Page 6 - Synthetic tests #1
DryStone CPU test
We make use of a multi-threaded Dhrystone test, which is basically 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.
In our tests we'll include processors in the most near pricerange. E6600 (210USD), Q6600 (275 USD) and once high-end processor QX6850 (980USD). The Phenom 9700 will likely retail for 275 USD.
You can see immediately that we'll see differences all over the place. The nearest opponent for the Phenom is the Q6600 and the Phenom 9700 will lose, win, lose etc. etc. against that processor.
This is a multi-threaded (uses all CPU cores) test, and it shows for sure.
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, multi-core aware and thus it is a multithreading CPU Benchmark with MMX, SSE2 and SSE3 optimizations.
An excellent test to get some synthetic performance numbers. The Phenom is not doing bad at all.
