stevensly said:
Hi all,
I'd like to benchmark my PC but apps like Sysmark and SiSoft, afaik, only
provide pay per programs.
In the free version of SiSoft Sandra, you *can* run benchmarks.
Admittedly, their value is often questionable - the CPU benchmark will
basically tell you whether the CPU runs at full clock speed, the memory
benchmark (which I still find the best of them all, along with the
cache/memory thing) basically tells you the memory bandwidth unless you
turn off buffering, and the disk benchmark should better be forgotten
about (OK, the buffered disk transfer rate should be halfway
reasonable). AIDA32 also has some benchmarks (which I don't quite trust
yet); the memory read bench should reflect the burst transfer rate. Hard
to beat as a free *sysinfo* tool, though. A dedicated disk benchmark
which I like for gathering the raw performance data is h2benchw (its
"application benchmarks" only make sense on an empty disk which can be
written to) <ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2benchw.zip>, a rather nice
memory bandwidth/latency benchmark (with results that are pretty
consistent with CacheMem's when it comes to latency) is little-known
CacheBurst: said:
Are there any free apps around that provide accurate results?
What are "accurate results"? A benchmark is a benchmark is a... A
benchmark *may* say something about the thing it's benchmarking (look at
the 3DMark controversy - basically, the score says very little; one may
be able to extract some useful info when looking at the results of the
individual tests and their properties), but the real application
performance may well look different. A good example of this are disk
benchmarks - it is one thing to measure the "raw performance data" like
the sequential transfer rate and the random access time, but it is in
prerecorded (non double-cached, like in WinBench99's Disk WinMarks)
tests (like those of storagereview.com) or copy tests (XBitLabs) where
firmware optimizations, cache size and other things show. Basically, if
you want to know something about the application performance, do some
"benchmarks" with your frequently used apps. (Mozilla makes for a pretty
good "disk benchmark" when you measure the startup time, 3D rendering or
audio/video compression performance is best measured with the respective
apps and possibly a stopwatch.)
Stephan
