Dhrystone MIPS per MHz (CPU) over time

Chart

10 figures from 10 machines, spanning 1978 to 2023. The lowest dhrystone mips per mhz here is 0.055 DMIPS/MHz (Intel 8086 PC, 1978) and the highest is 6.1 DMIPS/MHz (Intel Core i9-14900K PC, 2023). That is a range of about 111× within one comparability group; the figures are plotted in DMIPS/MHz. Points use the release date of the machine the figure belongs to. The table below lists absent figures with their recorded reasons.

Data

One row per figure, in date order. Figures with no value stay in the table. The chart omits them because an unpublished figure is not a low one.

provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.

Machine	Released	Figure	Confidence	Sources
Intel 8086 PC Intel 8086	1978	0.055 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel 80286 PC Intel 80286	1982	0.135 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel 80386DX PC Intel 80386DX	1985	0.31 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel 80486DX PC Intel 80486DX	1989	0.79 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel Pentium PC Intel Pentium	1993	1.10 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel Pentium II PC Intel Pentium II	1997	2.2 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel Pentium 4 PC Intel Pentium 4	2002	2.5 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 PC Intel Core 2 Duo E6600	July 2006	3.5 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel Core i7-2600K PC Intel Core i7-2600K	January 2011	4.6 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results
Intel Core i9-14900K PC Intel Core i9-14900K	October 2023	6.1 DMIPS/MHz	Measured provisional	x86-dhrystone-results

Why this chart holds one group only

Every point on a chart is implicitly compared with every other point on it. This chart uses one comparability group: one metric, one device scope, one method and one benchmark version. There is no chart of all clock frequencies over time because they are not one quantity.

Points use the release date of the machine a figure belongs to, including figures recorded against a part. A release date applies only to a machine that shipped. What this metric measures.