Performance measurement of

computers
Defining Performance
• Performance means different things to
different people,
therefore its assessment is subtle
Analogy from the airlines industry:
How to measure performance for a passenger
airplane?
• Cruising speed (How fast it gets to the
destination)
• Flight range (How far it can reach)
• Passenger capacity (How many passenger it
can carry)
Criteria of performance evaluation differs among users and designers
• All of the above
 Performance Metrics
Response (execution) time:
• The time between the start and the completion of a task
•Measures user perception of the system speed
•Common in reactive and time critical systems, single-user computer, etc.

Throughput:
•The total number of tasks done in a given time
• Most relevant to batch processing (billing, credit card processing, etc.)
• Mainly used for input/output systems (disk access, printer, etc.)

Examples:
• Replacing the processor of a computer with a faster version

Enhances BOTH response time and throughput

• Increasing processors count in a system that uses multiple processors

for separate tasks (e.g. handling of airline reservations system)

Improves ONLY throughput

Decreasing response time always improve throughput

 Performance
•Unit of things done per second(Maximizing performance means minimizing
response(execution) time)

Perfromance = 1
Execution time

We have two m/c X and Y,if the performance of X is greater than the
performance of Y then-

Performance X > Performance Y

1 > 1
Execution timeX Execution time Y

So, Execution timeY > Execution time X

 Performance
•X is n times faster than Y means-

Performance X = n
Performance y

So Execution time of Y is longer than X

Performance X = Execution time Y = n

Performance y = Execution time X
•If m/c A runs a program in 10 sec and m/c B runs the same program in
15 sec, how much faster is A than B?

We know-

Performance A = Execution time B = n

Performance B Execution time A

So performance ratio is :
15 = 1.5
10

So A is 1.5 times faster than B

 Measuring performance
•Wall-clocktime/response time/ellapsed time:
Total time to complete a task ,including disk access, memory access, i/o
activities, operating system overhead –everything

•CPU execution time/ CPU time:

oTime spent by CPU to compute a task
odoes not include time spent waiting for I/O or running other programs.

System CPU Time

User CPU Time
(CPU time spent in the OS
(CPU Time spent in the program)
performing task on behalf of the
program)
 Seconds
•10−3 s ms millisecond
•103 s ks kilosecond
•10−6 s µs microsecond
•106 s Ms megasecond
•10−9 s ns nanosecond
•109 s Gs gigasecond
 Clock rate
•103 Hz kHz kilohertz
•10−6 Hz µHz microhertz
•106 Hz MHz megahertz
•10−9 Hz nHz nanohertz
•109 Hz GHz gigahertz
•10−12 Hz pHz picohertz
•1012 Hz THz terahertz
 Designer’s Performance Metrics
•Users and designers measure performance using different
metrics
• Designers looks at the bottom line of program execution

•To enhance the hardware performance, designers focuses on reducing the

clock cycle time and the number of cycles per program

• Many techniques to decrease the number of clock cycles also increase the
clock cycle time or the average number of cycles per instruction (CPI)
The Role of Performance
• Hardware performance is a key to the
effectiveness of the entire system
•Performance has to be measured and compared
to evaluate various design and technological
approaches
• To optimize the performance, major affecting
factors have to be known
• For different types of applications, different
performance metrics may be appropriate and
different aspects of a computer system may be
most significant
• Instructionsuse and implementation, memory hierarchy and
I/O handling are among the factors that affect the
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performance