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SiSoftware Sandra is a 32- and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing, and listing modules. It tries to go beyond other utilities to show you more of what is really going on under the hood, so you draw comparisons at both a high- and low-level in a single product.

You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, ODBC Connections, USB2, and FireWire. You can save, print, fax, e-mail, post, upload, or insert into ADO/ODBC databases reports in text, HTML, XML, SMS/DMI, or RPT format. This version supports multiple sources of information gathering including: remote computers, PDAs, smart phones, ADO/ODBC databases, or saved system reports. All benchmarks are optimized for both SMP and SMT (Hyper-Threading), up to 32/64 CPUs depending on the platform.

Download : SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007 XI.SP4a

SiSoftware Sandra is a 32- and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing, and listing modules. It tries to go beyond other utilities to show you more of what is really going on under the hood, so you draw comparisons at both a high- and low-level in a single product.
You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, ODBC Connections, USB2, and FireWire. You can save, print, fax, e-mail, post, upload, or insert into ADO/ODBC databases reports in text, HTML, XML, SMS/DMI, or RPT format. This version supports multiple sources of information gathering including: remote computers, PDAs, smart phones, ADO/ODBC databases, or saved system reports. All benchmarks are optimized for both SMP and SMT (Hyper-Threading), up to 32/64 CPUs depending on the platform. The full version includes additional modules.

Download: SiSoftware Sandra 2007.1.11.17

Fraps is a universal Windows application that can be used with all games using DirectX or OpenGL technology. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as:

Benchmarking Software - See how many Frames Per Second (FPS) you are getting in a corner of your screen. Perform custom benchmarks and measure the frame rate between any two points. Save the statistics out to disk and use them for your own reviews and applications.

Screen Capture Software - Take a screenshot with the press of a key! There's no need to paste into a paint program every time you want to capture the screen. Your screen captures are also automatically named and timestamped.

Realtime Video Capture Software - Have you ever wanted to record video while playing your favourite game? Come join the Machinima revolution! Throw away the VCR, forget about using a DV cam, game recording has never been this easy! Fraps can capture audio and video up to 1152×864 at 60 frames per second! All movies are recorded in outstanding quality.

2.5.1 - 29th Dec 2004
- Fixed crash with Windows Movie Maker
- Additional optimizations for better video playback on low-end systems

Download

The last few month shave seen a flurry of drivers sneaking both up online and appearing on NVIDIA脙垄芒鈥毬⑩€灺 website. However the 61.82 drivers brought a huge leap forward in performance with applications and many were extremely pleased on just how systems improved. Just when we thought that all was quiet for a while from nowhere out came the 70.** series of drivers catching everyone completely on the hop. Perhaps due to the timings and deadlines for publication some high profile magazines pressed forward with their current issues which meant that they were unable to harness the full range currently available.

The debate over what benchmarks should and should not be used, now reaches all time proportions of good sense! The plethora of benchmarks out and in this arena; one could spend all day in producing results, paralysis by analysis! Ultimately for those of you purchasing from new or looking for the fastest going upgrade of the latest and best we must all look to the industry standard of SPEC.ORG. This ensures the laid down standards for the professional applications and the individual buying the equipment will be able to expect predictability. Astronomical amounts of research and development goes into the production of the final tests which are as real-time as possible.

MoreInfo… @ 3D Professor

"Short-Media have thrown up a new article which asks does Windows Service Pack 2 slow you down? " Microsoft released Service Pack 2 and millions installed it. Did boat anchors come with the enhancements? We threw 108 benchmarks at Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 in an attempt to declare a winner.

Does the old saying go "newer, better, faster" or "you can only rework the plumbing so many times"? Service Pack 2 brought enhancements to Windows XP including a very handy pop-up stopper and the much needed firewall security. A new Service Pack does improve upon some features of an operating system besides plugging up the holes but do the improvements come as extra weight or is some code jettisoned in favor of newer, leaner code?

A comparison between the Service Pack 1 clean install and Service Pack 2 clean install shows 4 extra processes and 42 extra megabytes added to SP2 on the test system.

Windows XP SP2 vs SP1 Performance Comparison

The program's main features include:

• Detailed analysis of computers and their components
• Sensor detection and reporting (voltage, temperature, fan rotation)
• VGA, AGP test (Chipset, DirectX analysis, VESA modes, driver capabilities)
• DDC monitor test
• Benchmarks (CPU, video, hard disks, CD ROM, ASPI drives, Net drives)
• Interrupts, IRQs, CMOS and Advanced CMOS Setup, DMA, I/O ports lists
• Diagrams in 2D and 3D
• Report generation (printer/file output)

“As of March 24, 2004 we have decided to discontinue the development project that we all know as AIDA32. Development of AIDA32 has been started years ago, and the project went first public in April 2001. AIDA32 has become the de facto standard for both home and corporate system diagnosis and network audit, winning several awards including “Freeware Product of the Year” by Support Alert newsletter in December 2002. Aida32.hu has well served this project almost without any issues, providing access to over half a million of users in 150 countries worldwide. For the exceptional quality of service, we’d like to send our special thanks to Hunet Kft, our internet service provider and software supplier. “

To help you find products to relieve AIDA32, hereby we publish our favorites:

1. Freeware system diagnostics, hardware monitoring, benchmarks

Lavalys EVEREST Home Edition: http://www.lavalys.com

Motherboard Monitor by Alex van Kaam: http://mbm.livewiredev.com

Panopsys CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com

ScienceMark 2: http://www.sciencemark.org

2. Commercial system diagnostics, network audit, benchmarks

Futuremark PCMark04: http://www.futuremark.com

Lavalys EVEREST Professional: http://www.lavalys.com

REALiX HWiNFO & HWiNFO32: http://www.hwinfo.com

SiSoftware Sandra 2004: http://www.sisoftware.net

AIDA32–http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php

There are some more fixes for various Radeon series and benchmarks etc.Whats new :

• Switching to the program Second Life using the ALT-Tab command no longer results in the system not responding or looping indefinitely
• Running the demo game Lord of the Realms 3 under Windows XP with a RADEOIN 9000 series card installed no longer results in the system not responding when a 3 stage effect is used
• The game Unreal Tournament 2003 no longer hangs when loading the CTF-December level
• The geometry flashing throughout the background of Second Life is now resolved
• Flickering and display corruption in the game NeverWinter Nights is now resolved

Download : ATI Catalyst 3.6 (6.14.10.6368) - WinXP

Download : ATI Catalyst 3.6 (6.14.10.6368) - Win2000

Download : ATI Catalyst 3.6 (4.14.01.9113) - Win98/ME

Download : ATI Control Panel (6.14.10.5021) - All OS’es

Power Mac G5

Based on the 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor from IBM, the G5 desktop features a 1 GHz front-side bus and supports up to 8GB of memory. The new systems utilize 400 MHz 128-bit DDR SDRAM, PCI-X, AGP 8X Pro graphics and dual Serial ATA hard drive interfaces. Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Monday at WWDC 2003 in San Francisco, ushering in a new era of 64-bit desktop computing. Jobs offered developers a first look at Apple’s upcoming release of Mac OS X version 10.3, code-named “Panther” and put to rest a myriad of rumors and speculation with the introduction of the Power Mac G5.

“The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again,” said Jobs. “The new Power Mac G5 combines the world’s first 64-bit desktop processor, the industry’s first 1 GHz front-side bus, and up to 8GB of memory to beat the fastest Pentium 4 and dual Xeon-based systems in industry-standard benchmarks and real-world professional applications.”

View more : BetaNews

AN ARTICLE earlier today where we questioned by AMD switched hyperthreading off when it compared a Pentium 4 to its newly fledged 3200 Athlon XP has been answered by the firm.

And the answer is somewhat surprising.

Damon Muzny, a representative for the product review department of AMD Public Relations, said that the Pentium 4 performed better with hyperthreading switched off than when it was turned on. That’s with the Canterwood motherboard.

He said: “That’s why we have our benchmarks normalised to an HT disabled platform”.

He said that AMD had chosen the best platform and configuration it had available to test the Pentium 4 against its 3200 processors at the time of its benchmark audit.

He added: “Past benchmarks have shown that on many industry standard benchmarks, AMD processors typically outperform Intel processors with HyperThreading enabled by even a higher percentage. AMD will share those additional new benchmarks using the AMD Athlon XP processor 3200 when they are available”.

And, he continued: “On May 8 we were able to begin benchmark testing against Intel’s 3.0GHz P4 on Canterwood. Against this new platform, the AMD Athlon processor 3200 performs an average of 6 percent better than the Intel offering with HyperThreading turned off. So like I mentioned, AMD processors typically outperform Intel processors with HyperThreading enabled by even a higher percentage in the benchmark suite we test with”.

An Intel UK representative told the INQUIRER: “HT Technology provides an immediate benefit to threaded applications and in many multitasking scenarios, where the end user is running two or more existing applications at the same time. Thus enables a better user experience. You can find benchmarks and multi-tasking scenarios here.

News Source : Inquirer