SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2013 SP3a 19.44

All around tool, benchmarking, system diagnostic and analyser.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means "defender", "helper of mankind". We think that's quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCIe, ODBC Connections, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native Unicode ports for 32-bit Windows (2000/XP/2003/Vista), 64-bit & x64 Windows (XP/2003/Vista) as well as Windows CE (Pocket PC 2002/2003/2003SE, Smart Phone 2002/2003/2003SE, CE .Net 4.20) are available.

General Sandra Information

Here are the version types, in line with industry standards:

• Sandra Lite (free for personal/educational use - no nag screens, time limit, etc.)
• Sandra Advanced (for OEMs)
• Sandra Professional (commercial)
• Sandra Engineer (commercially exploitabile)
• Sandra Enterprise (commercial)
• Sandra Legacy (home enthusiast)

List of SiSoftware Sandra Modules:

• System Summary
• Mainboard/Chipset/System Monitors Info
• CPU/BIOS Info
• APM & ACPI (Advanced Power Management) Info
• PCI(e), AGP, CardBus, PCMCIA bus and devices Info
• Video Information (monitor, card, video bios, caps, etc.)
• OpenGL Information
• DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput) Info
• Keyboard Info
• Mouse Info
• Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix) Info
• MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) Info
• Joystick Info
• Printers Info
• Windows Memory Info
• Windows Info
• Font (Raster, Vector, TrueType, OpenType) Information
• Modem/ISDN TA Information
• Network Information
• IP Network Information
• WinSock & Internet Security Information
• Drives Information (Removable Hard Disks, CD-ROM/DVD, RamDrives, etc.)
• Ports (Serial/Parallel) Info
• Remote Access Service Connections (Dial-Up, Internet)
• OLE objects/servers Info
• Processes (Tasks) & Threads Info
• Modules (DLL, DRV) Info
• Services & Device Drivers (SYS) Info
• SCSI Information
• ATA/ATAPI Information
• Data Sources Information
• CMOS/RTC Information
• Smart Card & SIM Card Information
• CPU Arithmetic Benchmark (MP/MT support)
• CPU Multi-Media Benchmark (including MMX, MMX Enh, 3DNow!, 3DNow! Enh, SSE(2)) (MP/MT support)
• File System (Removable, Hard Disks, Network, RamDrives) Benchmark
• Removable Storage/Flash Benchmark
• CD-ROM/DVD Benchmark
• Memory Bandwidth Benchmark (MP/MT support)
• Cache & Memory Bandwidth Benchmark (MP/MT support)
• Network/LAN Bandwidth Benchmark
• Internet/ISP Connection Benchmark
• Internet/ISP Peerage Benchmark
• Hardware Interrupts Usage
• DMA Channel Usage
• I/O Ports Usage
• Memory Range Usage
• Plug & Play Enumerator
• Hardware registry settings
• Environment settings
• Registered File Types
• Key Applications(web-browser, e-mail, news, anti-virus, firewall, etc.)
• Installed Applications
• Installed Programs
• Start Menu Applications
• On-disk Programs & Libraries
• Installed Web Packages(ActiveX, Java classes)
• System Event Logs
• Burn-in Wizard(test computer stability)
• Connect Wizard (connect to remote computers, PDAs, Smart Phones and other devices)
• Combined Performance Index Wizard (overall computer performance score)
• Create a Report Wizard (save, print, fax or e-mail in CIM (SMS/DMI), HTML, XML, RPT or TEXT format)
• Performance Tune-Up Wizard (tune-up computer)
• Environment Monitor Wizard (temperatures, voltages, fans, CPU power, cooling solution thermal resistance, etc.)
• WebUpdate Wizard for automatic version updating

Key features of Sandra 2013

• 3 native architectures support (x86, x64, ARM).
• Huge official hardware support through technology partners (Intel, AMD/ATI, SiS, VIA).
• 5 native virtualisation technologies support (Virtual PC 7, Virtual Server 2005, Hyper-V Server, VMware Server/ESX, VMware WorkStation/Player)
• 3 native GPGPU/GPAPU platforms support (OpenCL, DirectX Compute Shader, CUDA).
• 4 native Graphics platforms support (DirectX 11.x, DirectX 10.x, DirectX 9, OpenGL 2.0+).
• 9 language versions (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified), Russian) in a single installer.
• Enhanced Sandra Lite (Eval) version (free for personal/educational use, evaluation for other uses)

What's New in this release:

• Atom Z-series (tablet/phone), Atom S-series (server) support
  • Atom Z2000 series for tablets (e.g. Windows 8) and future phones.
  • Atom S1200 series for low-power servers.
• Java 1.7+ (security fixed) support
  • Oracle security fixes for Java 1.7 (e.g. u11, u13) broke JVM detection in Sandra (and other apps) - it now works again. Sandra still supports Java 1.6.
• EFI fixes
  • Some computers (e.g. some Samsung laptops/tablets) seem to have "quirks" in EFI-only mode - legacy mode works OK but by default they are in EFI-only "quirks" mode.
• GPGPU DirectX ComputeShader Memory Latency
  • In addition to CUDA and OpenCL now you can test memory latency using the standard DirectX interface - useful for GPUs that do not implement OpenCL.
• GPGPU optimisations
  • Increased work-load for both fractal/multi-media (4K aka 2160p 8MB picture from 1080p 2MB picture) and Crypto (higher % memory) - useful for high-end (GP)GPUs, SLI and Crossfire setups (4x workload).
• GPGPU CUDA SDK 5.0 - support for future CUDA 3.5 devices
  • Updated to support future CUDA 3.5 (e.g. "BigKepler K20") devices through native PTX. All CUDA devices still supported: 1.x, 2.x, 3.x.
• Sandra 2012 - SP6a
  • A further SP will be released for Sandra 2012 to add the above fixes - but no new features - to it also.

What's New in Sandra 2013:

Broad Operating System Support
All current OS versions supported: Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP

• Enhanced for Windows 8 / Server 2012 Desktop mode using the latest API.
• New theme for Windows 8 / Server 2012 and its brand new look (ex-Metro).
• Full support for Windows 7, Vista and XP as well as Server 2008/R2 and Server 2003/R2.
• Updated hardware support for both current and future hardware (AMD "Trinity", "Vishera"; Intel "Haswell")

New driver/firmware notification
Keep up-to-date with the latest enhancements for your computer

Sandra checks for updated firmware/BIOS or device drivers for all components/peripherals and provides the user with download information [commercial versions only]:

• System BIOS update
• Video Card BIOS update, driver update (including DirectX, OpenGL, OpenCL and CUDA)
• Disk (Hard Disk, Optical Drive or SSD) firmware update
• CPU microcode update
• USB device firmware update, driver update
• Printer firmware update, driver update
• Network device (e.g. router, wireless access point) firmware update

Updated Device Performance Certification
Certify the validity and quality of your benchmarks results [Commercial versions]

Device Performance Certification validates whether the benchmark result (score) you have obtained upon benchmarking your device is valid (i.e. the device you tested is performing correctly) and how it compares to the scores obtained by other users when testing the same device.

By aggregating the results submitted for each device and performing statistical analysis (e.g. computing mean/average, standard deviation, etc.) we can use statistical tools to work out whether the score is within the expected range (confidence intervals).

Based on the variability of scores you can determine whether the performance of your device is consistent or varies significantly from test to test.

New GP (GPU/APU/CPU) Cache/Memory Latency benchmark
4 memory types, 3 access patterns, 2 interfaces

Benchmark all the different memories (global, constant, shared/local, private) of modern GPGPUs using the 3 access patterns (in-page random, full random, sequential/linear) in OpenCL and CUDA. See the differences between modern GPGPU architectures from AMD and nVidia or APU architectures from AMD and Intel.

We have published an article on the cache/memory latencies of current GPGPU architectures: GP GPU/APU Cache and Memory Latencies.

New GP (GPU/APU/CPU) Cache Bandwidth benchmark
4 memory types, 2 interfaces

Benchmark all the different memories (global, constant, shared/local, private) of modern GPGPUs and measure L1, L2 and L3 cache bandwidths in OpenCL and CUDA. See the differences between modern GPGPU architectures from AMD and nVidia or APU architectures from AMD and Intel.

We have published an article on the cache bandwidths of current GPGPU architectures: GP GPU/APU Cache and Memory Bandwidths.

Updated Overall Score for complete system performance evaluation
12 benchmarks to fully evaluate computer performance

While each benchmark measures the performance of a specific device (CPU, Memory, (GP)GPU, Storage, etc.), there is a real need for a benchmark to evaluate the overall computer performance: this new benchmark is a weighted average of the individual scores of the existing benchmarks:

• Native CPU Arithmetic, Cryptographic [new] and Multi-Media (SIMD): measures native processor performance
• .Net/Java Arithmetic, Cryptographic [new] and Multi-Media (vectorised): measures software virtual machine performance (e.g. for .Net WPF/Silverlight/METRO applications)
• Memory and Cache Bandwidth and Latency [new]: measures memory and caches performanc
• File System/Storage Bandwidth and I/O [new]: measures storage performance
• General Processing GP(GPU/APU) Arithmetic, Cryptographic and Bandwidth: measures GPGPU/GPAPU performance

Memory Latency: code/instruction cache latencies
2 memory types, 3 access patterns

Modern processors have dedicated cache sub-systems (e.g. L1I, L2I) to handle code/instructions that, while just as important as data caches, are not assessed by most benchmarks.

Sandra 2013 adds a brand new benchmark using its 3 dedicated access patterns ("in-page" thus avoiding "out-of-page" latencies, "full random" and "linear/sequential") to fully test code caches performance.

We have published an article on the cache latencies of current CPU architectures: Measuring Cache and Memory Latency (access patters, paging and TLBs).

Brand new style for Windows 8

Windows 8 has its own style (ex-Metro) that it shares with Windows Phone 7/8. Love it or hate it, it is here to stay. We have also provided Windows 7, Vista and XP users with an updated, modern style:

• Sandra 2013 - Metro style (Windows 8)
• Sandra 2013 - Aero/Metallic style (Windows 7, Vista, XP)

Price Engine: invaluable

Why? The Price engine enhances the user's experience by providing product pictures and additional specifications - as well as the the latest price. It enables the calculation of important metrics like Performance vs. Price and Capacity vs. Price (for storage media) which are extremely useful when making comparisons. All this is done automatically rather than manually searching for pricing, a great time saver.