SPEC Notes

August 18, 2026 SPEC has announced the SPECapc for SNX 2024 Workload Development Kit (WDK). Integrated directly into the existing SPECapc for SNX 2024 benchmark, the new WDK offers a powerful, standardized framework for users to run and measure their own GPU-specific workloads and proprietary graphics models, providing greater flexibility and security for proprietary information.

January 29, 2026 SPECapc announced the availability of the SPECapc for SolidWorks 2025 benchmark, an update to SPEC’s performance evaluation software for vendors and users of computing systems running Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks 2025 CAD/CAM software.

2026-01-22 Mohammad Bakhshalipour from Carnegie Mellon University has been recognized as the winner of the 2025 Kaivalya Dixit Distinguished Dissertation Award for his work, “Bridging Real-Time Robotics and Computer Architecture” The award will be presented at the 17th Annual ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE) conference.

2025-12-11 SPECgpc announced the availability of the SPECviewperf 15.0.1 benchmark, a significant update to the worldwide standard for measuring graphics performance based on professional applications. The updated benchmark introduces snx-05, a workload based on Siemens NX 2406, rounding out the benchmark’s support for high-end CAD applications.

2025-05-29 SPEC has announced the availability of the SPECapc for SNX 2024 benchmark, providing a completely new take on measuring Siemens NX CAD and CAM software performance. The new benchmark is built to run on the continuous release version of Siemens NX, allowing for more frequent benchmark updates.

2025-05-01 SPEC has announced the availability of the SPECviewperf 15 benchmark, a significant update to the worldwide standard for measuring graphics performance based on professional applications. The SPECviewperf 15 benchmark includes new graphics APIs for DirectX 12 and Vulkan, workloads for new industry use cases, and support for the latest versions of the currently represented applications.

2025-02-04 Registration is open for the 16th annual ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE 2025), taking place May 5-9, 2024, in Toronto, Canada. For more details, visit the ICPE conference website.

2024-06-20 The nomination period for the Kaivalya Dixit Distinguished Dissertation Award opens at the end of June. The award is open to dissertations defended between October 2022 and September 2024. The nomination deadline is September 30th, 2024 @23:59:59 AoE.