SiSoftware Sandra 2016 Released

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Press Office

SiSoftware Sandra 2016 Released:
Brand-new benchmarks, OpenGL CS, RTM Windows 10 and future Server 2016* support

Superseded By: Sandra Platinum (2017)

Updates: RTMa, SP1, SP1a, SP2, SP3, SP4.

Articles: .Net Vector Performance, AVX512 Future Performance.

London, UK, November 16th 2015 – We are pleased to announce the launch of SiSoftware Sandra 2016, the latest version of our award-winning utility, which includes remote analysis, benchmarking and diagnostic features for PCs, servers, mobile devices and networks.

We have expanded our portfolio with brand-new CPU and GPGPU Image Processing benchmarks (testing common filters) that support all modern instruction sets (AVX512, AVX2/FMA, AVX, SSE2) as well as GPGPU interfaces (CUDA, OpenCL, DirectX 10/11 ComputeShader). Since Compute is now supported in the very latest versions of OpenGL (4.3+) we have also ported the GPGPU benchmarks to this new interface.

With the public release of Windows 10 RTM we have transitioned to the brand-new tools in order to use the very latest technologies, including future DirectX 12 (both shader and compute).

As SiSoftware operates a “just-in-time” release cycle, some features were introduced in Sandra 2015 service packs: in Sandra 2015 they have been updated and enhanced based on all the feedback received.

Here is an in-depth new feature list of Sandra 2016:

Windows

Broad Operating System Support
All current OS versions supported: Windows 10 RTM/AU, 8.1, 8, 7; Server 2016*, 2012/R2 and 2008/R2

  • New Benchmark Module: GPGPU Image Processing (common filters: blur, sharpen, sobel, median/de-noise, oil painting, diffuse/random, marbling/perlin noise) supporting all modern interfaces (CUDA, OpenCL, DirectX ComputeShader)
  • New Benchmark Module: CPU Image Processing (common filters: blur, sharpen, sobel, median/de-noise, oil painting, diffuse, marbling) supporting all modern vectorised SIMD instruction sets (AVX512*, AVX2/FMA, AVX, SSE2)
  • New OpenGL Compute Support: Ported GPGPU benchmarks to OpenGL (4.3+) Compute Shader (Fractals, Crypto, Image Processing)
  • New GPU Precision: FP16/half-float precision benchmarks (Financial, Scientific)
  • New CPU Test: 64-bit Integer Dhrystone measuring 64-bit integer workload performance.
  • New .Net vector Support: Native vector to SIMD (AVX512*, FMA/AVX, SSE2, etc.) conversion in the latest 4.6 CLR (RyuJIT).
  • New Transcode Test: HEVC/H.265 media transcode test, brand-new high-bitrate master AVC1 media file 1080p and UHD/4K (commercial versions) for UHD/4K, 3K, 1440p transcoding benchmarking.
  • Updated Benchmark: Updated Overall Score (2016) by adding new benchmarks to the index.
  • New Operating System Support: Full support for Windows 10 RTM, 8.1, 8, 7 as well as Server 2016*, 2012/R2, 2008/R2.
  • New Hardware Support: Modern and future hardware support.
CPU Image Processing Benchmark

CPU, GPGPU Image Processing
Common filters: blur, sharpen, sobel, median/de-noise, oil filter, diffuse/random, marbling/perlin noise

Image/photo manipulation is an increasing common task with GPGPUs increasingly used to accelerate filter processing in popular programs (e.g. Photoshop). This brand-new benchmark set tests the performance of various filters:

  • Blur: 3×3 Convolution Filter
  • Sharpen: 5×5 Convolution Filter
  • Motion Blur: 7×7 Convolution Filter
  • Edge Detection: Horizontal + Vertical 5×5 Sobel Filter
  • De-Noise: 5×5 Median Filter
  • Oil Painting: Quantise (9×9) Filter [SP1]
  • Diffusion: Randomise / XorShift (256) Filter [SP1]
  • Marbling: Simplex Noise 2D Perlin (3O) Filter [SP1a]
GPGPU Image Processing Benchmark

CPU, GPGPU Image Processing
Modern vectorised and GPU interfaces

Image/photo manipulation is greatly accelerated through vectorised SIMD instruction sets (AVX512, AVX2/FMA, AVX, SSE2) operating on multiple pixels at the same time, but also increasingly accelerated by GPGPUs in modern programs (e.g. Photoshop). This brand-new benchmark set supports all GPGPU interfaces as well as SIMD instruction sets:

  • GPGPU: CUDA (7.5), OpenCL (2.0, 1.2), DirectX Compute Shader (11/10), OpenGL Compute Shader (4.3+) [future DirectX 12 support]
  • CPU: AVX512*, AVX2/FMA, AVX, SSE2 instruction sets


Sandra 2016 Image Filters
Sandra 2016 SP1 New Image Filters

System Overall Benchmark

Updated Overall Score 2016 benchmark for complete system performance evaluation
16 benchmarks to fully evaluate computer performance

While each benchmark measures the performance of a specific device (CPU, Memory, (GP)GPU, Storage, etc.), there is a real need for a benchmark to evaluate the overall computer performance: this new benchmark is a weighted average of the individual scores of the existing benchmarks:

  • Native CPU Arithmetic, Cryptographic, Multi-Media (SIMD), Financial and Scientific: measures native processing performance using the very latest instruction sets (AVX512*, AVX2/FMA, AVX, SSE2)
  • .Net/Java Arithmetic: measures software virtual machine performance (e.g. for .Net WPF/Silverlight/Modern applications)
  • Memory and Cache Bandwidth and Latency: measures memory and caches performance
  • File System/Storage Bandwidth and I/O: measures storage performance
  • GP (General Processing) / HC (Heterogonous Compute) (GPU/APU) Arithmetic, Cryptographic, Financial, Scientific: measures (GP)GPU/APU processing performance
  • GP (General Processing) / HC (Heterogonous Compute) (GPU/APU) Memory Bandwidth and Latency: measures (GP)GPU/APU memory performance

Key features of Sandra 2016

  • 4 native architectures support (x86, x64 – Windows; ARM, ARM64, x86, x64 – Android)
  • Huge official hardware support through technology partners (AMD/ATI, nVidia, Intel).
  • 4 native (GP)GPU/APU platforms support (OpenCL 1.1+, CUDA 7.5+, DirectX Compute Shader 11+, OpenGL Compute 4.3+).
  • 4 native Graphics platforms support (DirectX 12.x, DirectX 11.x, DirectX 10.x, OpenGL 3.0+).
  • 9 language versions (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified), Russian) in a single installer.
  • Enhanced Sandra Lite (Eval) version (free for personal/educational use, evaluation for other uses)

Relevant Articles

For more details, please see the following articles:

Purchasing

For more details, and to purchase the commercial versions, please click here.

Updating or Upgrading

To update your existing commercial version, please click here.

Downloading

For more details, and to download the Lite (Evaluation) version, please click here.

Reviewers and Editors

For your free review copies, please contact us.

About SiSoftware

SiSoftware, founded in 1995, is one of the leading providers of computer analysis, diagnostic and benchmarking software. The flagship product, known as “SANDRA”, was launched in 1997 and has become one of the most widely used products in its field. Nearly 700 worldwide IT publications, magazines and review sites use SANDRA to analyse the performance of today’s computers. Over 9,000 on-line reviews of computer hardware that use SANDRA are catalogued on our website alone.

Since launch, SiSoftware has always been at the forefront of the technology arena, being among the first providers of benchmarks that show the power of emerging new technologies such as multi-core, GPGPU, OpenCL, OpenGL, DirectCompute, Vulkan, x64 (AMD64/EM64T), NUMA, Hybrid (big/LITTLE), SMT (Hyper-Threading), SMP (multi-threading), AVX512, AVX2/FMA3, AVX, NEON/2, SSE4.2/4.1, SSE2, Java and .NET.

SiSoftware is located in London, UK. For more information, please visit http://www.sisoftware.net, http://www.sisoftware.eu, http://www.sisoftware.info or http://www.sisoftware.co.uk

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