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 - Friday, August 13, 2021 - link

    SVC sounds pretty interesting, and the idea of layered encoding is becoming more common in today's codecs. I'd expect that H.265/6 and AV1 took it further. At least in their standards. Implementation is another story. Also reminds me of HE-AAC's extensions, the spectral band stuff and parametric stereo, which are just ignored by older decoders.
  • GeoffreyA - Friday, August 13, 2021 - link

    Even for files played on a TV, you've got to follow the profiles and levels, otherwise it just doesn't work. Our Samsung TV, I think I'm limited to H.264 profile high, level 4.1. Lamentably, it doesn't support H.265, which means re-encoding.
  • GeoffreyA - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Goodness, this is the one I've been waiting for! Thanks, Ian.
  • GeoffreyA - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Solid CPU performance as expected, but a bit disappointing in the GPU department, and pricing could be better. The 5300G looks like an impressive little fellow as well, perhaps even the star of today's show.
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Every time I see the peak-power charts it amazes me how can anyone considers Intel these days.
    28W burning 51W
    125W burning 277W; and slower than the 5800X @ 140W.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    It's always worth noting that the peak power on Intel chips is pretty pathological, and they tend to not go quite so high under ordinary loads. They're still lousy compared to AMD on perf/W, but they're a little better than 50% of AMD.
  • Makste - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Efficient tools. A 65W 5700G is an 11700K at 125W
  • abufrejoval - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    The price of novelty, I guess: first day of official sales, 5700G ride €70 above 5800X, nicely filling the gap to the 5900X :-)
  • chazzzer - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    The 5700G is available today at MSRP on AMD's website.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, August 5, 2021 - link

    Is it possible that a follow-up could be done assessing the performance impact of RAM speeds? I'd really love to know whether it's possible to get more out of the 5300G and the 5700G in particular - potentially enough to get 60fps at 1080p with some moderate sacrifices to detail settings.

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