xlf 2.1 under AIX 3.1.5 for RS/6000-540 and SPEC numbers

[Vic Abell]

Some early testing of the new Fortran compiler that comes with AIX 3.1.5
for the RS/6000 (xlf 2.1) has resulted in increased SPECfp and SPECmark
numbers (version 1.0A of SPEC).   On a 540 with 128 MB of memory, the
locally computed SPECfp went from 44.7 to 58.6, raising the locally
computed SPECmark from 35.4 to 41.2.  SPECint underwent little change.

Other tests show widely differing performance gains.  Two local Fortran
codes gained about 10%.  Whetstones rose from 33K to 49k (for the little
that's worth).

Using the xlf 2.1 pre-processor was the key to achieving these performance
improvements.

Vic Abell <abe at mace.cc.purdue.edu>