CPU Tests: Synthetic

Most of the people in our industry have a love/hate relationship when it comes to synthetic tests. On the one hand, they’re often good for quick summaries of performance and are easy to use, but most of the time the tests aren’t related to any real software. Synthetic tests are often very good at burrowing down to a specific set of instructions and maximizing the performance out of those. Due to requests from a number of our readers, we have the following synthetic tests.

Linux OpenSSL Speed: SHA256

One of our readers reached out in early 2020 and stated that he was interested in looking at OpenSSL hashing rates in Linux. Luckily OpenSSL in Linux has a function called ‘speed’ that allows the user to determine how fast the system is for any given hashing algorithm, as well as signing and verifying messages.

OpenSSL offers a lot of algorithms to choose from, and based on a quick Twitter poll, we narrowed it down to the following:

  1. rsa2048 sign and rsa2048 verify
  2. sha256 at 8K block size
  3. md5 at 8K block size

For each of these tests, we run them in single thread and multithreaded mode. All the graphs are in our benchmark database, Bench, and we use the sha256 and md5 results in published reviews.

(8-3c) Linux OpenSSL Speed sha256 8K Block (1T)(8-4c) Linux OpenSSL Speed sha256 8K Block (nT)

(8-3d) Linux OpenSSL Speed md5 8K Block (1T)(8-4d) Linux OpenSSL Speed md5 8K Block (nT)

GeekBench 5: Link

As a common tool for cross-platform testing between mobile, PC, and Mac, GeekBench is an ultimate exercise in synthetic testing across a range of algorithms looking for peak throughput. Tests include encryption, compression, fast Fourier transform, memory operations, n-body physics, matrix operations, histogram manipulation, and HTML parsing.

I’m including this test due to popular demand, although the results do come across as overly synthetic, and a lot of users often put a lot of weight behind the test due to the fact that it is compiled across different platforms (although with different compilers).

We have both GB5 and GB4 results in our benchmark database. GB5 was introduced to our test suite after already having tested ~25 CPUs, and so the results are a little sporadic by comparison. These spots will be filled in when we retest any of the CPUs.

(8-1c) Geekbench 5 Single Thread(8-1d) Geekbench 5 Multi-Thread

CPU Tests: Legacy and Web Gaming Tests: Chernobylite
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  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link

    There is no x590 chipset coming. X570 is ryzen 5000s chipset.

    There's also this miracle fo technology, if you have a micro atx or full atx board, you can put in ADD IN CARDS. Amazing, right? So even if your board does not natively support 2.5G LAN you can add it for a low price, because 2.5G cards are relatively cheap.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link

    the x570 aorus master and msi x570 unify also have 2.5G lan. And surely there will be newer models next year with newer features and names, gotta keep the model churn going!
  • alhopper - Sunday, November 8, 2020 - link

    Ian and Andrei - 1,000 Thank Yous for this awesome article and you fine technical journalism. You guys did amazing work and we (the community) are fortunate to be the benefactors.
    Thanks again and keep up the Good Work (TM).
  • Rekaputra - Sunday, November 8, 2020 - link

    Wow this article it so comprehensive. Glad i always check anandtech for my reference in computing. I wonder how it stack againt threadripper on database or excel compute workload. I know these are desktop proc. But there is possibility use it for mini workstation for office stuff like accounting and development RDBMS as it is cheaper.
  • SkyBill40 - Sunday, November 8, 2020 - link

    Once some availability comes back into play... my old and trusty FX 8350 is going to be retired. I've been waiting to rebuild for a long time now and the wait has clearly paid off regardless of how the is the end of the line for AM4 or well Ryzen 4 does next year. I could wait... but nah.
  • jcromano - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link

    I'm in a similar boat. I'm still running an i5-2500k from early 2011 (coming up on ten years, yikes), and I'll build a new rig, probably 5600X, when the processors become available. I fret a bit over whether I should wait for the next socket to arrive before taking the plunge, but given the infrequency with which I upgrade, I think it's likely that the next socket would also be obsolete by the time it mattered.
  • evilpaul666 - Sunday, November 8, 2020 - link

    I'd love to see some PS3 emulation testing added.
  • abufrejoval - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link

    Control flow integrity (or enforcement) seem to be in, and that was for me a major criterion for getting one (5800X scheduled to arrive tomorrow).

    But what about SEV or per-VM-encryption? From the hints I see this seems enabled in Intel's Tiger Lake and I guess the hardware would be there on all Zen 3 chiplets, but is AMD going to enable it for "consumer" platforms?

    With 8 or more cores around, there is plenty of reasons why people would want to run a couple of VMs on pretty much anything, from a notebook to a home entertainment/control system, even a gaming rig. And some of those VMs we'd rather have secure from phishing and trojans, right?

    Keeping this an EPIC-only or Pro-only feature would be a real mistake IMHO.

    BTW ordered ECC DDR4-3200 to go with it, because this box will run 24x7 and pushes a Xeon E3-1276 v3 into cold backup.
  • lmcd - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link

    Starting to feel like the platform is way too constrained just for the sake of all 6 APUs AMD has released (all with mediocre graphics and most with mediocre CPUs, no less). I hope AMD bifuricates and comes up with an in-between platform that supports ~32-40 CPU PCIe lanes and drops APUs. If APUs can't be on-time with everything else there's so little point.
  • 29a - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link

    "Firstly, because we need an AI benchmark, and a bad one is still better than not having one at all."

    Can't say I agree with that.

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