Testing computer's raw performance

Obs

Does anyone know of any applications that will basically push a computer to all it's limits and test how much it's capable of? Perhaps in the order of magnitude of floating point operations per seconds?

If there is no easy way to test performance how will I go about proving one computer substantially performs better than the other?

Ohemeffgee

I guess what you're looking for is 3DMark.
http://www.futuremark.com/

meatflower

If you want to push a computer to its limits it's not 3DMark. You're gonna want Prime95.

From ExtremeOverclocking.com

For overclockers, Prime95 has a feature called "Torture Test" that allows maximum stress testing on the CPU and RAM. There are several options allowing the stress test to focus on the memory, processor, or a balance of both.

Usually Prime95 will detect an error within a matter of minutes if an overclock is not stable, however many people like to let the system "burn-in" overnight to ensure long-term stability.

While that talks about overclocking, it's a great test for stability on even stock systems. It works by calculating gigantic prime numbers (I don't remember the name for them). Basically crazy number crunching that keeps your CPU constantly working.

Download here.
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Obs

Problem with Prime95 is that it doesn't take into account computers with more than one CPU core processor.

stigweard

If it is a Core 2 Duo, there is nothing that will push it harder than Intel Thermal Analysis Tool. If it is anything else, you can use wprime (it allows for multi core), or multiple instances of superpi, or Orthos.