Easy CPU Benchmarking on Linux

I have spent a disproportionate of my time looking at CPU Benchmarks because numbers are fun. There are a lot of ways to benchmark and test your system and frankly most of them are too complex for me to really care. I like numbers but when they get into real nuanced details my eyes glaze over. I am more interested in the general numbers. I did a search for the top 10 tools and I found one that I like… which wasn’t on any of the lists.

PerformanceTest for Linux

This can be downloaded from here:

https://www.passmark.com/products/pt_linux/download.php

Although openSUSE isn’t on the list, I can assure you it does seem to work quite well.

Depending on your machine you can select the x86 64-bit, ARM 32-bit and ARM 64-bit. There is also a legacy x86 64-bit version if that is what you require and nothing for x86 32-bit.

Download the appropriate version for your system which is delivered as a zip file. Extract the contents of the Zip file to whatever location suits you.

I moved the contents of the zip into an Applications folder on my home directory but that is not strictly necessary. It’s your system, so whatever works for you. From there, run the application.

~/Applications/PerformanceTest/pt_linux_x64 

The interface is pretty simple from here:
ESC or CTRL-C to exit
A: Run All Tests
C: Run CPU Test
M: Run Memory Test and
U: Upload Test Results

Obviously, if you haven’t run any tests, there is nothing to upload.

Very simply, just hit A and wait a few minutes. Once complete you will get your results. THe higher the CPU mark the better, so it’s pretty simple.

Just below the results, you are then asked if you want to upload your results to cpubenchmark.net. I did, if course, since I do use the site far too much, I may as well give them some data too.

I thought it would be fun to run a comparison between my laptop and my C64 Impostor that I use for heavier lifting. It is fun to see the differences in performance between the things.

Interestingly, it looks like subsequent tests reduced the performance numbers on the laptop but that could be due to thermal throttling. These newer, thinner laptops aren’t exactly known for their thermal dissipation characteristics.

Final Thoughts

Benchmarks are one of those things that are not exactly universal. This is just CPU and memory benchmarks which has nothing to do with graphics performance. That is yet another rather large area of benchmarking as various tasks require different hardware configurations and I am absolutely not an expert there. I was looking or something simple that is about as accurate as licking your finger, sticking it up in the air and estimating which direction the wind is blowing. Also, numbers really are fun and this is just another fun little application to give you an idea of your processing capability.

References

https://www.passmark.com/products/pt_linux/download.php
C64x on CubicleNate.com
HP EliteBook 840 G7 on CubicleNate.com