Posted on January 17, 2013 at 12:25> That reminds me on that (in-)famous pseudo-benchmark the PC's in the '90 were
> advertised with. It does not only matter how many instructions a MCU can execute, but
> what it actually gets done. CoreMark is such a test.
CoreMark is no better than any other benchmark. It attempts to circumvent the obvious gotcha of optimizing compilers Dhrystone fell over, but it still has many shortcomings. One of them is that it executes only a few tight loops, i.e. it is overly optimistically optimized by instruction caches. The prime example is the ART we are discussing here, and the claim that it allows zero-wait-state-like execution from FLASH at full 168MHz (which turns to be lie through omitting ''for a particular benchmark'').
> I am not intending to run down the stm32f4.
> But in fact, most benchmark results are solely marketing instruments, and that's no invention of ST.
We all know (or should know) what is the value of benchmarks. They *are* a method of estimating performance; an experienced developer should know all the ''but''s involved.
OTOH, a benchmark for which we don't know what it does, is a pure nonsense.
> No one advertises his weak spots...
I don't care for who advertises what and where. I am an engineer. I am looking for as much information as possible.
JW
