CPU Reviews & Articles

SiSoft SANDRA 2001

SiSoft SANDRA is an interesting suite of individual benchmarks and system utilities. These are artificial tests that can give a different view of processor and subsystem performance, far away from system tests. The benchmarks we are concerned with are the CPU Arithmetic, CPU Multi-Media, and Memory Bandwidth tests.

The SiSoft SANDRA CPU Arithmetic tests outline the potential performance of the ALU (integer) and FPU (floating-point) portions of the CPU. Here we see a definite pattern, as the Pentium 4 rules in the FPU area, while the Athlon XP takes over in ALU tests. This is a bit strange, as the Pentium 4 has a double-pumped ALU unit (ALU speed doubles per clock), and the benchmark seems to favor the data prefetch enhancement of the Athlon XP.

The CPU Multi-Media benchmarks are much the same as the standard CPU ones, except the MMX and SSE/SSE2 portions of the processor are highlighted. Even given that difference, the pattern remains the same as the Pentium 4 continues to dominate in FPU (SSE2) benchmarking, while the Athlon XP 2000+ once again leads in ALU (MMX) testing.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the SiSoft SANDRA suite is the memory bandwidth tests. With the i850 powering a dual-channel RDRAM setup, the winner is preordained, and this significant performance lead can give a better idea on why the Pentium 4-2.2 GHz performs so much better on the i850 platform. Somewhat surprisingly, even the i845D beats out the nForce, albeit using a CPU with a much faster clock speed.