Benchmark my Xeon rig?

[BigBadBeef]

Hey guys,

I'm getting aggravated by the fact that the community keeps ignoring my advice for a Xeon gaming rig so I'm finally going to benchmark my pc like you asked me to.

What are the standard benchmarking tools and benchmarking games people use (and at what settings) so I can do mine and publish the results.

And where do I publish the results? I would seem that most categories here are meant for help seekers, thus whatever I post will quickly sink to the bottom.

 

[jnewegger23]

GPU:
Unigine Heaven is a very commonly used and widely accepted benchmark; there are many others. I'll update in a bit.

Crysis and Metro Last Light are great for crippling fps. Ultra settings, the max you can choose is what is standard.

Physx Intensive games such as the Arkham Batman Series (there are 3 or 4 out now), Mafia II, and again Metro Last Light.

3dMark firestrike (extreme) is the snythetic gaming / gpu benchmark ... I'll keep updating as I recall what I've put my rig through.

Battlefield 4 isn't as demanding as most of what I've listed but many people have the BF series games and it gives you a common game to compare fps against.

A lot of reviewers seem to like running the Bioshock Infinite benchmark as well.

CPU:
Prime 95 - More for heat and stability
Intel Burn Test - Quicker test for heat and stability but speed of completion is a good indicator of cpu horsepower as well at higher settings.
Passmark
Cinebench

In terms of where to post results, I tend to come to Tom's to support help seekers more than publish results. I tend to go to other sites like overclockers.net uk etc. EVGA has some threads that include for example Metro LL results. Hope this helps!

 

[lightcloud]

Just simply try any game you feel like playing and keep a result of the FPS.

E.g. Find a build with a different CPU but similar specs for the rest as yours. And see what FPS they get in that particular game. Then try yours and see how well it performs against it.

 

[rockie_]

The problems of Xeons are FPS drops , due to bad driver support . i dont want my games to stutter .

 

[BigBadBeef]

The problems of Xeons are FPS drops , due to bad driver support . i dont want my games to stutter .

I don't know wtf are you talking about...:lol:

 

[lightcloud]

So how will you benchmark it after all of the recommendations.

 

[BigBadBeef]

Use the games I have now, watch 5-6 different reviewers to see what they use, compare it to the cpu it was meant to compete and publish the results.

By the way, where do I put them?

 

[lightcloud]

Well I use Fraps. It is free and records the FPS and puts it into a result table in Excel. You can also place a FPS counter in the screen and keep watch while playing.

There are plenty of tutorials pn YouTube on how to use it if you are stuck.

 

[BigBadBeef]

I tried bandicam, but the file size is ridiculous, even bigger in fraps. I can manage that anyway. The problem is where to publish the results here on tom's hardware, if I start a topic anywhere here, it will sink off the first page in a manner of days.

 

[lightcloud]

You don't have post the video or anything. Just the results. E.g. How much FPS average on a particular game compared to one with a differ not CPU.

 

[BigBadBeef]

You don't have post the video or anything. Just the results. E.g. How much FPS average on a particular game compared to one with a differ not CPU.

Dude... epic fail! Read again!

 

[lightcloud]

Sorry didn't quite understand that the first time.

 

[bambiboom]

BigBadBeef,

Benchmarking a system does provide a general idea of relative performance- the numbers are only meaningful to the others running the same test.

If you want to improve your system, my suggestion is to download and run Passmark Performance Test- there's a free 30 -day trial. This produces scores for: System rating, CPU, 2D, 3D, Memory, and Disk and in my view the test is weighted a bit towards good gaming performance. Upload the results to Passmark and then under "Manage Baselines" and using "Advanced Search" you can compare results with other system filtering by each component - the same CPU, motherboard, GPU, and etc. For example: do a search for the same CPU and motherboard, and then click on the Rating, and 2D, 3D etc. columns to find the highest rated system using those pieces in each category. You will see that the systems with your CPU and motherbard, but an SSD or a particular GPU will score well.

I used this method to upgrade a Dell Precision workstation that I was given- the architectural office was going to throw it out> the original specification: Core2 Duo E6300@ 1.86GHz, 2GB DDR2-667 ECC RAM, Quadro 550, 2X WD 320 HD, XP-Pro 32-bit made these scores:

Rating= 397, CPU=587, 2D=339, 3D=75, Mem=584, Disk=552

Notice the noticeably poor CPU and 3D scores.

The Highest scoring Precision 390's- ratings 1550 to 1770- used either Core2 Quads (2.4 and 2.66) or Xeon x3230 with lower end 6-series GeForce or Radeon HD57xx or HD78xx series GPU's. Besides the scores, these results also tell me which parts are compatible (look for CPU's with the same FSB speed and lithography nm size ) whihc GPU's fit in the chassis and the PSU can support. The poor CPU score revealed that the system had never been configured to use the multiple cores (which can be reset in msconfig in two minutes)- it only recognized one core and the score was halved to others with the same CPU.

As I want to use this as a backup to my CAD workstation and want to use ECC error correcting RAM, have high integer calculation power, and have to run workstation drivers, I chose the high-scoring Xeon x3230 2.67GHz quad core and did some research on reasonably priced workstation cards with high 3D scores. The new specification is: Xeon x3230, AMD Firepro V4900, original 2GB RAM, original disks, Win 7 Pro 64-bit . The improvement was excellent for a total cost of about $200 of patient shopping on Ebahh>

Rating= 1431, CPU=3642, 2D=433, 3D=1546, Mem=723, Disk=603

Notice that changing the CPU,GPU, and OS improved the RAM and disk scores of the original parts. Improving the CPU and 3D dramatically has an amazing effect and in use the 390 feels about in the same league as my Precision T5400 with dual 3.16GHz quad-core Xeons, 16GB RAM, and the important 3D scores are 50% better than the Quadro FX4800- which was $1,200 new. Of course, the differences when rendering or using a lot of programs simultaneously would show, but the system is completely usable with current, demanding CAD programs. I'm looking for 4X 2GB modules for this so I'll see even more improvements.

There are other benchmarks than Passmark- Cinebench, etc., but the Passmark breakdown by category and ability to search/ filter by each piece has been a fantastic short cut for me.

If you decided to build a new system, you can input each part and see how well the finished system might do.


Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB DDR3 ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]

Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB DDR2 ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit > [Passmark system rating = 1859, CPU = 8528 / 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]

Dell Precision 390 (2005) Xeon x3230 quad core @ 2.67GHz > 2 GB DDR2 ECC 667 > Firepro V4900 (1GB)> 2X WD 320GB > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text > Architecture, industrial design, graphic design, written projects

 

[tiny voices]

There is not a place for you to really post results for benchmarks here. This is a help forum, not a prove what your rig can do forum. Sorry.

 

[BigBadBeef]

There is not a place for you to really post results for benchmarks here. This is a help forum, not a prove what your rig can do forum. Sorry.

Hold on there a second, guys from the community asked me for it... YOU asked ME and now I want to deliver!

Sorry didn't quite understand that the first time.

I said "how do i keep those result that I'm going to publish from sinking to the bottom in a matter of days in the topic list on the forum?"