HINT (Hierarchical INTegration) is a computer benchmarking tool
developed at the Scalable Computing Laboratory of the Ames Laboratory,
a US Department of Energy laboratory.  Unlike traditional benchmarks,
HINT neither fixes the size of the problem nor the calculation time.
Instead, it uses a rigorously defined measure called QUIPS (QUality
Improvements Per Second).

The output of HINT is data which can be plotted (the gnuplot graphics
package is useful for plotting HINT output).  The plot shows the speed
of the computation as the size of the problem increases.  The HINT
graph shows the peak processor speed and the effects of different
levels of cache and memory on processing speed.  See
http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/Projects/HINT/ for more information and
an on-line database of HINT results.

HINT also outputs a single number which is the integral of the HINT
curve.  This number, called NetQUIPS, can be used for general
comparison between machines.

- Guy Helmer
ghelmer@freebsd.org