This 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, you can probably remember rendering Mandelbrot graphics, and it took a full day to complete an image.  Amazing where we are right now.

FPU Mandel test again is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware. If we focus on the QX9650 & QX9770 we notice a 6% difference.

File Encryption & Decompression

Encrypting is becoming more and more popular task with file sharing. Many companies already have a policy where all emails for instance must be encrypted. This test involves encrypting of different kind of files.

File decompression are very popular tasks in today’s PC usage, especially files transferred over a network are almost without exception always compressed. These tests use the open source Zlib data compression library.

The amount of operations processed during the 20 second run time is calculated for both tests and the metrics is Megabytes processed per second.

Again the differential between the QX9650 and the QX9770 is measurable yet in real-world situations hardly noticeable. This however is a single-threaded test. The downside, only one core is utilized, the upside, this is the same limitation for any of the CPU's.

WMV Compression & File Decryption

WMV Video Compression - With digital video cameras increasingly gaining popularity, video conversion and editing is becoming a very popular task in home PC usage. This video compression tests measures two different types of video file conversion. In the WMV Video Compression test, a Windows Media format video file is encoded. This test uses the Windows Media Encoder 9. The video source data file used for the encoding is approx. 1.8 MB sized mpg file with a resolution of 320*240. Video compression is done through Windows Media Encoder to same resolution WMV format with video bitrate of 1000kbps.

File decryption - Many companies already have a policy where all emails for instance must be encrypted. The files used for decrypting include 2MB executable, 2MB document, 1.1MB picture and a 1.7MB audio file. The files are en/decrypted in 8 byte padded blocks and the encryption key size is 56 bytes.

Unfortunately a single threaded test again. Yet I included it so you can see the results in overclocked status. Imagine future applications run on four cores like that.

Virus Scan & Audio Conversion

Virus scanning has become a very common and crucial task for using PC in everyday life. New viruses are reported constantly and they spread rapidly through email and internet browsing. Virus scanner engines prevent these viruses to harm the user's system and they have become an essential part of a home user's PC as well. The component used in this test is the virus scanner from F-Secure Corporation.

Audio Conversion, a part of PCs evolution is the increase in entertainment usage. Listening to music and creating own playlists are common tasks to perform while operating a PC. Audio Conversion test uses the Ogg Vorbis audio compression. The Audio Conversion test compresses a 10 second wave format audio file sized approximately 1.7MB to Ogg Vorbis format and the time for encoding is measured.

Last real-word performance results before we dive into gaming on this platform. No idea why virus scanning was slower though, might have been HDD related.

Time for some games then. We will start off with a series of CPU limited games.