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Benchmarks for Embedded Processors?

Posted by Cliff on from the beating-the-baseline dept.

shill asks: "I am interested in working on an embedded linux application, but I'm having difficulty choosing a processor. Is there somewhere I can find benchmarks or technical comparisons of various embedded processors, like the Trasmeta Crusoe 5400, Intel StrongARM 1110, and National Geode GX1? I am looking for performance information as well as power requirements, etc."

3 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. Google finds it again by jpt.d · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://www.eembc.org/

    Specific:
    http://www.eembc.org/Benchmark/score/ScoreFindSt ep 1.asp?BenchmarkType=PRO

    To slashdot: Can we please keep these questions out that can be found with keyword search in google within first three results?

    Regards,
    jptd

    --
    What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
  2. Lies, dammed Lies and Benchmarks by pagercam2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It all depends on what you want to do. Benchmarks are generally pretty useless and the power estimates even more so, what is the processor supposed to be running when the power estimate is taken. Small applications, running entirely out of cache will use less power than those that must use external memory, and then how do you decide if the power taken by the memory is part of the processor or not. The processor is driving the address lines and data lines when writing, but how do you issolate the power contribution between the two???? Chips like the Transmeta require support chips which adds a second number to the power contribution for the processor. As far as performance is you are doing floating point a processor with floating point will be better even if the clock speed is higher on an integer processor, inversely a simple processor that does only fixed point math is generally smaller and more power efficient. These processors each have different capabilities as far as peripherals, the StrongARM has a lot, the Transmeta relies of support chips, the Geode has some. Bench marks are only helpful in very general relative terms you really need to understand your application and match it to the processor to make a valid decision.

  3. seems like an oxymoron... by boopus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've had very little experience with embedded processors, but generaly embeded processors are expected to get their work done, at whatever rate is required. If the processor can do the task that it's being imbedded for, any extra speed is wasted. So define your problem, and find the cheapest way to get it accomplished.

    Once example of this is a parking garage system i've had the bad fortune to work on a couple of times. It consists of multiple 486's running linux. (these things have uptimes measured in years) Each machine spits out tickets or calculates times/rates or reads monthly-pass cards, and none of them need anything more than a 486, even the one with the wireless link to the accounting system, as changing the microsecconds to nanosecconds that they take to do their task wouldn't help anyone...