Looking for Performance Benchmarks? Check out Tom's Hardware

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/' target='_blank'>http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/</a><br /><br /></div><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1267746340.usr1.png" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Tom's Hardware is one of the best sites out there for really understanding computer hardware, and they have a section I hadn't noticed before: the <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/" target="_blank">Performance Charts</a>. They've collected benchmark information from their various reviews and plugged the results into this system, and it allows you to look at a particular category of hardware (say, hard drives) and drill down to see exact benchmark results - like the read performance using h2benchw for instance. It makes it much easier to pick the exact hardware you want!</p>

[ptyork]

Thanks Jason. This is a resource I had not found before and is very useful. But it's making me rethink some advice I gave a friend a few days ago regarding a hard drive purchase. Doh!

[Jason Dunn]

But it's making me rethink some advice I gave a friend a few days ago regarding a hard drive purchase. Doh!

I know what you mean - I had no idea the Samsung Spinpoint was such a damn fast hard drive! :eek:

[Hooch Tan]

I've been using their charts for a while now with regards to CPUs and GPUs. To that end, they have something else I'd like to recommend.

Every month, they have a "Best GPU/CPU for the Money" article. At the end of that article, they offer a hierarchy chart. This basically ranks all the current GPUs or CPUs, not by pure performance, but range of performance. This is a good gauge to know if upgrading to a item is worthwhile or not.

For those that want more details with regards to mobile stuff, I find Notbookcheck's chart much more useful:

Comparison of graphic cards (http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html)

They have a searchable list as well.

And finally, if you, like me, have an aging computer who's component doesn't show up in those charts, Passmark has some basic charts too!

CPUs (http://cpubenchmark.net/)

and

Video cards (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/)