CPU Reviews & Articles

SiSoft SANDRA XI Bandwidth Performance

SiSoft SANDRA XI is a very popular system benchmark, and each revision sticks to its roots and supplies a wide range of individual benchmarks and system utilities. These tests include processor, system, network, and hard drive benchmarks, along with many other performance metrics. 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 testing.

SiSoft SANDRA includes a range of memory and cache-related benchmarks, and definitely makes a great fit for our high-end processor testing. These memory bandwidth scores certainly favor Athlon 64 dual core processors, and there is a definitive advantage for the AMD models. One interesting facet of this test is the discrepancy between the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ and Athlon 64 FX-62 processors. The scores may seem strange, until you remember that the newer 3.0 GHz processor actually runs at a slower DDR2 memory rate, and therefore will have potentially lower memory scores in some benchmarks.

The SiSoft SANDRA XI Cache & Memory benchmark goes well beyond memory performance, and measures the bandwidth of the combined processor cache and memory subsystem. This test can show off the architectural advantages of each processor, as well as the benefits of larger and faster L1/L2 data caches, and help give us an overall view of how the processor and memory match up in high-speed data transfers.

AMD certainly doesn't come out looking good in this benchmark, and while the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ doesn't fare badly against the Core 2 Duo models, it is annihilated by the Core 2 Quad and Extreme models. Intel's Advanced Smart Cache works wonders in this test, and it's obvious from the quad core results, that bigger is definitely better.

SiSoft SANDRA XI now incorporates a set of multi-core benchmarks that test the inter-core bandwidth, processor affinity and latency of today's top-end processors. The first test measures the efficiency of the inter-connect, and determines overall bandwidth available between processors. This is a very interesting test, and one that naturally gives the advantage to the quad core models. More processor cores equal additional bandwidth - a real no-brainer there. Even against the Core 2 Duo competition, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ doesn't fare very well, and falls well back of even the Core 2 Duo E6600.

The second part of the test measures the inter-core latency, and surprisingly shows the AMD processors outperforming (lower is better) the Intel contingent in this test.