Gigaflops measure computer speed, with one gigaflop being one billion floating point operations per second. Floating point is a number representation system, and FLOPS are measured by computer registers. Gigaflops are not the only factor in measuring computer performance, and the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation creates benchmark tests for FLOPS.
Gigaflops are measures of computer speed. A gigaflop is one billion floating point operations per second (FLOPS). FLOPS, which is technically a singular or plural term, is mostly used in the fields of scientific floating point calculations. Floating point is a computer term that refers to a number representation system in which a string of digits represents a rational number. it “floats” in the sense that it can be placed anywhere with respect to the significant digits of the number.
Floating dots are used in codes to handle long numbers easily. A floating point number is expressed as a base number, also called a mantissa, exponent, and number base, or radix. The base is usually ten or two. Floating point operations are measured by the floating point registers of a computer.
A simple calculator uses only about ten FLOPS, so gigaflops are used to measure the speed of high-powered computer systems. The fastest computer processor, the Cray XT Jaguar, which was expanded in November 2008, operates at 1.64 petaflops, or one quadrillion FLOPS. Computer operations are usually measured in megaflops, which are one million FLOPs. As computer systems expand, however, engineers use terms like gigaflop; teraflops, which are a trillion FLOPS; and also petaflops.
Gigaflops are good indicators of a computer’s raw performance, but they shouldn’t be the only factor used to measure computer performance, as they cannot measure integer calculations. Using FLOPS as a benchmark of computer speed is also not recommended, as it only provides theoretical single-precision floating point performance. Computer code using double-precision floating point performance would not be an accurate benchmark. Only in the most specialized applications are the FLOPS so numerous that it is necessary to use gigaflops.
Modern processors typically include a floating point unit (FPU), which is the part of the microprocessor responsible for FLOPS. The FLOPS measure is the speed of the FPU. Additional items that a FLOPS measurement does not take into account include whether the microprocessor is operating under a heavy or light load and the specific operations included in the floating point operations.
The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) is a non-profit corporation founded by engineers interested in creating a benchmark test standard for measuring FLOPS. The tests are intensive measures of factors such as integer performance and floating point performance.
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