CPU Tests: Legacy and Web

In order to gather data to compare with older benchmarks, we are still keeping a number of tests under our ‘legacy’ section. This includes all the former major versions of CineBench (R15, R11.5, R10) as well as x264 HD 3.0 and the first very naïve version of 3DPM v2.1. We won’t be transferring the data over from the old testing into Bench, otherwise it would be populated with 200 CPUs with only one data point, so it will fill up as we test more CPUs like the others.

The other section here is our web tests.

Web Tests: Kraken, Octane, and Speedometer

Benchmarking using web tools is always a bit difficult. Browsers change almost daily, and the way the web is used changes even quicker. While there is some scope for advanced computational based benchmarks, most users care about responsiveness, which requires a strong back-end to work quickly to provide on the front-end. The benchmarks we chose for our web tests are essentially industry standards – at least once upon a time.

It should be noted that for each test, the browser is closed and re-opened a new with a fresh cache. We use a fixed Chromium version for our tests with the update capabilities removed to ensure consistency.

Mozilla Kraken 1.1

Kraken is a 2010 benchmark from Mozilla and does a series of JavaScript tests. These tests are a little more involved than previous tests, looking at artificial intelligence, audio manipulation, image manipulation, json parsing, and cryptographic functions. The benchmark starts with an initial download of data for the audio and imaging, and then runs through 10 times giving a timed result.

We loop through the 10-run test four times (so that’s a total of 40 runs), and average the four end-results. The result is given as time to complete the test, and we’re reaching a slow asymptotic limit with regards the highest IPC processors.

(7-1) Kraken 1.1 Web Test

Sizeable single thread improvements.

Google Octane 2.0

Our second test is also JavaScript based, but uses a lot more variation of newer JS techniques, such as object-oriented programming, kernel simulation, object creation/destruction, garbage collection, array manipulations, compiler latency and code execution.

Octane was developed after the discontinuation of other tests, with the goal of being more web-like than previous tests. It has been a popular benchmark, making it an obvious target for optimizations in the JavaScript engines. Ultimately it was retired in early 2017 due to this, although it is still widely used as a tool to determine general CPU performance in a number of web tasks.

(7-2) Google Octane 2.0 Web Test

Speedometer 2: JavaScript Frameworks

Our newest web test is Speedometer 2, which is a test over a series of JavaScript frameworks to do three simple things: built a list, enable each item in the list, and remove the list. All the frameworks implement the same visual cues, but obviously apply them from different coding angles.

Our test goes through the list of frameworks, and produces a final score indicative of ‘rpm’, one of the benchmarks internal metrics.

We repeat over the benchmark for a dozen loops, taking the average of the last five.

(7-3) Speedometer 2.0 Web Test

Legacy Tests

(6-3a) CineBench R15 ST(6-3b) CineBench R15 MT(6-5a) x264 HD 3.0 Pass 1(6-5b) x264 HD 3.0 Pass 2(6-4a) 3DPM v1 ST(6-4b) 3DPM v1 MT

CPU Tests: Encoding CPU Tests: Synthetic and SPEC
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  • GeoffreyA - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Yes, great follow-up article, that.
  • nemi2 - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Does anyone know if these 5x00G support 4k HDR, VVR, at 120Hz? I see some B550 MB advertise HDMI 2.1
  • id4andrei - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    An overclocking section would be nice, with a focus on the iGPU only.
  • Gasaraki88 - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    I'm worried about the performance of the Steam Deck.
  • nandnandnand - Saturday, August 7, 2021 - link

    https://videocardz.com/newz/steam-decks-rdna2-gpu-...
  • Fulljack - Monday, August 9, 2021 - link

    Steam Deck uses the much faster LPDDR5-5500 RAM and much powerful RDNA2 iGPU.
  • mode_13h - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link

    Yeah, but its iGPU is still 8 CUs. I think it's telling they went with 1280x800 resolution. Probably enough for a screen that size, and framerates are reportedly good.

    I do kinda wish they'd gone with a bigger iGPU, but maybe silicon prices these days pushed too hard against that. I think their goal should be to counter a plausible next-gen Nintendo Switch, and I'm not confident they got there.

    Unlike Sony & MS, Valve can't afford to sell the hardware at a loss. The upside of that is that Valve isn't making it a walled garden. So, you should be able to load and run non-Steam software on it!
  • GreenReaper - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Compared to everything else in that form factor, it should be great. You probably won't be able to run most modern games at High and hit a solid 60FPS, or perhaps even 30FPS. But Medium might work. Meanwhile the competition is on Low with a few extra tweaks, and running games specifically designed for it (and likely costing a lot more). Heck, you might even be able to emulate them.
  • The_Assimilator - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Way too expensive, especially when you consider these chips lose out on PCIe 4.0 and are still using the ancient and terrible Vega.
  • pman6 - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    i've used a prebuilt 5700G system, and for some reason, the Intel rocket lake runs smoother in certain applications like stock trading and java based apps.
    The only downside is that Intel is a power hog

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