[Laforet]

I'm pretty sure the current 32-bit build of CPU-Z does not use any modern SIMD extensions for its benchmark, only pure unadulterated x87 FP instructions. And the results can be hilariously confusing unless you know what is going on.

I use it as a tool to show that a large part of IPC gains over the past 20 years come from new instructions sets and recompiling old code is a must since frequency gains have pretty much peaked.

[wongarsu]

To be fair, if I just throw some code at my compiler that also won't use and modern SIMD extensions. You either have to write extra code paths, which in most software only happens in imported libraries; or you have to change your compiler options to exclude older processors.

CPU-Zs benchmark is mostly confusing in that it's a benchmark of run-of-the-mill poorly optimized software. In a way that's bad because power users tend to care more about the performance of well-optimzed code; on the other hand seeing the performance difference in naive code is also useful.