New algorithm for determining overclocking in charts

[David (PassMark)]

You can actually see the individual numbers for the CPU tests by downloading the baselines from within PerformanceTest. The breakdown isn't as detailed as you are suggesting above, but it is more detailed that just a single CPUMark figure.

but I think you are underestimating a lot of other people here.

I disagree. Only assembly language programmers are going to really understand MMX, SSEx, etc.. And even with an understanding of what it is you still can't tell what real applications use which technology.

If we take your argument to the logical conclusion then we would end up with 1000s of benchmarks. e.g. one for 32bit addition of single precision floats, one for 32bit addition 8 bit integers, one for 32bit addition of a deferenced address holding a single word that is in cache, etc... It really has to be brought up to a higher level.

You might also be interested in this short study on the speed and breakdown of CPU instructions.

[rsn10100]

You can actually see the individual numbers for the CPU tests by downloading the baselines from within PerformanceTest. The breakdown isn't as detailed as you are suggesting above, but it is more detailed that just a single CPUMark figure.

This is cool. I never really explored it.

... And even with an understanding of what it is you still can't tell what real applications use which technology.

Probably only 1%...

e.g. one for 32bit addition of single precision floats, one for 32bit addition 8 bit integers, one for 32bit addition of a deferenced address holding a single word that is in cache, etc... It really has to be brought up to a higher level.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I guess anyone really in need of those results would know how to write the code to profile it themselves (or could figure it out anyway).

You might also be interested in this short study on the speed and breakdown of CPU instructions.

Now this was interesting. I knew that divisions were slow, but I had no idea that they were that much slower. I got a lot more reading to do.

[rdeleonp]

This change has just gone live. You might need to force a refresh in your browser to see the new results.

Here are some examples of the impact. The old values were what was in the charts yesterday. The new values is what we have today (3/Feb/2012).

CPU - Old / New CPUMark Rating
Intel 2600K - 10074 / 9106
Intel 2600 - 8964 / 8912

Intel 2500K - 7991 / 6739
Intel 2500 - 6649 / 6614

AMD FX-8150 - 8369 / 8226
AMD FX-6100 - 5714 / 5556
AMD 1090T - 6069 / 5977

So there was a gap of 1110 in the CPUmark score between the 2600K and 2600. After this change in overclocking detection the gap is now 194 (2%). Which is much more reasonable considering these are effectively the same CPU in their stock state.

Hi.

What could explain the current differences between the i5-2500K scores and the i5-2550K scores?

They have basically the same specs:

http://ark.intel.com/compare/52210,65647

... but the scores are very different:

Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz: 6,745
Intel Core i5-2550K @ 3.40GHz: 8,653

Thanks for your time.

[David (PassMark)]

It has been fixed up. Results are now (1/March/2012),

Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz: 6,745
Intel Core i5-2550K @ 3.40GHz: 7,167

The i5-2550K was new, so we didn't have the max factory turbo speed set in the database. It is there now. So the split between normally clocked and overclocked should now be done properly for the 2550K.

[rdeleonp]

It has been fixed up. Results are now (1/March/2012),

Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz: 6,745
Intel Core i5-2550K @ 3.40GHz: 7,167

The i5-2550K was new, so we didn't have the max factory turbo speed set in the database. It is there now. So the split between normally clocked and overclocked should now be done properly for the 2550K.

Thanks for the info.

Regards.

[a7751218]

PassMark admin: Many Thanks for clarifying this!

I've been using the cpu charts for quite a while now and was always concerned about overclocked cpu's leaking into the normal bechmarks.

Your excellent explanation and change in algorithms allows me to put more trust in your benchmarks now. And I find your new 90mhz threshold to be a fairly wise choice considering how cpu manufacturers release minor upgrades on CPU, i.e. i7 2600 vs i7 2700

However, it does concern me a little that other hardware (motherboard / ram) can have such a difference in cpu clock (~90mhz)?

Also, I hope you guys keep on top of new CPU's, their stock and turbo speeds as new ones are constantly released.

[David (PassMark)]

We aren't publishing graphs for RAM performance nor motherboards, at least for the moment. So CPU overclocking impacting on RAM speeds isn't a big issue for us.

There has been a ridiculous number of CPUs released of the last 24 months. Some are also very rare, engineering samples, private OEM releases, or buggy so the model number doesn't report correctly. So finding the correct specs can be hard.

[rdeleonp]

There has been a ridiculous number of CPUs released of the last 24 months. Some are also very rare, engineering samples, private OEM releases, or buggy so the model number doesn't report correctly. So finding the correct specs can be hard.

Hi.

If you don't mind... can you validate the following scores?

AMD FX-8100 : 6508
AMD FX-6200 : 8084

Thanks for your time.

Regards.

[David (PassMark)]

Both these CPUs are just a few days old. And very rare at the moment.
The FX-8100 result looks about right.
For the FX-6200, the only results we had turned out to be overclocked, and not just by a small amount. Like the i5-2550K above, it was missing the turbo speed in the database. This has now been fixed. The consequence of this however is that we now don't have any standard result for the FX-6200 and it has disappeared from the standard chart.

[David (PassMark)]

After fixing up the above it became obvious that there was also another overclocking issue that impacted the charts with the AMD Llano chips. Details can be found here,
http://www.passmark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3635
and here
http://www.passmark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3580

This should be worked-around in PerformanceTest V7.0 build 1028.

In conjunction with the release of the 1028 build we manually adjusted the rankings of the AMD Llano chips in the CPU charts to manually filter out the overclocked results (as the automatic filtering wasn't always working for these chips). This has dropped the AMD Llano's down the charts a bit as of the 23/Mar/2012.

Update: Turns out there might be another AMD Llano issue. This time with a CPU bug.