How to Calculate MIPS

Techwalla may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story. Learn more about our affiliate and product review process here.

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.

Advertisement

Things You'll Need

Video of the Day

  • Processor's number of instructions per second
  • Execution time
  • Calculator
  • CPU processor speed (cycles per second)
  • CPI (average clock cycles per instruction)

Video of the Day

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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

Advertisement