What is the difference between a “conservative” (base) metric and an “aggressive” (non-base) metric?
A10: In order to provide comparisons across different computer hardware, SPEC provides benchmarks as source code. This means they must be compiled before they can be run. There was agreement within SPEC that the benchmarks should be compiled the way users compile programs. But how do users compile programs? On one side, people might just compile with the general high-performance options suggested by the compiler vendor. On the other side, people might experiment with many different compilers and compiler flags to achieve the best performance. So, while SPEC cannot match exactly how everyone uses compilers, it can provide metrics that represent the general characteristics of these two groups. The base metrics (e.g., SPECompMbase2001) are required for all reported results and have set guidelines for compilation (e.g., the same flags must be used in the same order for all benchmarks of the same language, no assertion flags). The assumed model uses performance compiler flags that a compile
