Linux Performance

Built around several freely available benchmarks for Linux, Linux-Bench is a project spearheaded by Patrick at ServeTheHome to streamline about a dozen of these tests in a single neat package run via a set of three commands using an Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD. These tests include fluid dynamics used by NASA, ray-tracing, OpenSSL, molecular modeling, and a scalable data structure server for web deployments. We run Linux-Bench and have chosen to report a select few of the tests that rely on CPU and DRAM speed.

C-Ray: link

C-Ray is a simple ray-tracing program that focuses almost exclusively on processor performance rather than DRAM access. The test in Linux-Bench renders a heavy complex scene offering a large scalable scenario.

Linux-Bench c-ray 1.1 (Hard)

NAMD, Scalable Molecular Dynamics: link

Developed by the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NAMD is a set of parallel molecular dynamics codes for extreme parallelization up to and beyond 200,000 cores. The reference paper detailing NAMD has over 4000 citations, and our testing runs a small simulation where the calculation steps per unit time is the output vector.

Linux-Bench NAMD Molecular Dynamics

Redis: link

Many of the online applications rely on key-value caches and data structure servers to operate. Redis is an open-source, scalable web technology with a strong developer base, but also relies heavily on memory bandwidth as well as CPU performance.

[words]Linux-Bench Redis Memory-Key Store, 1x

Linux-Bench Redis Memory-Key Store, 10x

Linux-Bench Redis Memory-Key Store, 100x

Professional Performance on Windows Gaming Performance: Alien Isolation, Total War Attila, & GTA V
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  • chrisso - Friday, June 17, 2016 - link

    The athlon xp chips and most of the pentium 3 equivalents beat the snot out of intel chips for quite a while actually. One of my mates was gobsmacked when I ran lost coast at 56 fps using a 3000+ I bought used from ebay for £28.
    A 3 gig pentium 4 could manage about 40.
  • lunchbox4k - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link

    The Athlon 64 (K8) and part of the Athlon (K7) was designed by Jim Keller, guess who designed ZEN?
  • solomonshv - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link

    when AMD was better than intel, i stuck with intel because i was in high school and couldn't afford the an AMD processor. the cheapest San Diego class CPU was north of $300 and AMD was charging $1000 for the FX 57. i ended up getting a Pentium 4 630. overclocked it from 3GHz to 4.4GHz and was happy as can be.
  • hoohoo - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    Wait and see still seems like the best approach given the price of these CPUs.
  • lunchbox4k - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link

    You can always do that, unless you always pay for the top chip, with technology wanting to double in performance every year for the same cost, some SOCs will be pennies in the near future.
  • bronan - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link

    I find that really the wrong approach, yes the piledriver suffered from the weird decision with the cache and that made it crinch instead of perform well. But they are still very well running cpu's which cost about a fraction of the insane high prices intel tends to give the endless just a bit high clockspeed and new socket models. All keep saying that they are such a big step forward while i see only a little step in reality and yes the insane slow build in gpu sucks so bad its not even worth using on anything. The big problem is that intel makes the non gpu version locked and lowers the clock on that too. While i am 1000% certain those would be the best and greatest overclockers.
    The silly gpu is forced on everybody, but i bet nobody ever use that crap.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    Just FYI, a Darwin award is awarded to those who accidentally, involuntarily, and often stupidly remove themselves from the gene pool, permanently. While this (often) involves a lack of forethought which leads to the person's own death, accidents resulting in the person becoming permanently infertile also count.

    Someone could voluntarily and knowingly remove themselves from the gene pool, but because there is forethought to this action, I've never heard of a Darwin award for this.

    I don't believe buying an overpriced processor equates to removing oneself from the gene pool.
  • Azethoth - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    It is even worse. Being able to afford this because you have so much money the cost does not even register means you are actually up for whatever the inverse darwin is. Statistically the wealth makes you live longer and healthier. You are not working 24/7 and you can certainly eat better and working out with a hot personal trainer and having wonderful vacations wherever you feel like going on the planet.
  • cswor - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link

    Or mommy and daddy have money.
  • ddferrari - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    Someone is trying way too hard to sound smart and condescending...

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