Subject: Announcing SciMark 2.0 numeric Java benchmark

From: Roldan Pozo <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Jun 1999 01:50:53 -0400

SciMark 2.0, a new version of the interactive Java numerical benchmark
is now available at

  http://www.math.nist.gov/scimark

or through the Java Grande Benchmark Suite home page:

  http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/research/javagrande/benchmarking.html

The SciMark benchmark executes various flavors of computational
kernels (FFT, Monte Carlo integration, sparse matrix multiplication, 
relaxation, dense LU factorization) and reports a composite score
to give an indication of how well a particular Java platform may perform
on numeric and scientific applications.

This new version of SciMark has been almost entirely rewritten with new features
and updates:

        o) scores are now reported in Mflops
        o) full source code available
        o) new computational kernels
        o) a LARGE version for out-of-cache problem sizes
        o) new score submission system with instant-updates 
        
Because of these changes, SciMark 2.0 scores are incompatible
with earlier versions and we are in the process of re-seeding our performance 
database.  If your machine or Java platform is not shown on our new list
(http://math.nist.gov/cgi-bin/ScimarkSummary) you may want to consider 
submitting your results and help keep our database up-to-date.

Thanks again to all of you who have participated in the SciMark benchmark.  
In particular, many thanks to the participants of the Java Grande Forum 
for helpful discussions and valuable feedback.  

Roldan Pozo
Co-chair, Java Numerics Working Group