Benchmark Analysis Comparing the AMD 910e and Intel 2400s Processors Essay

Benchmark Analysis Comparing the AMD 910e and Intel 2400s Processors - Essay Example For example, businesses require processors with appropriate architecture that will allow a maximum use of their IT environment, yet stable at the same time (Moore p. 169). For this paper, two of the stiffest competitors in microprocessor manufacturing will be featured: Intel with its Core i5-2400S, and; AMD’s Phenom II X4 910e. These processors were launched in the market in 2011 January and 2010 January, respectively. Table 1 shows the comparative specifications of these two processors. The Benchmarks and their Analysis A. Integer Math Test This test measures the speed and capacity of a processor to perform mathematical non-fractional numbers operations by using random 32-bit and 64-bit integers for basic mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, division and multiplication at integer buffers of 240kb per core (CPU Benchmark 2010). Intel Core i5-2400S: 28456 MHz AMD 910e: 18925 MHz In the above stats, Intel Core i5-2400S was tested using AIDA64-CPU Queen, which p erforms a high memory read/write traffic and therefore not ideal for more than a single thread system because of the possibility of creating a bottleneck leading to low scores (Vortez2011). AMD 910e was tested using the Everest Ultimate Edition (higher is better), using Vincent Rijmen, Antoon Bosselaers and Pablo Barreto’s public domain C code in ECB mode, which uses 48MB memory and fundamental x36 instructions (Wu 2010, p. 7). B. Compression Test Using memory buffers of 16kb per core, the compression test gauges how fast a processor can compress large blocks of data into smaller ones without any original data being lost in the process. The ability to compress is an important function in software application. The result of this test is in kb/second (CPU Benchmark 2010). Intel Core i5-2400S: 125 kb/sec AMD 910e: 133 kb/sec Intel Core i5-2400S was tested using the WinRAR 4.0 utility (Gavrichenkov 2011, p.4) while the AMD was tested using the WinRar Workload utility where data i s randomly generated containing deliberately introduced redundancy to increase the load in the CPU and memory. The algorithm then compresses and decompresses the data (Wu p. 5). C. Prime Number Test The Prime Number Test gauges the speed of the processor in searching for prime numbers or numbers that are divisible only by 1 and by itself such as the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11. The algorithm used for this operation uses the same loops and operations that are standard in most computers without any memory buffer (CPU Benchmark 2010). D. Encryption Test This test gauges the speed of the computer to encrypt blocks of data, an operation employed by users to store data, which can be accessed only by the user with the encryption key. It uses the blowfish algorithm and shares many of the operations used in the math test except for the large binary data manipulation and mathematical operations such as ‘to the power of’ (CPU Benchmark 2010). Intel Core i5-2400S: 372733 (traditio nal DES) AMD 910e: 93.4 The Intel 2400S was tested with John the Ripper v1.7.8, which uses the blowfish algorithm (OpenBenchMarking 2011), while the AMD 910e was tested using TrueCrypt, which is an open-source encryption package. Two hundred MB was used to run the utility that gives back an AES-Twofish-Serpent mean score. E. Floating Point Math Test A similar test to the integer math test, the floating point test measures the speed of a processor to perform basic mathematical oper