Passmark CPU Mark comparisons

[mirryhaster]

Hi,

I like to know how to approximate the comparison between several cpu using the "Passmark CPU Mark".

For example, is a cpu with a mark of 1500 approximately too times faster than two cpu with a mark of 750?

I know this kind of comparison is much more complex than this, but one more time, it's only for an approximation purpose. I'm migrating some old servers in a virtualized environment, and I need to estimate if the host hardware could bring us with the same performances.

Thanks.

[David (PassMark)]

is a cpu with a mark of 1500 approximately too times faster than two cpu with a mark of 750

Up to twice as fast yes. But it depends on the software you are using as to if the software will exploit all the available power.

The rating the CPU’s are given here represents their peak performance and not necessarily there real world performance with any specific software application. This is especially true in the case of CPU’s with multiple cores or benchmarks of systems with multiple physical CPU's. While PerformanceTest was designed to make use of all cores/CPU’s at once, many real world applications are not designed with this in mind, especially older applications. Unlike single core/CPU systems these systems will only show their full potential in high-performance situations such as Web-serving or when heavily multitasking, the average user might not see nearly as much improvement from them.

Also some applicaitons will show no improvement at all from a more powerful CPU. They might be limited by disk speed, RAM availability, or internet speed.

[mirryhaster]

Thank you passmark for those clear explanations.

[DShinka]

passmark, is there a location on the website outside of the forums that offers this explanation? I tried doing google searches for "siteassmark.com compare" "siteassmark.com meaning" "siteassmark.com comparison" etc. and searched "PassMark Support Forums > PerformanceTest" for similar terms before stumbling across this post?

The reason I ask is because I'm sure other people wonder the same thing. Maybe this information is in an obvious location, and I just didn't see it, but if not, perhaps it should be?

many real world applications are not designed with this in mind, especially older applications

Even if individual applications may not take advantage of more than 3.5/4 GB of RAM or whatever 32-bit apps are limited to or hyperthreading/multiple cores, if you're running multiple applications, is the OS smart enough to have different application processes run on different threads/cores and to utilize more aggregate RAM even if individual applications cannot use more than 3.5/4 GB?

[David (PassMark)]

There is this FAQ question,
Q. I don't understand the results. What do all these numbers mean?
but it is a bit light on detail.

There are also these two pages that give a lot of detail about the CPU tests.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_test_info.html
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/graph_notes.html

The RAM limit for a 32bit application in most versions of Windows is 2GB. And if the O/S is 32bit then you still can't use more than 4GB of RAM at most even with multiple tasks running.