Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation
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| Formation | 1988 |
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| Type | Not-for-profit |
| Headquarters | Gainesville, Virginia |
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Membership
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Hardware & Software Vendors, Universities, Research Centers |
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Staff
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5 |
| Website | http://www.spec.org |
The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) is an American non-profit organization that aims to "produce, establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set" of performance benchmarks for computers.
SPEC was founded in 1988. SPEC benchmarks are widely used to evaluate the performance of computer systems; the test results are published on the SPEC website. Results are sometimes informally referred to as "SPECmarks" or just "SPEC".
SPEC evolved into an umbrella organization encompassing four diverse groups; Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (GWPG), the High Performance Group (HPG), the Open Systems Group (OSG) and the newest, the Research Group (RG). More details are on their website; [1].
Membership in SPEC is open to any interested company or entity that is willing to commit to SPEC's standards. It allows:
The list of members is available on SPEC's membership page;[2].
The benchmarks aim to test "real-life" situations. There are several benchmarks testing Java scenarios, from simple computation (SPECjbb) to a full system with Java EE, database, disk, and network (SPECjEnterprise).
The SPEC CPU suites test CPU performance by measuring the run time of several programs such as the compiler GCC, the chemistry program gamess, and the weather program WRF. The various tasks are equally weighted; no attempt is made to weight them based on their perceived importance. An overall score is based on a geometric mean.
SPEC benchmarks are written in a portable programming language (usually C, C#, Java or Fortran), and the interested parties may compile the code using whatever compiler they prefer for their platform, but may not change the code. Manufacturers have been known to optimize their compilers to improve performance of the various SPEC benchmarks. SPEC has rules that attempt to limit such optimizations.
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