How fast is the HP Prime?

[HP67]

(03-10-2014 07:34 PM)jebem Wrote:  2) Concerning your observation on the costs of emulation: I agree with you, of course. We cannot compare apples to apples here, as we do not have a native 75MHz Saturn processor.

Yes, but this goes directly against what you said above, which is what I quoted and objected to.

(03-10-2014 07:34 PM)jebem Wrote:  - Let us say the HP Prime takes 0.1 Sec to come out with the result (and I can guarantee it is taking less than that: the answer is instantaneous. Try it yourself to check it).
- The HP-50G takes about 65 sec.

Why aren't you timing this on the calculators? We all know the 50g has a bad clock bug but surely checking the TICKS and getting the real time is better than guessing with a stopwatch!
Until then, the rest of your numbers aren't ready for use in drawing any conclusions.

(03-10-2014 07:34 PM)jebem Wrote:  - Calculation speed ratio of: 65/0.1 = 650 times faster for the Prime.
- Raw clock speed ratio: 400 MHz / 75 MHz = 5.3 faster clock in the Prime.
So, for a 5 times faster clock, the Prime is 650 times faster.

Analysis:
The poor HP-50G performance root cause is not the lower clock speed.
Make your choice(s) for the root causes:
- Saturn emulation.
- Inefficient Saturn cpu architecture;
- Poor choice the host ARM processor for the job;
- Inefficient HP-49 series algorithms when compared with the ones implemented in the Prime.

This is the point. There are many factors here and without isolating them you cannot call this drag race a benchmark. From your SOP analysis that the Prime is 130X faster, the first thing that comes to mind is memory or memory controller deficiencies, then differences in algorithms, etc. That said, I have seen emulators degrade performance tremendously so I don't rule that out either. But we cannot conclude anything yet until we isolate all the variables. That was all I have been trying to say.