The Mandel FPU benchmark measures double precision (also known as 64-bit) floating-point performance through the computation of several frames of the popular "Mandelbrot" fractal. The code behind this benchmark method is written in Assembly, and it is extremely optimized for every popular AMD and Intel processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86 or SSE2 instruction set extension.

Now if you come from the Commodore 64 / Amiga era like me (Peek & Poke Commands FTW dude !), you can probably remember rendering Mandelbrot graphics, a mathematical formula that much like a paradox, never ends and thus is repetitive. Back in the 1990ies it took me a full day to complete one Mandelbrot image. Amazing where we are right now as the same set of calculations can be done in a split second & even real-time.

The FPU Mandel test again is HyperThreaded, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core aware. Again 100% baseline performance.

Again we see the E8400 being trashed by the X3 720 BE and the X4 810 going head to head with a Q6600. If you compare the X4 810 to Core i7 920, we see a performance difference of a third .. which is also exactly the difference in price as the 810 is a third cheaper. So in that respect it all makes sense.

And overclocked results again, giving both processors a very nice additional boost in overall performance.