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Hard drive benchmarking is perhaps one of the most difficult components to gauge. For many years, users relied solely on straight file copying tests: Take a few gigabyte of files and dump them to a target hard drive three or four times and time it with a stop watch. Sounds real-world and accurate doesn’t it? Unfortunately it isn’t. Straight file copies have often proven to be unreliable. That’s mainly because you have no control over where the data is dumped on the drive. And since the placement of data is on a mechanical hard drive you can easily get whacky results.
We don’t mean to say that file copying is completely invalid as a measurement of performance, but this is an area where synthetics can be more reliable than real-world tests. Two of the most popular tests include HD Tach 3 (simplisoftware.com) and HD Tune 4 (hdtune.com). For Vista and Windows 7 users, HD Tach requires a bit of tweaking since it was designed for Windows XP. To enable its use in Vista and 7, right mouse click on the icon, click properties and set the compatibility to Windows XP SP2. On startup, choose the target drive to test and choose long bench. Click Run Test.
You will be given four results that matter: the average read performance, random access time, CPU utilization and burst speed. The two that matter are average read performance and random access time. The relevance of burst speed to performance is up for debate. The general consensus is that it doesn’t matter much the cache’s in hard drives (even today’s supersized 64MB caches) are so small that they can’t really help much. On the other hand, some feel that burst performance can be a quite significant if seen as an indicator of how well the drive’s caching performance and read-ahead algorithms perform. CPU utilization also is fairly meaningless since it’s usually below 5 percent. This figure should only concern you if it’s double digits as it might indicate some problem with the storage subsystem.
HD Tach’s one weakness is its inability to perform write tests (at least on the free version.) Fortunately, that’s one thing you can do with HD Tune (hdtune.com) for 14 days. The trial version lets you run write tests on drives for the duration of the trial period. Starting it is simple; launch the app, select your target drive click start. If you plan on running the write tests, you’ll have to delete the partition on the target drive first. Obviously, don’t do this on the primary partition that you are using.
Gauging RAM performance with real-world applications is probably even more difficult than hard drive benchmarking. Like the Great White Whale, we’ve long looked for the application that would instantly show you just how much more performance you get from running ultra-tight RAM timing tolerance or clocking the modules past the 2GHz mark. In all our years of system testing, we’ve never found it. We don’t mean to say that it doesn’t exist. Valve’s non-public multi-threaded particle benchmark typically favors lower latency RAM setups. But even there you don’t see magical results.
To actually see if your overclocked RAM even gives you more bandwidth, you’ll have to turn to the synthetic tests. We favor Sisoft Sandra Lite and Everest Ultimate. Sisoft Sandra Lite. Launch the app and click the benchmarks tab. Select Memory Bandwidth and press the F5 key to run the benchmark. The app will give you a score and give you four other chipset/RAM/CPUs that you can compare your results too. You can do the same with Memory Latency as well.
The free version of Everest Ultimate gives you a 14-day trial period. That’s plenty of time to run all the benchmarks you want. To test your RAM with Everest, install the app, launch it and click on the Benchmark icon. Select Memory Read and click on the refresh icon on top. You can do the same for Memory Write, Memory Copy, and Memory Latency. Like Sandra, Everest Ultimate will also give you a lengthy comparative list of motherboards/CPUs/chipsets so you to gloat (if you have happen to have a triple-channel board and proc) or turn sullen (if you happen to still be pushing a Pentium 4 on an 848 chipset an pushing 2.6GB/s in bandwidth.
So you’ve run your benchmarks, now what? Besides using it to be proud of your rig, you can use these two tools to tune your RAM for higher bandwidth or lower latency. Just note your score before rebooting into the BIOS where you can clock your RAM higher or latency lower.
Comments are closed on this article
Philips
October 25, 2011 at 6:12am
Thank you for the casualty of providing all of these information. This is a lot actually. These are very helpful.
Azrael808
February 16, 2011 at 8:13am
This is a great article; I'm currently using this as a basis to benchmark my home machine so I can see how it stacks up against other rigs, but mainly so I can see how much an upgrade improves the overall system. Some useful comments too! :)
I did have one question: when taking an average of the benchmark runs, why do you use the median, and not the mean score? Is it simply because a mean score will most likely produce a result that wasn't actually obtained by a run of a utility?
jlfrank83
January 27, 2010 at 8:12am
The article states that real-world performance is what you are shooting for when you run your benchmarks, Yet they also want you to disable antivirus, disconnect from your network, manually launch idle process, etc, before benchmarking. Isn't creating a "virtual clean room" tainting your results as much as a synthetic benchmark application or biased video driver would? I don't go through all these preflight steps before playing a game or running Photoshop, so why would I do them before benchmarking and expect realistic, real-world results?
mrvander
January 27, 2010 at 8:40am
... one has to eliminate as many variables as possible in order to produce repeatable results. This is a basic of any scientific testing method - whether it be life sciences or computer sciences. Once you can produce a repeatable result - you have established a control (or a baseline.) THEN add in the other variables to determine the effect it has, preferably one at a time. Turn on your virus scanner. Repeat the testing and compare it to your control. Analyze the data. Add in another variable, say your network. Repeat and rinse.
This is also why they don't recommend using FRAPS and just running through a level of your favorite game. It's not accurately reproducable. It can give you a general idea over many runs, but it can vary wildly.
Of course you can customize this to your heart's content and maybe just a general idea is all you need. The article does mention the idea of "play more games" as opposed to just endlessly benchmarking one's PC and analyzing every last little detail to get that extra tenth of a framerate.
nekollx
January 26, 2010 at 6:06pm
Daz 3d is good real world test since the preview/maniptlation window is GPU bound but renders are CPU bound
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Modred189
January 26, 2010 at 5:55pm
No furmark?
It's one of the most stressing GPU-only benches I know of.
And I must say, real-world benchmarking your graphics card is the best way to go. Pick a game or two you know well (HL2 works well), and play through a level a few times, measuring your fps with fraps. Throw the data into excel and average the columns. You can even make nice graphs from multiple data sets and compare them to show what scenes your PC is best at and which it has issues with.
jlfrank83
January 27, 2010 at 8:19am
Your columns are going to be radically different if you are controlling the action yourself. It's better to use a game that has in-game, real time rendered cutscenes, like Mass Effect or Assassin's Creed. If you use a playable section of a game, your graphics card will be rendering differently every time, since each playthrough is going to vary in length, FOV, etc.
Modred189
January 27, 2010 at 5:54pm
I have done this a few times before, and if you play through the level a few times first, you can get it relatively reproducible. The problem with in-game benchmarks is that they disable a lot of things like AI, which is a big CPU drain.
bikerbub
January 27, 2010 at 10:39am
GTA IV also has a benchmark option. it's not very long, but it is an actively rendered test with AI and lots of gunfire. also somewhat humorous, as you are a clown (if i remember correctly) riding on a moped, through the streets, weaving in between the Liberty City skyscrapers.
