Updates R14e/g 30.96 (3-Feb-2021): Optimisations to AMD Ryzen 5000-series and older. R14c 30.95 (31-Jan-2021): Resolves possible crash issues on older AMD (Kabini, etc.) systems. R14b 30.94 (27-Jan-2021): Resolves issues on future Intel Rocketlake (RKL)/Alderlake (ADL) systems. R14a 30.93 (26-Jan-2021): Resolves issues on older Intel Haswell (HSW)/Broadwell (BRW) systems. As we … Read more…
Who is “Zhaoxin”? It is a joint venture of VIA Technologies that now effectively owns Centaur Technologies. Centaur/IDT used to make the “WinChip” – one of the few x86 compatible designs. After VIA aquisition, Centaur/VIA then produced the C3, C7 and finally Nano. After Zhaoxin formation, the designs continued with … Read more…
What is “Navi2”? It is the code-name of the new AMD GPU, the 2nd generation RDNA (Radeon DNA) GPU arch(itecture) that itself replaced “Vega” / last of the GCN arch(itecture). Unlike the original Navi that was a mid-range GPU – this is the very much expected “big Navi” top-end GPU … Read more…
What is “Navi2”? It is the code-name of the new AMD GPU, the 2nd generation RDNA (Radeon DNA) GPU arch(itecture) that itself replaced “Vega” / last of the GCN arch(itecture). Unlike the original Navi that was a mid-range GPU – this is the very much expected “big Navi” top-end GPU … Read more…
As we continue to move towards Sandra 20/21 release, we are pleased to release R13 (version 30.88) update for Sandra 20/20 (2020) with the following changes: Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release Optimisations & Fixes GPGPU Crypto Benchmarks Hashing (SHA1, SHA2-256/512) performance optimisations across CUDA, OpenCL, DirectX CS, OpenGL CS SHA2-512 … Read more…
As we move towards Sandra 20/21 release, we are pleased to release R12 (version 30.85) update for Sandra 20/20 (2020) with the following changes: Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release Optimisations & Fixes: CPU Crypto Benchmark: AES HWA acceleration not used when available. [30.81 fix] VAES / AVX2 HWA acceleration may … Read more…
What is “DG1” / “Iris Xe”? It is the gen(eration) 12 graphics introduced with the “TigerLake” (TGL) mobile APUs and will also feature on “RocketLake” (RKL) desktop APUs – but will also be launched as discrete GPU for laptops and even desktops as an add-in card. In effect, Intel is … Read more…
What is “ZEN3” (Ryzen 5000)? AMD’s Zen3 (“Vermeer”) is the 3rd generation ZEN core – aka the new 5000-series of CPUs from AMD, that introduces further refinements of the ZEN(2) core and layout. An APU version (with integrated “NaviX” graphics) is also scheduled to be launched later (as normal) but … Read more…
What is “ZEN3” (Ryzen 5000)? AMD’s Zen3 (“Vermeer”) is the 3rd generation ZEN core – aka the new 5000-series of CPUs from AMD, that introduces further refinements of the ZEN(2) core and layout. An APU version (with integrated “NaviX” graphics) is also scheduled to be launched later (as normal) but … Read more…
What is “ZEN3” (Ryzen 5000)? AMD’s Zen3 (“Vermeer”) is the 3rd generation ZEN core – aka the new 5000-series of CPUs from AMD, that introduces further refinements of the ZEN(2) core and layout. An APU version (with integrated “NaviX” graphics) is also scheduled to be launched later (as normal) but … Read more…
What is “Ampere”? It is the latest arch(itecture) (SM8.x) from nVidia launching with the new Series 30 mainstream cards (RTX 3090, 3080 and soon 3070, 3060) cards, a major update from the previous “Turing”/”Volta” (Series 20, SM 7.x). A “Titan” pro-sumer version will also launch soon while the data-center A100 … Read more…
We are pleased to release R11 (version 30.80) update for Sandra 20/20 (2020) with the following changes: Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release Benchmark: CPU Cache & Memory Latency Increased entropy for in-page & full random access patterns. Worst-case latency reported not average (as used by memory bandwidth). TLB optimisations for … Read more…
What is “Hyper-V”? Hyper-V is Microsoft’s virtualisation solution, a Type 1 (i.e. “bare-metal”) hypervisor that is included in both Windows Server (2005) and more recently Windows Client (e.g. Windows 10). A hypervisor creates “virtual computers” where complete operating systems (VMs) can be installed – all sharing the same physical hardware. … Read more…
Note: Original R10 release article has been updated with R10x update. We are pleased to release R10x (version 30.77) update for Sandra 20/20 (2020) with the following changes: Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release Latest Sandra Version We are moving towards a tiered system where different versions (R numbers) are provided … Read more…
What is Sandra’s Multi-Media benchmark? The “multi-media” benchmark in Sandra was introduced way back with Intel’s MMX instruction set (and thus Pentium MMX) to show the difference vectorisation brings to common algorithms, in this case (Mandelbrot) fractal generation. While MMX did not have floating-point support – we can emulate them … Read more…
What is “XE” / “TigerLake”? It is 3rd update of the “next generation” Core (gen 11) architecture (TGL/TigerLake) from Intel the one that replaced the ageing “Skylake (SKL)” arch and its many derivatives that are still with us (“CometLake (CML)”, “RocketLake (RKL)”, etc.). It is the optimisation of the “IceLake … Read more…
What is “TigerLake”? It is 3rd update of the “next generation” Core (gen 11) architecture (TGL/TigerLake) from Intel the one that replaced the ageing “Skylake (SKL)” arch and its many derivatives that are still with us (“CometLake (CML)”, etc.). It is the optimisation of the “IceLake (ICL)” arch and thus … Read more…
What is “Titan RTX / 2080Ti”? It is the latest high-end “pro-sumer” card from nVidia with the next-generation “Turing” architecture, the update to the current “Volta” architecture that has had a limited release in Titan/Quadro cards. It powers the new Series 20 top-end (with RTX) and Series 16 mainstream (without … Read more…
We are pleased to release R9 (version 30.69) update for Sandra 20/20 (2020) with the following updates: Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release GPGPU Benchmarks CUDA SDK 11.3+ update for nVidia “Ampere” (SM8.x) – deprecated SM3.x support OpenCL SDK updated to 1.2 minimum, 2.x recommended and 3.x experimental. Increased addressing in … Read more…
What is the JCC Erratum? It is a bug (“errata”) that affects pretty much all Intel Core processors (from 2nd generation “Sandy Bridge” SNB to 10th generation “Comet Lake” CML) but not the next-generation Core (10th generation “Ice Lake” ICL and later). JCC stands for “Jump Conditional Code”, i.e. conditional … Read more…
