MIPS refers to the millions of instructions per second executed by a computer's processor. This number gives you an idea of the speed of a CPU, as faster processors have a higher MIPS than slower computers.
Things You'll Need
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- Processor's number of instructions per second
- Execution time
- Calculator
- CPU processor speed (cycles per second)
- CPI (average clock cycles per instruction)
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Step 1
Divide the number of instructions by the execution time. For instance, if a computer completed 1 million instructions in 0.05 seconds, the calculation would be 1 million/0.05 = 20 million.
Step 2
Divide this number by 1 million to find the millions of instructions per second. For this example: 20 million/1 million = 20 MIPS.
Step 3
Alternatively, divide the number of cycles per second (CPU) by the number of cycles per instruction (CPI) and then divide by 1 million to find the MIPS. For instance, if a computer with a CPU of 600 megahertz had a CPI of 3: 600/3 = 200; 200/1 million = 0.0002 MIPS.