nbench
February 18, 2003
Bug-fix release.
December 9, 1997
This release is based on beta release 2 of BYTE Magazine’s BYTEmark benchmark program (previously known as BYTE’s Native Mode Benchmarks). This document covers the Native Mode (a.k.a. Algorithm Level) tests; benchmarks designed to expose the capabilities of a system’s CPU, FPU, and memory system.
Running a “make” will create the binary if all goes well. It is called
“nbench” and performs a suite of 10 tests and compares the results to
a Dell Pentium 90 with 16 MB RAM and 256 KB L2 cache running MSDOS and
compiling with the Watcom 10.0 C/C++ compiler. If you define -DLINUX
during compilation (the default) then you also get a comparison to an
AMD K6/233 with 32 MB RAM and 512 KB L2-cache running Linux 2.0.32 and
using a binary which was compiled with GNU gcc version 2.7.2.3 and GNU
libc-5.4.38.
For more verbose output specify -v as an argument.
The primary web site is: http://www.tux.org/~mayer/linux/bmark.html
The port to Linux/Unix was done by Uwe F. Mayer mayer@tux.org.
The index-split was done by Andrew D. Balsa, and reflects the realization that memory management is important in CPU design. The original tests have been left alone, however, the tests NUMERIC SORT, FP EMULATION, IDEA, and HUFFMAN now constitute the integer-arithmetic focused benchmark index, while the tests STRING SORT, BITFIELD, and ASSIGNMENT make up the new memory index.
The algorithms were not changed from the source which was obtained from the BYTE web site at http://www.byte.com/bmark/bmark.htm on December 14, 1996. However, the source was modified to better work with 64-bit machines (in particular the random number generator was modified to always work with 32 bit, no matter what kind of hardware you run it on). Furthermore, for some of the algorithms additional resettings of the data was added to increase the consistency across different hardware. Some extra debugging code was added, which has no impact on normal runs.
In case there is uneven system load due to other processes while this benchmark suite executes, it might take longer to run than on an unloaded system. This is because the benchmark does some statistical analysis to make sure that the reported results are statistically significant, and an increased variation in individual runs requires more runs to achieve the required statistical confidence.
This is a single-threaded benchmark and is not designed to measure the performance gain on multi-processor machines.
Here is an example output of the 10 included benchmarks:
$ ./nbench
BYTEmark* Native Mode Benchmark ver. 2 (10/95)
Index-split by Andrew D. Balsa (11/97)
Linux/Unix* port by Uwe F. Mayer (12/96,11/97)
TEST : Iterations/sec. : Old Index : New Index
: : Pentium 90* : AMD K6/233*
--------------------:------------------:-------------:------------
NUMERIC SORT : 2531 : 64.91 : 21.32
STRING SORT : 3192.8 : 1426.62 : 220.82
BITFIELD : 1.1123e+09 : 190.79 : 39.85
FP EMULATION : 1302.4 : 624.96 : 144.21
FOURIER : 3.124e+05 : 355.29 : 199.55
ASSIGNMENT : 104.2 : 396.51 : 102.84
IDEA : 23861 : 364.94 : 108.35
HUFFMAN : 13254 : 367.52 : 117.36
NEURAL NET : 322.84 : 518.62 : 218.15
LU DECOMPOSITION : 8783.2 : 455.01 : 328.56
==========================ORIGINAL BYTEMARK RESULTS==========================
INTEGER INDEX : 345.458
FLOATING-POINT INDEX: 437.650
Baseline (MSDOS*) : Pentium* 90, 256 KB L2-cache, Watcom* compiler 10.0
==============================LINUX DATA BELOW===============================
CPU : 24 CPU GenuineIntel 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700T 1382MHz
L2 Cache : 30720 KB
OS : Linux 6.6.75.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
C compiler : gcc version 13.3.0 (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04.1)
libc : /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
MEMORY INDEX : 96.728
INTEGER INDEX : 79.072
FLOATING-POINT INDEX: 242.742
Baseline (LINUX) : AMD K6/233*, 512 KB L2-cache, gcc 2.7.2.3, libc-5.4.38
* Trademarks are property of their respective holder.
For details and customization read bdoc.txt.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
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IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
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NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
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(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.