The Benchmarks

Soon there will a benchmark comparison chart available here, to select and compare the different systems for their individual CPU performance scores.

The give an idea, into which direction this should go, there’s some static examples below. This will be fully dynamic, so it will be possible to compare different systems from different eras against each other.

For the benchmark, I do the assessments in the following way:

• Only contemporary software will be used: On DOS, Norton Utilities “System Information” from Versions 3.1, 4.5 and 8.0, on Windows, SiSoft Sandra 99, SiSoft Sandra 2004, and eventually a more recent version. On non-DOS/non-Windows operating systems, a best possible equivalent will be used.
• Only CPU performance and, on more recent systems, Multimedia performance (to get ISSE/ISSE2/MMX/3DNOW specs) will be assessed. The main idea is to show the CPU evolution and increase in processing power increase over time, to give a rough idea. Nothing more, nothing less.
• No overall system benchmarks, like GeekBench, PCMark, and alike, will be performed. Also, graphics performance won’t be assessed. This won’t be properly testable on many older systems anyway.
• No disk performance will be assessed. While that’s possible using the tools mentioned above, many of my systems had their failed ATA hard drives replaced by CompactFlash over the years. In essence, this means that assessing a CF-infused historic system will yield wrong data on disk performance. A factor, that I’m unable to correct.
• None of my historic systems is tuned or overclocked. They run with the original CPUs, at their native clock speed. Again, the idea of the benchmark results is to get an impression, how these systems stack up in historic context, not to win any speed records.