benchmark

4 definitions found

benchmark - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  benchmark \benchmark\, bench mark \bench mark\ (Surveying)
     1. Any permanent mark to which other levels may be referred.
        such as:
        (a) A horizontal mark at the water's edge with reference
            to which the height of tides and floods may be
            measured.
        (b) a surveyer's mark on a permanent object of
            predetermined position and elevation used as a
            reference point.
            [Webster 1913 Suppl. + WordNet 1.5]
  
     2. something serving as a standard by which related items may
        be judged; as, his painting sets the benchmark of quality.
        [PJC + WordNet 1.5]
  
     3. a test or series of tests designed to compare the
        qualities or performance of different devices of the same
        type. Certain sets of computer programs are much used as
        benchmarks for comparing the performance of different
        computers, especially by comparing the time it takes to
        complete a test.
        [PJC]

benchmark - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  benchmark
      n 1: a standard by which something can be measured or judged;
           "his painting sets the benchmark of quality"
      2: a surveyor's mark on a permanent object of predetermined
         position and elevation used as a reference point [syn:
         benchmark, bench mark]

benchmark - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  benchmark
  
     <benchmark> A standard program or set of programs which can be
     run on different computers to give an inaccurate measure of
     their performance.
  
     "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies:
     lies, damn lies, and benchmarks."
  
     A benchmark may attempt to indicate the overall power of a
     system by including a "typical" mixture of programs or it may
     attempt to measure more specific aspects of performance, like
     graphics, I/O or computation (integer or floating-point).
     Others measure specific tasks like rendering polygons,
     reading and writing files or performing operations on
     matrices.  The most useful kind of benchmark is one which is
     tailored to a user's own typical tasks.  While no one
     benchmark can fully characterise overall system performance,
     the results of a variety of realistic benchmarks can give
     valuable insight into expected real performance.
  
     Benchmarks should be carefully interpreted, you should know
     exactly which benchmark was run (name, version); exactly what
     configuration was it run on (CPU, memory, compiler options,
     single user/multi-user, peripherals, network); how does the
     benchmark relate to your workload?
  
     Well-known benchmarks include Whetstone, Dhrystone,
     Rhealstone (see h), the Gabriel benchmarks for Lisp,
     the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK.
  
     See also machoflops, MIPS, smoke and mirrors.
  
     Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.benchmarks.
  
     Tennessee BenchWeb (http://netlib.org/benchweb/).
  
     [Jargon File]
  
     (2002-03-26)
  

benchmark - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  benchmark
   n.
  
     [techspeak] An inaccurate measure of computer performance. "In the
     computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies,
  and
     benchmarks." Well-known ones include Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone
     (see h), the Gabriel LISP benchmarks, the SPECmark suite, and
     LINPACK. See also machoflops, MIPS, smoke and mirrors.