SPEC CPU 2026 vs SPEC CPU 2017
We also wanted to provide a quick look at how SPEC CPU 2026 compares to SPEC CPU 2017. There is a lot of data out on SPEC CPU 2017, so we thought it would be interesting to just run the systems across the two back-to-back and check for deltas. It should be noted that the scores from the two benchmark suites are not directly comparable, and there is no official “scaling factor” or between the 2026 and 2017 scores. With that said, this is useful for highlighting how the relative positioning of each system changes between SPEC CPU 2017 and SPEC CPU 2026.
Starting with a single copy of SPECrate, here are our 1T results.
For integer workloads, the performance ratios are all rather similar. That is, under SPEC CPU 2026, all three systems achieve scores between 55% and 58% of their 2017 scores. The drop-off in floating-point performance is more pronounced, however. Not only is there a bit more of a drop-off, the Intel system hits just 54% of its 2017 score, and it drops from there. The NVIDIA Arm system takes a more significant hit, with a 2026 score that is just 46% of its 2017 score. In practice, this means the NVIDIA system has lost some ground to AMD and Intel in SPEC CPU 2026 compared with where it stood under SPEC CPU 2017. (This despite the fact that it delivered the best 1T performance overall in 2026)
Meanwhile, the ratios for running multiple copies of SPECrate are a bit more consistent. Everything here is still in the 50% range, indicating that SPEC CPU 2026 is stressing multi-core throughput to a similar degree as it did single-core throughput. Also, nothing here loses ground by more than 51%. Even the NVIDIA Arm system hits 52% of its 2017 fprate performance in 2026 fprate.
Ultimately, these numbers will vary with system architectures and configurations, so this should not be taken as a rule of thumb for other systems. It goes to show that across these Arrow Lake, Strix Halo, and GB10 chips, all three systems largely retain their relative positioning. In short, while SPEC CPU 2026 significantly modernizes the benchmark suite’s underlying workloads, so far, we are not seeing it change how contemporary CPUs compare to each other.
Final Words
While the term “bigger and better” is undoubtedly overused in this industry, in the case of SPEC CPU 2026, that is about as apt a description for the benchmark suite as one can possibly give it. With 52 modern benchmarks encompassing over twice as many lines of code, and with workloads intended to scale with the capabilities and memory capacities of recent processors, SPEC CPU 2026 is both bigger than before and a better representation of modern computing workloads.
Looking at our initial benchmark results, at first blush, the latest CPU benchmark suite does not appear to be a massive departure from the previous version. While the bulk of the suite’s individual benchmarks are completely new, the overall geomean scores are pretty consistently around 50% of SPEC CPU 2017, and that holds for both integer and floating-point workloads.
With the caveat that this kind of scaling is not guaranteed with different CPU architectures and systems, the high-level takeaway is that while SPEC CPU 2026 is more intensive overall, it has not significantly shifted the relative positioning of the Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA chips we benchmarked for this article. Which is to say that while SPEC CPU 2026 gives us additional (and very valuable) data points on how these chips compare, it is not currently changing the established pecking order among desktop chips. Also, we must note that since we are using LLVM here, we would expect companies to enter with compiler optimizations that go beyond what we are seeing. This was just LLVM20, but LLVM22 is slightly different, and some companies have more optimized compilers.
Even if SPEC CPU 2026 does not bring any wild swings to the current world of CPU benchmarking, after nine years since the release of the previous version of the industry’s top benchmark suite, it is nice to have an updated version with more contemporary workloads. Especially as the industry moves on to designing and evaluating the next decade of CPUs.
