What is SYSMark 2000

What is SYSmark^® 2000?

SYSmark^® 2000: SYSMark^® 2000 is a performance testing product developed by the Business Applications Performance Corporation (BAPCo). BAPCo is a non-profit consortium of original equipment manufacturers with a charter to develop and distribute a set of objective performance benchmarks for personal computers based on popular software applications and operating systems. The sole purpose of this corporation is to foster the creation of meaningful benchmarks in a true real-world applications environment. Contrary to much of the rumor and hype found on the Internet, BAPCo is not owned or controlled by Intel, Dell Computer, Gateway or anyone else, it is a corporation in and of itself and as such is fully committed to producing a standardization for benchmarking.

The benchmarks are based on software packages commonly found in retail computer software stores. Using benchmarks based on business applications enables users to conduct evaluations of systems handling realistic workloads in environments users often encounter. This approach provides users with meaningful data for evaluating systems because the results are relevant to demands they would typically impose on systems through day-to-day workloads.

These benchmark programs utilize large, long-running, realistic scripts and data that test a wide range of applications and system resources. The Workload Characterization methodology is based on modeling user activities at the functional level. That model is then used to develop scripts similar to the end-users’ workloads. This is achieved by using the correct functional mix and appropriate data sets (as derived from the models) along with the most popular applications in various categories. This type of characterization produces workloads that closely resemble actual usage patterns of the intended audience.

In addition to the base performance measuring software, SYSmark 2000 relies on the following to develop real world scenarios.

OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY

• Corel^®
  • CorelDRAW^® 9
  • Corel Paradox^®
• Microsoft^®
  • Word 2000^®
  • Excel 2000^®
  • PowerPoint^®
• Dragon Systems^®
  • NaturallySpeaking^® Preferred v.4.0
• Netscape^®
• Caere OmniPage^®

CONTENT CREATION

• Adobe^®
  • Photoshop^® v.5.5
  • Premiere^® v.5.1
• Elastic Reality^® v.3.1
• MetaCreations^®
• Microsoft Windows^® Media Encoder v.4.0

BAPCo selects applications based upon annual unit shipment of application software, survey data on application usage and technical feasibility (e.g., availability of robust scripting utilities). BAPCo’s desktop products are meant to compare ONLY the hardware on which the benchmarks are run and nothing more.