its systems are capable of without allowing large application rewrites that would compromise performance comparisons. Each vendor’s code changes must be fully disclosed to the entire SPEC/HPG membership and approved before results
Related Questions
- Traditionally, SPEC has not allowed any code changes in its benchmarks. Why are code changes allowed in SPEC HPC2002 and how did SPEC/HPG decide what should be allowed?
- Are changes in the implementation, projected objectives, and benchmarks allowed during the grant period?
- Can SPEC HPC2002 benchmarks be run on a high-end workstation?
