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COMPUTER SYSTEMS

Benchmarking and Diagnostic Programs
By: Mike Mackenzie
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    2006-02-28

    Table of Contents:
  • Benchmarking and Diagnostic Programs
  • SuperPi and SiSoft Sandra
  • Futuremark and Fraps
  • Diagnostic Programs
  • Conclusion

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    Benchmarking and Diagnostic Programs
    (Page 1 of 5 )

    Benchmarking your computer is one of the easiest ways to see exactly how fast your computer system may be. Users who put together their own systems often like to see how much performance increase they have over purchasing a pre-built computer system. Benchmarking can give a realistic performance number versus the manufacturer’s name game and GHz game.

    Introduction

    Running benchmarks will show the performance increases that are available on other technologies, helping a user decided on what they are looking for in their computer system will best suit your needs. Along with finding performance increases, there are programs out there to Diagnose and display detailed information about your computer system. These programs are great for users who are overclocking their systems and need to keep track of their speed increases at which frequencies and latencies they may be running, not only do they display information a lot of them have benchmarks integrated into them as well.

    Today at Devhardware we’re taking a look at both types of software, were going to show a few of the most popular benchmarking and diagnostic programs that we use in our reviews to show speed increases and overall system performance. All of these tests and programs are free to the public for use. They often have support groups to get help explaining results, and of course, to brag about a good score.

    What is Benchmarking really?

    Benchmarking: “A standard by which something can be measured or judged.”

    In computer systems though, benchmarks are used in a way that tests the computer with a specially designed program, and it takes measurements at the same points during each run. These points are then calculated to give an average. Depending on what type of benchmark it may be the result scale could be different.

    A timed benchmark is one that runs a certain process and records how long it takes to finish. A decreased time would show an increase in performance; since a faster computer can process and finish the benchmark first, it offers the best overall performance.

    In a benchmark where the computer is set to process something in a certain time frame, the result would be calculated by how many times the computer could process the data over and over in that timeframe the benchmark runs. In this type of benchmark, a higher result would show increased performance, since the computer would be processing more data in the same time frame.

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