HINT (Hierarchical INTegration) is a computer benchmark that ranks the system (i.e. the entire computer instead of individual components) as a whole. A system with a very fast processor would likely be rated poorly if the buses were very poor compared to another system that had both average processor and buses. In the past, Macintosh computers with relatively slow processor speeds (800 MHz) used to perform better than x86 based systems with processors running at nearly 2GHZ. HINT is widely known for being immune to artificial optimization. It is also interesting because it can be used by many computers ranging from a calculator to a supercomputer. HINT was developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and is licenced under the GNU General Public License.
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