9 - ZLib CPU | Mandel FPU | Video Transcoding performance

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. A very good test to measure multi-core performance among platforms.

Again the Phenom processor takes the lead, that's until we set the Q6600 at 3 GHz where it starts sodomizing the Phenom.

Looking at baseline performance the reality though is that in a real-world application, you'd not notice the difference whatsoever in performance, everything is really close together.

Mandel FPU test

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 variant 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 as the same set of calculations can be done in seconds & even real-time.

The FPU Mandel test again is HyperThreaded, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core aware. Here's where the Quad-core processors always really kick in. It's fascinating to see how close all the setups are, and once you overclock the Q6600... the fruits of your labor do kick in.

Multi-threaded Video Transcoding VC-1 to WMV9

Transcoding is a very popular thing to do on PCs. You take a movie and transcode it from format A to B. For this test we transcode a high-definition VC1 movie to a WMV9 format.

There's a small error in the charts, it's 2631 MB/sec... not 2.6 MB/sec.