SPEC improves CPU2006 benchmark

V1.2 to become new version for SPEC website reporting on December 19

GAINESVILLE, Va., September 7, 2011 — The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. has released SPEC CPU2006 V1.2, with major upgrades that improve the user experience. After December 19, 2011, SPEC CPU 2006 V1.2 will replace V1.1 for results submissions to the SPEC website.

Better user experience

"Users should have a better benchmarking experience with V1.2, from the moment they begin testing to the reporting of results," says Jeff Reilly, SPEC CPU2006 subcommittee chair.

Major improvements in SPEC CPU2006 V1.2 include:

New automation — A program called sysinfo automatically captures information about many systems under test and includes that information in reports generated by the benchmark. The program provides examples for several chips and operating systems, along with documentation on how users can extend automation to new systems.
Greater compatibility — Operating system support has been extended to the current versions of AIX, HP-UX, Irix, Mac OS X, Solaris, Windows and 2011 Linux distributions. SPEC has also updated the toolset for compatibility with recent CPUs, including x86, Itanium, POWER, and SPARC processors.
Response to user feedback — Improvements have been made to code and documentation in response to user suggestions and bug reports. Open source components used by SPEC tools have been updated to the latest versions for increased compatibility.
Better utilities — Key utilities have been upgraded to eliminate common errors, provide more information, and enable greater selectivity and control.
Easier maintenance for submissions — Flag files containing descriptions of compiler options are easier to maintain for those submitting results to the SPEC website.

Licensing and requirements

Results generated by SPEC CPU2006 V1.2 are comparable to results from V1.1 and V1.0. Upgrades to V1.2 are free to current licensees. SPEC will contact existing licensees and send the new version upon verifying a shipping address.

For those without a SPEC CPU2006 license, V1.2 is available for immediate delivery on DVD from SPEC. The cost is $800 for new customers, $400 for upgrades from SPEC CPU2000, and $200 for qualified non-profit organizations and accredited educational institutions.

General requirements for running the benchmarks include a Windows or UNIX operating system, a DVD drive, 1 to 2 GB of memory per thread, 8 GB of unused disk space, and a set of compilers. More details on system requirements can be found at: http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/Docs/system-requirements.html.

Additional product and ordering information is available on the SPEC web site at www.spec.org/cpu2006.

About SPEC

SPEC is a non-profit organization that establishes, maintains and endorses standardized benchmarks to evaluate performance for the newest generation of computing systems. Its membership comprises more than 70 leading computer hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, research organizations, and government agencies worldwide.

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