my own benchmark app, try it out?

[minsc_tdp]

Some developers at my company wrote this simple benchmark utility to test embedded print controllers, but I've found it handy as a quick test of CPU and memory when overclocking. It only takes ~20 seconds to run and tests memory write/read/copy as well as a prime test.

I would love to see any scores from you guys, and it would also help as I'm building a large database of scores.

http://www.zeno.com/downloads/resources/zmark/2/zmark.zip

The download link is direct to the ZIP, no registration required, Windows EXE is inside, or the C source with linux and mac makefiles. The app is covered by this license (http://www.zeno.com/downloads/license.pl?Jump=resources/zMark/2/zMark.zip).

Sample output from my DFI NF4 Ultra-D, Athlon 64 4000+ Clawhammer @ 2.6 GHz, G.Skill DDR with FSB @ 250 MHz, 1:1:
C:\>zmark32
zmark - version 1.00 - Copyright 2005-2006 Zenographics, Inc
Using target buffer of 16 MBytes.

Initializing memory, please wait.

Timing memset performance, please wait.
Wrote 10768 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2153 MBytes/second

Timing memory read performance, please wait.
Read 17104 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 3420 MBytes/second (0)

Timing memcpy performance, please wait.
Copied 7032 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1406 MBytes/second

Timing typical raster line copying performance, please wait.
Copied 9504 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1900 MBytes/second

Timing prime number search, please wait.
Found first 58785 primes in 5.015 seconds. Index = 11720
(last prime found: 729943)

If anyone is so inclined as to point out problems or suggestions for the C source code, I would appreciate it immensely!

http://knepfler.com/images/minsc_pc.gif

[spdycpu]

Here is my Athlon 64 San Diego 3700+ @ 2.72GHz/302fsb, DFI Ultra-D with 2x512mb Gskill PC3200-1GBZX running 247mhz 2.5-4-3-8 dual channel:

Your default exe, zmark32:

zmark - version 1.00 - Copyright 2005-2006 Zenographics, Inc
Using target buffer of 16 MBytes.

Initializing memory, please wait.

Timing memset performance, please wait.
Wrote 12128 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2425 MBytes/second

Timing memory read performance, please wait.
Read 19456 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 3891 MBytes/second (0)

Timing memcpy performance, please wait.
Copied 9152 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1830 MBytes/second

Timing typical raster line copying performance, please wait.
Copied 10304 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2060 MBytes/second

Timing prime number search, please wait.
Found first 61983 primes in 5.015 seconds. Index = 12357
(last prime found: 773387)


Here is my 64bit compile with MSVC 2005 Pro with PGO optimizations, same computer and settings:

zmark - version 1.00 - Copyright 2005-2006 Zenographics, Inc
Using target buffer of 16 MBytes.

Initializing memory, please wait.

Timing memset performance, please wait.
Wrote 36000 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 7200 MBytes/second

Timing memory read performance, please wait.
Read 29840 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 5968 MBytes/second (0)

Timing memcpy performance, please wait.
Copied 17320 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 3464 MBytes/second

Timing typical raster line copying performance, please wait.
Copied 10832 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2166 MBytes/second

Timing prime number search, please wait.
Found first 73499 primes in 5.015 seconds. Index = 14654
(last prime found: 930301)

64 bit binary available here:
http://chess.homelinux.com/z64.zip

[minsc_tdp]

Congrats spdycpu, you now hold the prime index record. :) But we've only tested some random workstations to help put the embedded system tests in perspective.

302 FSB with G.Skill on the Ultra-D? I'm guessing you're not running the latest standard BIOS. When I upgraded from the 6/23 to the latest, I had to drop from 275 to 250 (and I had up to 290 fairly stable with the older BIOS at one point.) Care to share insights? I'm kind of obsessed with getting better FSB/RAM performance even though it's not really useful for most games. Though, I'm running the HZ series RAM which maybe isn't as good as the ZX?

Any custom cooling on the chipset? I've got a nice, thin copper heatsink on there, can't do much more since the vidcard is in the way (though I've considered moving it to the slower PCI-E slot since it's well known that 16x vs. 8x [or whatever the #s are] really doesn't affect video performance.) Temps aren't really the problem though, it seems. Care to share your volt settings too, please?

[spdycpu]

Congrats spdycpu, you now hold the prime index record. :) But we've only tested some random workstations to help put the embedded system tests in perspective.

302 FSB with G.Skill on the Ultra-D? I'm guessing you're not running the latest standard BIOS. When I upgraded from the 6/23 to the latest, I had to drop from 275 to 250 (and I had up to 290 fairly stable with the older BIOS at one point.) Care to share insights? I'm kind of obsessed with getting better FSB/RAM performance even though it's not really useful for most games. Though, I'm running the HZ series RAM which maybe isn't as good as the ZX?

Any custom cooling on the chipset? I've got a nice, thin copper heatsink on there, can't do much more since the vidcard is in the way (though I've considered moving it to the slower PCI-E slot since it's well known that 16x vs. 8x [or whatever the #s are] really doesn't affect video performance.) Temps aren't really the problem though, it seems. Care to share your volt settings too, please?

I've used the 6/23 bios and now the latest bios, both let me do ~345 max which is my cpus limit unfortunately, if I push the CPU up to 1.7v from 1.6v it'll let me do 350fsb. Right now memory is at 247mhz (166 divider), this ZX tops out around 250. Here are ALL of my bios settings, hopefully this helps:

http://chess.homelinux.com/mods-dfi-bios.rar

and..
http://chess.homelinux.com/a64-settings.jpg

The chipset cooling is completely stock with all voltages except for the CPU stock. My 2 sticks of ram are in the orange slots, not the yellow though. That seems to make a huge difference for me, these settings won't even post if I move the sticks from orange to yellow. I find what helped me to get high FSBs is to relax the "Max Async Latency" a little. Don't crank it all the way to the maximum value though, just increase it 1-2 and push the fsb a little further. Also disable "Dynamic Idle Cycle Counter" if it isn't already, that shaved about 4-5ns off of my memory latency. I guess check out my bios settings and see if anything is drastically different and give that a shot.

[minsc_tdp]

Thanks, I will try some of this. My settings are based on the sticky in the G.Skill support forum which has allowed me to set my FSB to 260 MHz with no divider, so I guess I shouldn't complain. I didn't realize you were on a divider.

My Max Async Latency is 9ms, so that might be OK but my Dynamic Idle Cycle is currently Enabled, so I'll play with that.

Your zMark speeds are only about 200-300 MB/s faster than mine, and given that your CPU is a San Diego at 2.72 GHz, and you have better memory with tighter timings allowed, trying to hit your speeds is probably a lofty goal.

But even so... I'll still try some of this. I swear I was at 290 FSB on a 1:1 divider at one point, and stable at everything other than BF2. Speaking of that, have you noticed that BF2 is especially finicky about aggressive RAM timings, namely the 1T or Bank Interleave settings, or sensitive to OCing in general while everything else tests stable?

[spdycpu]

Thanks, I will try some of this. My settings are based on the sticky in the G.Skill support forum which has allowed me to set my FSB to 260 MHz with no divider, so I guess I shouldn't complain. I didn't realize you were on a divider.

My Max Async Latency is 9ms, so that might be OK but my Dynamic Idle Cycle is currently Enabled, so I'll play with that.

Your zMark speeds are only about 200-300 MB/s faster than mine, and given that your CPU is a San Diego at 2.72 GHz, and you have better memory with tighter timings allowed, trying to hit your speeds is probably a lofty goal.

But even so... I'll still try some of this. I swear I was at 290 FSB on a 1:1 divider at one point, and stable at everything other than BF2. Speaking of that, have you noticed that BF2 is especially finicky about aggressive RAM timings, namely the 1T or Bank Interleave settings, or sensitive to OCing in general while everything else tests stable?

It has been a while since I've played BF2, but, I believe since it uses pretty much all of my 1GB and then some it'll be more prone to crashing from memory errors. This is probably why it seems more picky, where something like Quake 3 wouldn't be using all of the ram and thus the section that could be erroring might reside outside of the games memory footprint. I do play quite a bit of WWIIOnline and that will commit suicide if my ram is pushed a little too much (it is insanely ram intensive). I've even had memtest86+ pass hours of testing and yet have WWIIOnline die, but, work fine after dropping the memory down a bit. Also one thing to keep in mind (even the Gskill rep in the Gskill forums mentioned this), is keeping the ram cooled. It seems like my sticks are very prone to going unstable with relatively mild changes in temperature. Yes, running on the edge has risks like that, however, the small change in temperature changing the clock speed so dramatically isn't like anything I've seen from any of my other sticks of ram (including old school SDRAM). Also what doesn't help is the heat spreaders they shipped the ZX with doesn't even touch the memory chips at ALL, pretty ridiculous. I have a 120mm fan directed at the memory so that did help quite a bit. Since I live in texas however the ambient (my air conditioning sucks) gets a bit high and then I'll have to drop the memory to a 150 divider (225mhz), under a ~23c ambient 166 (247mhz) works just fine though.

Just curious, does your HZ like increased voltages? For my ZX I have to keep it at 2.5v. Any increments in voltage just create more and more errors in memtest. I did try other motherboards as well, it does the same thing unfortunately.

[edit]
Here is a link to my type of ram if you're interested in some of the specifications/reviews:
http://www.gskill.com/en/f1-3200phu2-zx.html

Wasn't too bad at the time for $95. Should be quite a bit worse than your HZ series though...

[minsc_tdp]

The HZs seem to slurp 2.8V up just fine. I had used those voltages with my older Corsair memory and just left that setting when I put the G.Skills in, and it's been fine. Now, if I drop it to 2.7 or 2.6 I can't get it stable at anything too far north of 200 MHz. That's similar to how my CPU behaves though too - it's unstable at stock settings, hahaha.... once you overclock, you can't go back.

I'm using the stock heatspreaders - I'll check the airflow but it's probably not great - CPU fan is a slow 2000 RPM guy and I have a 120 MM exhaust, also slow, a 90mm intake, and three 80mm exhausts up above near the PSU/hard disks.

Do you think they'd be cooler with the heatspreaders just off? Putting a dedicated fan on the RAM is further than I'm willing to go. Maybe replace them with some simple stick-on copper sinks? My front intake can be moved anywhere along the vertical axis (thermaltake armor case) so maybe I could put those better in line with the RAM, but I doubt it will have much affect since the hard disks are blocking it. Most of the intake comes from just having 11 bays in front that are all just open. Maybe there's a good reason for positive pressure instead of negative, as it's easier to direct onto certain components.

Maybe I should have mentioned, I'm running 2 GB of it. Not sure if that affects the OCing.

OT: WW2Online? That game still around? Jesus I was playing on release day - probably the biggest clusterfark in gaming in the history of gaming. Man that was a long time ago... when was that... 1973? :) Great potential though, I'll have to try it again now.

[spdycpu]

The HZs seem to slurp 2.8V up just fine. I had used those voltages with my older Corsair memory and just left that setting when I put the G.Skills in, and it's been fine. Now, if I drop it to 2.7 or 2.6 I can't get it stable at anything too far north of 200 MHz. That's similar to how my CPU behaves though too - it's unstable at stock settings, hahaha.... once you overclock, you can't go back.

I'm using the stock heatspreaders - I'll check the airflow but it's probably not great - CPU fan is a slow 2000 RPM guy and I have a 120 MM exhaust, also slow, a 90mm intake, and three 80mm exhausts up above near the PSU/hard disks.

Do you think they'd be cooler with the heatspreaders just off? Putting a dedicated fan on the RAM is further than I'm willing to go. Maybe replace them with some simple stick-on copper sinks? My front intake can be moved anywhere along the vertical axis (thermaltake armor case) so maybe I could put those better in line with the RAM, but I doubt it will have much affect since the hard disks are blocking it. Most of the intake comes from just having 11 bays in front that are all just open. Maybe there's a good reason for positive pressure instead of negative, as it's easier to direct onto certain components.

Maybe I should have mentioned, I'm running 2 GB of it. Not sure if that affects the OCing.

OT: WW2Online? That game still around? Jesus I was playing on release day - probably the biggest clusterfark in gaming in the history of gaming. Man that was a long time ago... when was that... 1973? :) Great potential though, I'll have to try it again now.

If you're not worried about the warranty then I'm sure removing those heatspreaders would be better (if they're not touching the chips). Adding some copper sinks would improve it even further (I think if there is ANY ram to put heatsinks on, this Gskill is the stuff). Look to make sure that the heatspreader really isn't contacting the chips (hopefully it isn't a "feature" only to the ZX series).

As for ww2online, a LOT has changed. It it still not a pretty game, but, it certainly looks MUCH better than it did at the initial release. They've changed just about everything, if you still have your old account info you could probably resub for a month and check it out. They've got stuff in there like the Panzer 4G, Tiger, Sherman 75 and 76mm, M10 tank destroyer, FW-190, P-38, Spitfire Mk9, Churchhill mk3 and 7, areas of operations (concentrating the playerbase to specific towns), brigades that move around, all kinds of stuff. It still doesn't have a huge playerbase though, maybe a few hundred on at a time. The AO's help with that quite a bit usually, it doesn't seem like there is that few people on.

[spdycpu]

Got a new toy, here are the results. The tests were done with the memory at 247MHz, 2.5-4-4-8 1T.

http://chess.homelinux.com/3200-cbid.jpg

Your default binary:

zmark - version 1.00 - Copyright 2005-2006 Zenographics, Inc
Using target buffer of 16 MBytes.

Initializing memory, please wait.

Timing memset performance, please wait.
Wrote 11920 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2384 MBytes/second

Timing memory read performance, please wait.
Read 20624 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 4124 MBytes/second (0)

Timing memcpy performance, please wait.
Copied 9000 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1800 MBytes/second

Timing typical raster line copying performance, please wait.
Copied 9392 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1878 MBytes/second

Timing prime number search, please wait.
Found first 67443 primes in 5.015 seconds. Index = 13446
(last prime found: 847577)


My MSVC 32bit compile:

zmark - version 1.00 - Copyright 2005-2006 Zenographics, Inc
Using target buffer of 16 MBytes.

Initializing memory, please wait.

Timing memset performance, please wait.
Wrote 11984 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2396 MBytes/second

Timing memory read performance, please wait.
Read 20784 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 4156 MBytes/second (0)

Timing memcpy performance, please wait.
Copied 9008 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1801 MBytes/second

Timing typical raster line copying performance, please wait.
Copied 9424 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 1884 MBytes/second

Timing prime number search, please wait.
Found first 78946 primes in 5.015 seconds. Index = 15740
(last prime found: 1006091)


My MSVC 64 bit compile:

zmark - version 1.00 - Copyright 2005-2006 Zenographics, Inc
Using target buffer of 16 MBytes.

Initializing memory, please wait.

Timing memset performance, please wait.
Wrote 35600 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 7120 MBytes/second

Timing memory read performance, please wait.
Read 31008 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 6201 MBytes/second (0)

Timing memcpy performance, please wait.
Copied 17072 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 3414 MBytes/second

Timing typical raster line copying performance, please wait.
Copied 10544 MBytes in 5.000 seconds: 2108 MBytes/second

Timing prime number search, please wait.
Found first 79829 primes in 5.015 seconds. Index = 15916
(last prime found: 1018021)