How accurate is PassMark's CPU Benchmark list when comparing CPU's?

ferrari91169

Distinguished
Apr 16, 2009
96
0
18,630
Just wondering how accurate this site actually is, and can you take the ratings for face value? I.E. if one processor has a PassMark rating of 2,000, another has a PassMark rating of 2,100, and another has a PassMark rating of 2,200, is it really as easy as saying the one with the score of 2,200 is the better CPU? Especially wondering when it comes to comparing desktop/laptop CPU's to one another.

The site is here, for those who don't know it:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Anyway, I was looking to buy a cheap laptop in the $300-$500 range, but I wanted it to perform the same (or only slightly worse/better), than a Desktop PC with an AMD Athlon II X2 250, which has a PassMark rating of 1,703.

I've been looking at Best Buy for laptops, and I found a Samsung for $300 that has an Intel Pentium T4500. Now, referencing the list, it gets a PassMark score of 1,576, which isn't too much less than what I'm looking for, so my question is, would it actually perform close to the same, or are those scores artificial and not as easy to compare simply as lower number = worse, higher number = better?

Another one I was looking at, for instance, was an ASUS for $330, that had an Intel Pentium B960, which has a PassMark score of 2,090. So would it be correct to assume that it would perform slightly better than the AMD Athlon II X2 250 that I am trying to compare it to?

There are quite a few other laptops with various CPU's that I'm also looking at, but don't want to lengthen the post and waste anyone's time by showing ALL of them. I'm just wondering in general if you can actually compare CPU's based on the PassMark scores, and get a somewhat correct assumption of how a CPU will perform against another CPU. I know in many cases benchmarking software will make use of multiple cores, and therefore a dual-core processor may rate higher on the PassMark chart, being benchmarked with a program that takes advantage of multiple cores, while it may perform worse than other single-core CPU's when using programs that don't make use of extra core's. So that's something I'd have to think about as well.

I'm also not sure how the scores between Desktop/Laptop CPU's compare. For instance a Desktop CPU score of 2,000 may be a better score than a Laptop CPU score of 2,000, however, I am unsure how all of that works.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!
 
passmark compares different aspects of the cpu architecture. some say its pants but if its comparing like for like then it should be representative of the performance of the cpu...
it for instance puts the buldozer cpu ahead of the i5 2500 but most would agree the i5 2500 is a better cpu. what some forget is that different cpus do different things better than others and they totally disregard this fact but on a different operating system doing specific tasks the bulldozer does hold its own but on windows it falls flat...
so yeah i would say passmark has its place as it seems to be less bias than some other tests... it may not be 100% accurate as it does accept overclocked cpu's which if you get enough can move that cpu up the rankings and wont reflect the stock performance of the part which is where most users choose to run them.
http://www.passmark.com/index.html is the link you should post because the 1 you posted makes you look abit fanboy is because the first cpu's you see listed are amd...
 

Stubs101

Honorable
Mar 29, 2012
71
0
10,640
Hexit sums it up pretty good. This site http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2 has some great charts for comparing not just compenents buts laptops as well. I would check it out. However, I highly recommend that you dont buy anything except for games from best buy. Its a total rip off the charge top price with some good internet research shopping you can find way better deals on new egg or ebay. I bought an awesome msi gt680r for like 900 back in october on ebay. It was an open box works great and at the time at most places it was 1500.

Check this out http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-N53SV-EH72-15-6-i7-2-2Ghz-6GB-500GB-Nvidia-GT540M-Window-7-Laptop-/190678213264?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item2c654ea290#ht_2644wt_1163
This has an I7 and gt540m goes off in 10hrs and is at 405. Probably will end higher but still. I know you might be reluctant about ebay. You def got to be careful but getting something at best buy is almost a garuntee you pay more. One time I went to best buy to get a hd enclosure because one of my externals had failed but the drive was still good. They wanted $70 for one. I could buy a new passport ex for that. So I got one on ebay for 10.
 

bearclaw99

Distinguished
Dec 20, 2010
529
0
19,060
I'd only use it as a general guide. Some values seem to be off by a few hundred points either way, and the GPU list is even worse

They are all user submitted scores and aren't done under any kind of strict controls which is the method needed to achieve a high level of accuracy