CPU benchmark advice

[zakman]

Please forgive me if this an obvious question, but I have been searching a lot and haven't been able to find my answer. I have been looking at the CPU benchmarks and am a bit overwelmed. I want to compare CPUs but I don't know which benchmark to use. The problem is that I don't know what the CPU will be used for down the road. Right now, I want to use it for general purpose stuff, plus video encoding.

I was hoping to find a "summary" or "total" or "Average" score that simply totals all the benchmarks together to get one number, but I don't seem to be able to find this. I also can't find any details on what the benchmark is testing. Some of them are obvious, "itunes" for example, but even that, do they mean playing a song, importing, burning or what?

-Zak

 

[edunham]

Good question, I was coming here to post something similar. What benchmark should we look at for video editing. I see the one for Blu-Ray playback, is that a good one to use? I think that will be the same for both of us.

 

[Mondoman]

Depends on what you mean by "video editing". Bluray playback works for playback, encoding works for encoding, but hard drive read/write performance will make a big difference for loading/saving clips. Take your pick -- there's no easy answer.

 

[LumberWagon]

I agree the charts could have a "compile scores for selected tests with selected processors" box (or boxes), but I'd also like to see new processors added. Be good to see the Phenom 2 on there compared to the old Phenoms. Hope it doesn't take until Q3 09.

 

[cadder]

I think the "pcmark" and "3dmark" benchmarks are supposed to be averages of different things.

 

[someguy7]

Most "itunes" benchies I have seen are ripping cds. Or enoding to mp3.


Your budget would help to pick a machine but at this time its hard not to go with the PII x3.

 

[zakman]

But surely there must be a description somewhere of what the benchmark means, right?