
4.2 Evaluating a Real Machine 215
EVALUATING A REAL MACHINE
Now that we understand the importance of proper scaling and the effects that prob-
lem and machine size have on fundamental behavioral characteristics and architec-
tural interactions, we are ready to develop specific guidelines for the two major
types of workload-driven evaluation: evaluating a real machine and evaluating an
architectural idea or trade-off in a general context. Evaluating a real machine is in
many ways simpler: the organization, granularities, and performance parameters of
the machine are fixed, and all we have to worry about is choosing appropriate work-
loads and workloa ...