SPEC Releases First Professional Workstation Benchmark Suite, SPECwpc

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC), creators of some of the most serious benchmarks on earth, has just announced its latest addition: SPECwpc. If the name sounds familiar, you might be thinking of SPECapc, which is a benchmark we’ve been using in our processor reviews for some time – the 3ds Max and Maya variants, to be exact.

The “W” in SPECwpc refers to “Workstation”, which is the sole target here. The benchmark was built with the help of some leading vendors, including AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Fujitsu, and NEC. Like its other benchmarks, SPEC’s Graphics and Workstation Performance Group have been working hard to make sure that SPECwpc is as reliable and accurate as possible – and in our personal testing, we can back up that it is.

SPECwpc expects the benchmark to be used by vendors to optimize performance and publicize benchmark results for different vertical market segments. Users can employ the benchmark for buying and configuration decisions specific to their industries.

“We’re filling a gap in the performance-measurement field for a comprehensive benchmark aimed at professional-level workstations ,” says Tom Fisher, SPECwpc chair . “The benchmark is easy to install and run, but provides a greater level of performance detail than has been available previously.”

SPECwpc is 100% free to use for noncommercial users, while a $5,000 license exists for those planning to use it for commercial gain (marketing, consulting, selling PCs, et cetera).

Techgage was invited prior to the launch to be one of the first to run the benchmark and submit a result, and we sure couldn’t pass that up. While we don’t have workstation-level gear on hand to benchmark, we are rather pleased with our build and our result. Big thanks to SPEC for allowing us to get in on the action early, and for creating such a well-rounded and thorough benchmark. You can be sure that we’ll begin using this in our future testing – likely for processors to start, and perhaps motherboards as well for stability purposes.