Comments on: Geekbench Comparison

By: Geek Patrol | Geekbench Comparison (December 2006)

Geek Patrol | Geekbench Comparison (December 2006) — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:00:14 +0000

[...] Our obsession with benchmarks and Geekbench continues! Earlier this year we did a couple of Geekbench Comparisons using a number of different machines. While the comparisons were popular, a number of people thought we were being, well, less than fair since we didn’t have enough high-end CPUs from AMD and Intel. [...]

By: Wibby

Wibby — Thu, 04 May 2006 09:45:42 +0000

Here is my FX60

Geekbench Information
Version: Geekbench Preview 2 (r72)
Compiler: Visual C++ 1400

System Information
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Model: NVIDIA AWRDACPI
Motherboard: KN1 SLI Lite
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 FX-60 Dual Core Processor
CPU ID: Family 15 Model 35 Stepping 2
CPU Count (Physical): 2
CPU Count (Logical): 2
CPU Frequency: 2612 MHz
Bus Frequency: 0 MHz
Memory: 2046 MB

CPU Integer Performance
Emulate 6502 119 (1 thread, 212.8 megahertz)
Emulate 6502 237 (4 threads, 434.4 megahertz)
Blowfish 51 (1 thread, 71.11 megabytes/sec)
Blowfish 92 (4 threads, 139.9 megabytes/sec)
bzip2 Compress 214 (1 thread, 38.34 megabytes/sec)
bzip2 Compress 414 (4 threads, 77.05 megabytes/sec)
bzip2 Decompress 199 (1 thread, 82.97 megabytes/sec)
bzip2 Decompress 383 (4 threads, 162.2 megabytes/sec)

CPU Floating Point Performance
Mandelbrot 185 (1 thread, 1.246 gigaflops)
Mandelbrot 345 (4 threads, 2.41 gigaflops)

Memory Performance
Latency 698 (1 thread, 14.99 nanoseconds/load)
Read Sequential 340 (1 thread, 2.474 gigabytes/sec)
Write Sequential 332 (1 thread, 1.913 gigabytes/sec)
Stdlib Allocate 3721 (1 thread, 2.899 megaallocs/sec)
Stdlib Allocate 674 (4 threads, 528.5 kiloallocs/sec)
Stdlib Write 122 (1 thread, 1.919 gigabytes/sec)
Stdlib Copy 151 (1 thread, 1.129 gigabytes/sec)

Stream Performance
Stream Copy 172 (1 thread, 2.353 gigabytes/sec)
Stream Scale 173 (1 thread, 2.363 gigabytes/sec)
Stream Add 174 (1 thread, 2.407 gigabytes/sec)
Stream Triad 169 (1 thread, 2.387 gigabytes/sec)

By: loko

loko — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 01:41:29 +0000

i see now by your posts there is no doubt i will stay rendering using my sgi 2048 cpu and 4096 GB ram instead of buying that new "chip chaw" intels or ibm, motorolas and whatsover

...but i still love that aluminium finish of the quad...

any intersted on a cluster? starting at 224k... ferraris and astons accepted as a deposit

By: Mac Performance Comparison at Geek Patrol - DuaneFields.com - http://www.duanefields.com

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:16:58 +0000

[...] The folks over at Geek Patrol gives us rundown of relative performance amongst a variety of processors, the most wide reaching I’ve seen. To quote from their conclusions: The PowerPC G4 has served us well, its time has past. It still performs reasonably well as a lower-end CPU, but when compared to the PowerPC G5 and the Intel Core Duo itâ€™s sorely lacking; it was blown away by both processors in almost every test (save for the Blowfish tests). With the Intel Core Duo in both the iMac and the PowerBook1 hopefully weâ€™ll see the Intel Core Solo replace the PowerPC G4 in the Mac Mini and the iBook. [...]

By: Mikael

Mikael — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 21:59:56 +0000

"In other words, Apple doesnâ€™t set -fast on by default (for whatever reason), so weâ€™re not going to turn it on."

That's almost funny.

By: John

John — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 21:40:10 +0000

I've talked about the compilers and compiler flags we use before, but it worth repeating here: we're using the standard compilers for the platform, and the vendor-recommended compiler flags for release code.

In other words, Apple doesn't set -fast on by default (for whatever reason), so we're not going to turn it on.

By: Mikael

Mikael — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:24:23 +0000

I'm not talking about only AltiVec but a number of special treatment of the resulting machinecode which the PPC requires. GCC has been used on the x86 platform many many years longer so it's better adapted for this specific CPU.

Do a man gcc in the Mac terminal app. Search by entering "/-fast". Press n once to find the explanation of -fast.

I'd optimize with the G4 as the base CPU by giving GCC these options: -fast -mcpu=G4

If fast math is not wanted then use the options individually as desired. -malign-natural will align floating-point values along their natural boundaries. -falign-functions to the best boundaries as well, and so on.

This is a price to be paid for using a compiler which is not fully designed for the PPC CPU.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:29:11 +0000

Geekbench isn't optimized for Altivec because it also isn't optimized for SSE. You won't see a version optimized for one before you see it optimized for both.

The key is balance. You may think that the OS X version is crippled, but rest assured that the Windows and Linux versions are just as crippled.

By: Mikael

Mikael — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 12:17:48 +0000

Then what is it?
If the Mac OS PPC version is so crippled (read: unoptimized) then these results are not realistic.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 01:28:12 +0000

Mikael,

Thanks for the input, but I'm afraid you are missing the point of Geekbench.