8 - Synthetic testing
DryStone CPU test
We make use of a multi-threaded Dhrystone test, which basically is a suite of arithmetic and string manipulating programs. Since the whole program should be really small, it fits into the processor cache. It can be used to measure two aspects, both the processor's speed as well as the optimizing capabilities of the compiler. The resulting number is the number of executions of the program suite per second.
Now what I want to do right here is show you the performance of the new Athlon X2 4850 processor. Quite honestly, it's not bad for that kind of money.
Mind you that where you see (780G) that's the ECS 780G mainboard tested today. The Phenom processor use is a B2 revision with the dreaded TBL bug. Performance will be weird throughout this review. We have the new B3 inbound and will do a separate review on that one.
Queen CPU test
This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic "Queens problem" on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example -- with HyperThreading disabled -- the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. However, with enabled HyperThreading the picture is controversial, because due to architectural bottlenecks the Northwood core runs out of internal resources and slows down. Similarly, at the same clock speed AMD K8 class processors will be faster than AMD K7 ones due to the improved branch prediction capabilities of the K8 architecture.
CPU Queen test uses only the basic x86 instructions, it consumes less than 1 MB system memory and it is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core aware and thus is a multithreading CPU Benchmark with MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Again, not bad for a 80 dollar CPU and 80 dollar mainboard.
What I really need you to do is to compare performance with a E6300 Core 2 processor, which is 50 bucks more expensive than the Athlon X2 4850 we test today.
ZLib CPU test
This integer benchmark measures combined CPU and memory subsystem performance through the public ZLib compression library Version 1.2.2
CPU ZLib test uses only the basic x86 instructions, and it is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware. Again a very good test to measure multi-core performance.
