Evaluating Spec CPU2026

SPEC CPU2026, the updated CPU benchmark suite with 52 workloads (up from 43 in SPEC CPU2017), shows Intel's latest Lion Cove and AMD's Zen 5 cores performing similarly in integer tests, with Zen 5 pulling ahead in floating-point workloads that leverage AVX-512 instructions. The author criticizes SPEC's choice of the Ampere eMAG 8180 as the reference system, arguing it's an outdated, rarely-deployed platform that makes modern CPUs appear disproportionately faster than a more relevant reference like Intel's Core i7-12700 would show.