Quote from: cjp on March 17, 2012, 10:53:11 AM

Quote from: kjj on March 16, 2012, 07:13:15 PM

Comparisons between integer and floating point operations are meaningless. Not just inaccurate, or merely approximate, but not even in the same universe.

I disagree with that. You can always emulate floating point operations on top of integer operations, or integer operations on top of floating point operations. This places an upper and lower bound on the speed ratio between floating point and integer operations, which is basically independent of the hardware you are using. I don't really know how big the gap is between the upper and lower bound, but at least I can say from experience that emulated floating point can be relatively fast(*).

That's not what's at issue. FLOPS is not, in fact, FLoating Point Operations Per Second but the numeric result of running a very specific, standardized benchmark from the LINPACK codes solving a large, dense system of linear equations. It is a benchmark that is meaningful for most scientific and technical disciplines, but says *nothing* about the ability to crank out SHA-256 hashes.

LINPACK, which is what measures FLOPS, is a test of general-purpose scientific/technical capability. Bitcoin is highly, HIGHLY specialized. Using a measurement of one to derive the other could be off by orders of magnitude, not even in the same ballpark. It's a totally meaningless, apples-to-oranges comparison.