Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Despite the controversy, Anandtech, a leading technology website, has used SYSmark 2012 to rate
the latest AMD and Intel processors. You can view the benchmark results for older processors using
SYSmark 2007 (the previous benchmark) and many of the most recent processors using SYSmark
2012 at
www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2
.
Until a new benchmark application, one supported by all CPU and GPU manufacturers, is adopted (if
ever), here's what I suggest: When you use SYSmark 2012, pay less attention to the overall score,
and focus on the scores for specific scenarios that match the work you plan to do with the computers
you are responsible for.
Table 3.7
lists the scenarios and applications used by SYSmark 2012.
For SYSmark 2004 and SYSmark 2004SE comparisons for processors such as the Core 2 family,
Pentium D, Pentium 4 and Pentium Extreme Edition, Celeron D, Pentium III, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2,
Sempron, and Athlon XP, see Table 3.8 and 3.9 in Chapter 3 of
Upgrading and Repairing PCs
, 19
th
Edition, which is available in its entirety on the disc packaged with this topic.
The SYSmark benchmarks are commercially available application-based benchmarks that are
intended to reflect the normal usage of business users employing modern Internet content creation and
office applications. However, it is important to note that the scores calculated for a particular
processor are produced by complete systems and are affected by things such as the specific version of
the processor, the motherboard and chipset used, the amount and type of memory installed, the speed
of the hard disk, and other factors. For complete disclosure of the other factors resulting in the given
scores, see the reports on the BAPCo website at
www.bapco.com
.
Cache Memory
As processor core speeds increased, memory speeds could not keep up. How could you run a
processor faster than the memory from which you fed it without having performance suffer terribly?
The answer was cache. In its simplest terms,
cache memory
is a high-speed memory buffer that
temporarily stores data the processor needs, allowing the processor to retrieve that data faster than if
it came from main memory. But there is one additional feature of a cache over a simple buffer, and
that is intelligence. A cache is a buffer with a brain.
A buffer holds random data, usually on a first-in, first-out basis or a first-in, last-out basis. A cache,
