iXBT Labs - x64 CPU Performance Testing Methodology

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Over a year has passed since our intermediate CPU testing methodology (version 2.5), and we are finally ready to present a significantly updated testing methodology - Version 3.0. Unfortunately, it's still not final. For example, to pay heed to modern technologies, some tests are conducted in Windows Vista Ultimate x64. On the other hand, it's impossible to run all our tests in this operating system, as it's still not compatible with most popular benchmarks for "heavy-duty" professional software. So, the second part of tests is run in the good old Windows XP Professional x64. Here are the most important changes:

CAD/CAM/CAE tests are split into two groups: CAD/CAM/CAE and Scientific Software
The Web Server group was expanded to two tests, one of which uses Apache+PHP, and another - Apache+PHP+MySQL
Synthetic and semi-synthetic benchmarks were removed from the test procedure
OCR tests were removed from the test procedure
Audio and video encoding groups were merged into the "Multimedia" group
Non-professional software tests now include photo processing
As we have already mentioned above, we run our tests in two different operating systems: Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 for games and Windows XP Professional x64 SP2 - for other tests.

However, we've listed only major changes and new features. There are much more minor modifications. OK, let's proceed to the description of our new procedure.

General principles

As in previous versions, performance of one benchmarked processor (let's call it the reference processor) will be taken for 100 points (or 100%, if you like). Performance of other processors in each test is evaluated relative to this reference point - 90 points, 105 points, 130 points, etc.

All tests are divided into two large groups: Professional software and Nonprofessional/home software. We calculate the average score for each group - simple mean of all points earned by a given processor in tests of this group. Besides, we calculate the total average score of a processor, the sum of simple means of its professional and nonprofessional points.

Benchmarks

Application	64-bit	Multi-threaded*
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2	+	+
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1	+	+
Autodesk 3ds max 9 SP2	+	+
V-Ray 1.5 SP1	+	+
Autodesk Maya 2008 Ultimate	+	+
NewTek Lightwave 3D 9.2	+	+
SolidWorks 2007 SP0.0	+	+
PTC Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 M120	+	-
UGS NX5 5.0.0.25	+	+
Wolfram Research Mathematica 6	+	+
MapleSoft Maple 11	-	+
MathWorks MATLAB 2007	+	+
Adobe Photoshop CS3 10.0	-	+
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008	+	+
Apache HTTP Server 2.2.8	-	+
PHP 5.2.5	-	+
MySQL Community Server 5.0.51a	-	+
ACDSee 10 Photo Manager	-	+
xat.com Image Optimizer 5.10	-	-
IrfanView 4.10	-	-
XnView 1.93.4	-	-
Paint.NET 3.30	+	+
7-Zip 4.57	+	+
WinRAR 3.71	-	+
UltimateZip 3.2	-	-
FLAC 1.2.1	-	-
LAME-MT 3.97	+	+
Musepack MPC Encoder 1.16	-	-
Nero Digital Audio Encoder 1.1.34.2	-	+
Ogg Encoder 2.83 (Lancer)	-	+
Canopus ProCoder 3.0	-	+
DivX Codec 6.8.2	-	+
XviD Codec 1.1.3 Final	-	-
x264 Codec rev 807	-	+
VirtualDub 1.8.0	-	+
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Patch 1.5)	-	+
Call of Juarez (Patch 1.1.0.0) + DX10 Enhancements Pack	-	-
Crysis (Patch 1.2)	+	+
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Patch 1.006)	-	+
Unreal Tournament 3 (Patch 1.2)	-	+
Company of Heroes (Patch 1.71)	-	+
World in Conflict (Patch 1.007)	-	+

* Means that two or more simultaneously active threads are actually present during tests; not just the fact that a process generates several threads.

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