CS 382M: Advanced Computer Architecture

Homework 1

Due: Friday January 29 5pm. No late homeworks will be accepted

Work in groups of two. Each group should turn in one homework.

From Hennessy and Patterson Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach Second Edition

• Exercise 1.1 (from H&P) (1 point)
• Exercise 1.6 (1 point)
• Exercise 1.14 (1 point)
• Suppose the technology trends outlined in the text hold true for the next ten years. Predict the CPU performance, number of transistors on a CPU, DRAM capacity, and ratio of memory speed to CPU speed for a high-end workstation on January 1, 2009. Suppose they hold true until January 1, 2019, what will a high-end machine look like then? Suppose that during the second decade, technology improves at only half the rate of the previous decade, what will it look like then? (2 points) Optional reading: Moore's Law, Bell and Gray's predictions
• Performance measurement (2 points)

a. Select two different machines, and from a manual, web page, or configuration command, determine their

• CPU clock frequencies,
• peak MIPS
• SPECInt95 ratings.

b. Devise a C or C++ program that measures the clock frequency for a computer and run it on the two machines. Turn in the program listing and output. Use comments in the program to explain how the program works and why it gives a correct result.

c. Devise a C or C++ program that measures the peak MIPS for a computer and run it on the two machines. Turn in the (commented) program listing and output.

d. Find a long-running program (>1 second) that you care about (for example, make-ing a large source tree, latex-ing a paper, compiling a large file, or whatever) and measure how long this program takes on the two platforms. Do at least 5 trials of each measurement and report the mean and standard deviation of the measurements.

e. How well does peak MIPS predict the performance of your program? How well does SPEC predict your program's performance?

• Exercise 2.2 (1 points)
• Exercise 2.13 (2 points)
• Exercise 3.1 (2 points)