SiSoft SANDRA 2007 Performance

SiSoft SANDRA 2007 is the latest revision of this popular system benchmark, but it sticks to its roots and supplies a wide range of individual benchmarks and system utilities. These include processor, system, network, hard drive benchmarks and many other performance tests. The memory bandwidth test is the most popular section of the SiSoft SANDRA benchmark suite, and it highlights the potential performance levels of the CPU-memory subsystem. As the Integer and FPU memory bandwidth scores are quite similar, we are only including the first one in our benchmark suite.

SiSoft SANDRA 2007 is a recent update to the popular suite, and definitely makes the best fit for our high-end processor testing. We anticipated a downturn in the memory bandwidth scores, as compared to the PCMark05 results, as SANDRA tests pure throughput rather than a selection of memory tests and operations. Even though the Core 2 Duo is a powerful architecture, AMD's integrated memory controller and dual channel DDR2-800 is a tough act to follow. As expected, the three Core 2 processors show excellent scores, but still can't match the AM2-based Athlon 64 processors. One interesting aside is the fact that the Core 2 Duo processors now offer higher memory bandwidth than the DDR-based Athlon 64 FX-60.

ScienceMark 2 Performance

The ScienceMark 2 memory benchmark is another important part of our benchmark selection, and more specifically, the MemBench portion of the program. This high-end test utilizes a series of memory bandwidth algorithms, and then offers a measure of the overall memory bandwidth of a given CPU/memory/platform combination. In many ways, it is similar to SiSoft SANDRA in terms of output and format, but depending on the platform and CPU, the actual tests can offer a slightly different result.

The ScienceMark 2 memory benchmarking displays the same basic trends. The Core 2 processors provide higher memory bandwidth than the standard Pentium D 900 series, while not being able to approach the performance of the Athlon 64-based AM2 processors. In this test, the DDR-based Athlon 64 FX-60 even manages to slide by, as does the Pentium Extreme Edition 955.

CINEBENCH 9.5 Performance

CINEBENCH 9.5 is the latest update to this performance suite, which utilizes CINEMA 4D for both CPU and video-based testing. We're concentrating on the multi-threaded CPU benchmark, processes a large, detailed image file on-screen, times the overall performance, and displays the results. CINEBENCH 2003 was multi-threaded as well, but it simply split the task into equal portions (per logical or physical cores) and let it run. CINEBENCH 9.5 upgrades this considerably, and dynamically shifts processing on the fly. So if one core is finished its job, the program automatically segments the remainder, thereby speeding up processing times considerably. Another factor of this change is that it rewards physical cores, while lowering performance on Hyper-Threaded systems.

The CINEBENCH 9.5 benchmark scores once again provide a prime view of how the Core 2 Extreme and Duo can perform. The Core 2 Extreme X6800 posts an extremely high score, and the Core 2 Duo E6700 follows up with an impressive second-place finish. The Athlon 64 FX-62 does manage to outpace the Core 2 Duo E6600, but that's as high as AMD could go. The Core 2 Duo represents a quantum shift from the Pentium D architecture, and this is made quite clear by the comparative CINEBENCH 9.5 scores.