"md5 -t" as indicator of CPU speed

[marius]

Hi all,

A really simple question, to which I probably already know the answer
from googling and testing[1], but I'd like someone to confirm it (or
beat me with a clue stick)...

How reliable is "md5 -t" as an indicator of relative CPU speed?
"sysctl hw.cpuspeed" returns either 1499 or 650 depending on my apm
settings, however "md5 -t | grep Time >> md5time.txt" always gives the
same time range: 0.60s +/- 0.015s (I've run this around 50 times with
various power settings).

So if "md5 -t" is an appropriate test of relative CPU speed (and from
what I've seen, it is) then the hw.cpuspeed value is incorrect, and my
CPU does not slow down. And if that's the case, then I'm one step
closer to figuring out why SpeedStep does not work on my Acer
TravelMate2300 laptop.

Thanks,

//mts

[1] I tried "md5 -t" on two additional computers (a P-100 with 32 megs
of RAM and a P-III 500 with 128 megs of RAM) and their results were
around 18 and 3 times what I saw on the Acer's 1500 Mhz Celeron-M with
768 megs of RAM.

-- 
"Goddammit Jim, I'm an anthropologist, not a computer scientist!"
     me, to a client, 2001
     (surprisingly, I didn't get fired)