SPEC Releases Latest Workstation Benchmark: SPECviewperf 12

It appears that SPEC didn’t want to enter 2014 without having another benchmark under its belt. You might recall that last month, the master of benchmarks released SPECwpc, a well-rounded suite targeting workstations. Today, with the release of SPECviewperf 12, SPEC updates its popular workstation graphics benchmark.

From the words of SPEC itself:

SPECviewperf 12 measures the 3D graphics performance of systems running under the OpenGL and Direct X application programming interfaces. The benchmark’s test files, called viewsets, represent graphics content and behavior from actual applications.

The best way to look at SPECviewperf is that it’s a benchmark that utilizes real workloads that many who use proper workstations rely on. With 12, Autodesk’s Maya has been added in, while the ultra-advanced Solidworks, Siemens NX, Creo, CATIA, Showcase, and also SPEC’s Medical benchmark has also been included. All of the workloads can benefit from greater GPU power, not just for rendering, but for computation. As the blurb above states, these benchmarks can take full advantage of DirectX or OpenGL APIs.

SPECviewperf 12’s Maya Test

Like SPECwpc, SPECviewperf 12 is free for personal use. For commercial use, a $2,500 fee is required.

We haven’t had a huge workstation focus up to this point in the life of the site, but you can bet we’ll be making good use of SPECviewperf 12 in the future.