CPU Benchmarks

The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, both Intel and AMD, can cause concern during environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement a OS-level unique high performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.

HandBrake, SD Filmlink

For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container.  Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.

HandBrake v0.9.9 LQ Film

HandBrake, 4K60 Animationlink

HandBrake v0.9.9 2x4K

Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link

Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.

Agisoft PhotoScan Benchmark - Total Time

Dolphin Benchmarklink

Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.

Dolphin Emulation Benchmark

WinRAR 5.0.1link

This test compresses a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.

WinRAR 5.01, 2867 files, 1.52 GB

PCMark8 v2 Work 2.0 OpenCL on IGP

A new addition to our CPU testing suite is PCMark8 v2, where we test the Work 2.0 and Creative 3.0 suites in OpenCL mode.  As this test is new, we have not run it on many AMD systems yet and will do so as soon as we can.

PCMark8 v2 Work 2.0 OpenCL IGP

PCMark8 v2 Creative 3.0 OpenCL IGP

Hybrid x265

Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.

Hybrid x265, 4K Video

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 - Single Threaded

Cinebench R15 - Multi-Threaded

3D Particle Movement

3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.

3D Particle Movement: Single Threaded

3D Particle Movement: MultiThreaded

FastStone Image Viewer 4.9

FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and results are given in seconds.

FastStone Image Viewer 4.9

All of our CPU benchmarks are responsive to more frequency, and for tests that are all about single threaded performance (3DPM-ST, FastStone, Dolphin), the overclocked processors match each other. The highly clocked i7-4790K at stock is taking the lead in each of these benchmarks against the other processors at stock frequencies quite easily. For multi-threaded scenarios, it is interesting to note that when overclocked, Handbrake does not seem to use the extra threads that efficiently when encoding 4K60. This is presumably because each thread needs a fair amount of cache and there is little speed-up in switching the work between threads.

Overclocking on Devil’s Canyon Gaming and Synthetics on Processor Graphics
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  • SeanJ76 - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link

    Hitting 4.7ghz@1.290Vcore with my 4690k and Msi Z97 Gaming 5 deck. I'm satisfied with that. My 2500k@5.0ghz is easily beaten by a mild overclocked 4690k(4.6ghz is when I started passing my 2500k scores in Firestrike and Valley Bench).
  • SeanJ76 - Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - link

    ^^That's 4.7ghz on air, and I didn't see temps above 52C!! I went with the Hyper Evo/Msi Z97 Gaming 5 deck.
  • Mark-Benney - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link

    I have intel i5 4670k very nice chip good upgrade from i7 920, But in defence of the i7 920. It was well overclockable as long as you keep temp down came close to running it stable at double its base speed. The new i5 I have is not really stable much past 3.9mhz with overclock ram 16gb 2400mhz. But to this day no game including B4, Crisis 3 in ultra 1080 has slowed it , GPU GTX770 4gb
  • Mark-Benney - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link

    I am thinking about getting the i7 4790k. But really do not think it would be worth wild. I think better wait 12month with system am running and hope for new chip from Intel 6-8core on 1150 would be very nice and worth wild upgrade
  • Damage125 - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link

    This is my system build : MB : Msi Gaming 5 Z97 / Corsair 8 gb dual channel @2400 mHz / Downgrade to 1.600 Mhz (i want lower latency on memory ) , Cpu Cooler Scythe Mugen Max 100 Air cooling / 550 PSU Cooltek Bronze 85% + / Cooltek Case .
    Ambience Temp around 25-26 ( Living in romania and its kinda hot here ) This is the frequency that my i7 works now ''http://i58.tinypic.com/do6szo.png'' , look at the voltage :> 1.290 @4.8 Ghz ..the record i could push its 5.3 Ghz (But i`am limited cuz of my PSU i think i can get 5.5 ) On all Cores ..on the winter i plan to keep it at 5 Ghz Constantly ..but now on the summer 4.8 Its enough . And this is Screen is while i keep refresh F5 active . 2 cores Active @ Look this SHIT ..http://i60.tinypic.com/2po19o8.jpg Thats 5.6 GHZ on 2 Cores . Overwall Devil Canyon despite what haters say of SB...SB cant comper with Devil Canyon its much more better , In every category , its faster , cooler , more overclockable , Cheers
  • ZenithSal - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link

    There is a reason why Larabee was a good concept, too bad intel killed it. Desktop processors based on the current architecture are getting stale and they have hit a dead end a while ago. Competition isn't helping either since AMD is trailing way back and their only advantages right now are lower prices and a unified socket.
    On the other hand GPUs are breaking performance grounds constantly driven by fierce competition yet very little of that power is tapped into.
    Software needs to adapt, the CPU must change its role to become merely a task scheduler and do simpler tasks while any expensive processing should run on the GPU.
    AMD realized that and developed HSA for their Kaveri architecture, too bad the raw processor performance is not up to par yet compared to intel and software isn't taking advantage of its heterogeneous features.
  • Dimetime35c - Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - link

    I have a question. Okay my i5 4690k has been able to OC to 4.8Ghz and passed 12+ hour stress testing. I am wondering if I've been pushing it further then I should be seeing as in your tests you BSOD at 4.8? I'm newish to overclocking and I'm worried that sense I'm newish I am not seeing the warning signs that my oc isn't stable and even though I'm running. In fact I'm slowly killing my cpu as I'm either under volting it or doing something else that someone that knows oc would see as not right.

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