Petz, <I'm pretty sure that the code for SPECfp is, for some reason, written in Fortran, so its obvious why Compaq is writing an Athlon-optimized Fortran compiler.>
The accents in your statement are entirely incorrect,
so I feel a need to jump in.
First, there is no _special_ code written for SPECfp.
The whole SPECfp (and SPECint as well) is a collection
of toughest computational problems from variety
of scientific disciplines. Scientists prefer
FORTRAN for their computational needs, for many
reasons. The SPECfp is a set brushed up (for
portability and benchmarkability reasons) codes
from actual programs developed by various
independent scientists for their own purposes.
And Compaq is not writing a compiler just to win
SPEC benchmarks. Compaq is an owner of former
Digital compiler division. The Digital FORTRAN
was and is the REAL COMPILER every other scientist
used to use on high-performance Alpha workstations,
unlike the Intel compilers which were designed for
benchmarking only. The current Digital FORTRAN
v6.1 is embedded into Microsoft Visual Studio,
together with Microsoft Visual C++ and VB,
shares the same Integrated Development
Environment, and works on both Alpha and x86 platforms.
On x86 it was heavily optimized for Pentium,
Pentium Pro/II/III and somewhat for K6 platforms,
but now they are apparently expanding its performance
optimizations to Athlon architecture.
Regards,
- Ali |
