A few days ago I posted some results from Ziff-Davis' CPUMark32. Eric Mintz of www.pcbenchmarks.com pointed out that this test has been replaced by CPUmark99.

I downloaded the new test and made some more runs. The results clearly showed the difference between SEL 100/66 settings but was less sensitive to CAS Latency settings on the Abit BX6-2. A review by ZD's PC Magazine's PC Labs explains that the new test measures performance in mainstream business applications. It features a better mix of instructions and accounts for newer cache and memory sizes. It excludes floating point and MMX instructions!

I feel that this tailoring reduces the test's usefulness to overclockers and gamers.
Further, the results posted at pcbenchmarks are incomplete and difficult to believe. They do not show what the default speeds of the processors are. They exceed the range of numbers shown in the PC Labs review by a more than reasonable margin.

For example, my P-II 450 @ 450 tests at 33.5. This is the same number as is shown in the PC Labs table. The various 450 results (from P-IIs and Celerons) in the pcbenchmarks table range from 36.9 to 39.1. How? Why?

SiSoft's SANDRA has a test that seems more meaningful. The Memory Benchmark evaluates the CPU, Chipset, Cache and Memory. It's results in my tests track faithfully with the speeds and settings.

The following results are from a P-II 450 on an Abit BX6-2 mobo, using a single 64Mb CL2 memory module. CPUmark99 tests were run 3 times and showed almost no variance. The SANDRA Memory Benchmark tests were run 10 times and the last 3 results were averaged. This is because in 10 of the 16 sets of runs, the numbers started out higher and tapered off to stable, but somewhat lower, values. I cannot explain this phenomenon but its lesson is clear. Don't accept the first number you get.

UBB does not like tables, so I'll group the figures according to CL setting / SEL 100/66 setting. In each case, the first number is the CPUmark99 result, the second is SANDRA's

CL3, SEL Hi/Lo
450 - 33.5/34.8 - 213/220
464 - 34.4/35.7 - 219/227
504 - 37.5/39.0 - 238/247
527 - 39.2/40.7 - 248/258

CL2, SEL Hi/Lo
450 - 33.6/35.0 - 216/224
464 - 34.5/35.9 - 223/230
504 - 37.6/39.1 - 242/251
527 - 39.3/40.8 - 253/262

I look forward to your comparisons and comments.

[This message has been edited by Roy (edited 02-08-99).]