benchmarkscommonly

Benchmarks commonly refer to standardized tests used to measure the performance of hardware, software, or entire systems under predefined workloads. They yield metrics such as execution time, throughput, latency, or operations per second, and are used to compare configurations, guide purchases, and monitor performance over time. Benchmarks can be synthetic, stressing particular components, or representative of real-world tasks, and are most informative when applied consistently across tests.

In computing, widely used benchmarks cover a range of domains. CPU performance is often assessed with Linpack and SPEC CPU (with High-Performance Linpack as a variant); memory bandwidth with STREAM; storage I/O with fio; database workloads with TPC-C and TPC-H; graphics performance with 3DMark, Unigine Heaven, and SPECviewperf; overall system performance with PCMark; and power efficiency with SPECpower. Machine learning workloads are evaluated with MLPerf, encompassing training and inference. Mobile and consumer-device benchmarks include AnTuTu and Geekbench. Benchmarking may also employ workload-oriented suites tailored to particular tasks or platforms.

Interpretation of results requires caution. Benchmarks are imperfect representations of real usage and can be sensitive to compiler options, libraries, drivers, and background processes. Synthetic tests may overemphasize certain components, while real-world workloads vary widely. Best practices include using multiple benchmarks, clearly reporting hardware and software configurations, running several iterations, and considering statistical variance when comparing systems.