Windows 7: All purpose benchmark apps

A friend of mine is building a new system along with my Sandy Bridge build. We were wondering what apps you would use the benchmark the systems and compare? I'd like something that gave a range of scores for the different hardware, and not be limited just to gaming performance, etc, but that would be a welcome component.

Also, free is good, too! Does Futuremark still make software for this that's reputable...or is there something else entirely?

Thanks!

Deacon:

I'm in the same position. I intend to build Sandy Bridge within a few weeks and want to do some informal comparisons to my current mighty E6600.

SiSoft Sandra used to be pretty good and still may be. I'm not sure if there are both free and paid versions.

3D Mark was a standard benchmark app a couple of years ago.

I'd be interested in other suggestions.

I've read a bunch of Sandy Bridge tests in the last few days, but most had a gaming emphasis, unfortunately.

If I recall correctly, Cinebench is a pretty good indicator of overall strength.

You can always do SuperPi for a raw comparison of CPU power---how fast can the CPU compute Pi to a million or 32 million decimal points.

Here's some SuperPi comparisons, computing Pi to 1 million decimal points:

My ancient Pentium 4 2.26: 78 seconds after a fresh boot

Even more ancient Pentium 90: 35 minutes

Pentium 3.2 Northwood: 42 seconds

My Core 2 Duo E 6600 at stock clock of 2.4 GHz: 21 seconds


PC world record as of May 24, 2006, 11.359 seconds with a Conroe 2.66 overclocked to 4.470; long since surpassed.

I think current upper end Intel Sandy Bridge iron is down under 10 seconds, and around 7 with a big overclock.

Look here at Passmark:

PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End

Pass Mark you can compare to other systems with comparable hardware.....and free. Pay gives you added benefits.