Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation

SPEC CPU2000 Follow-on Benchmark Suite

SPEC holds to the principle that better benchmarks can be developed from actual applications. With this in mind, SPEC is working on the development of a follow-on suite to SPEC CPU2000.

CPU2004

The development effort for this follow-on suite was previously referred to as CPU2004, although the actual suite name will be determined when SPEC launches.

CPU Benchmark Search Program

As with previous CPU suites, SPEC sought to encourage those outside of SPEC to assist in locating applications that could be used in the next CPU-intensive benchmark suite. Though now closed for this suite, information about the SPEC CPU Benchmark Search Program can be found here.

Overall, the SPEC CPU benchmarks have provided performance metrics for comparing systems on a known compute-intensive workload, with emphasis on the system's processor, memory hierarchy and compiler. SPEC is expecting the next CPU benchmark suite to continue this trend.

SPEC has held to the principle that better benchmarks are based on applications, and these applications can come from any area of work. For example, the current SPEC CPU2000 suite includes applications from the following areas:

• AI game theory
• compilers
• interpreters
• data compression
• databases
• weather prediction
• fluid dynamics
• physics
• chemistry
• image processing

SPEC is not limiting consideration to just these areas. A proposed application may come from any area or field of work.

Criteria SPEC considers important for the next CPU benchmark suite:

• the program can be made compute bound
• the program can be made portable across different hardware architectures and operating systems
• how close the program is to the state of the art for the given field