SiSoft Sandra

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SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a benchmarking, information, and diagnostic software utility for the Windows operating system.

It tests computer hardware's performance and capability, as well as providing detailed information about its specifications. The name Sandra is of Greek origin, meaning "defender" or "helper of mankind".

The bulk of the features are contained the Information Modules, which give detailed information about many of the components and systems in a modern PC including CMOS & BIOS information, Motherboard specifications, CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCIe, ODBC Connections, USB2, 1394/Firewire, and more. The Benchmarking Modules are used to rate and stress the components that provide measurable performance including the speed of the processor (measured in Dhrystone MIPS, and Whetstone MFLOPS), and the RAM, (measured in MB/s). As well as the chipset, hard drives, and internet speed, they also include scores achieved on many other current components for comparison purposes.

Sandra is popular with overclockers to measure the gains achieved and compare them with other brands/speeds of hardware.

It is available for 32-bit Windows (2000/XP/2003), 64-bit & x64 Windows (XP/2003) as well as Windows CE (Pocket PC 2002/2003/2003SE, Smart Phone 2002/2003/2003SE, CE .Net 4.20).

The available versions are:

   * Sandra Lite (free for personal/educational use)
   * Sandra Professional (commercial)
   * Sandra Engineer (commercial)
   * Sandra Enterprise (commercial)
   * Sandra Legacy (home enthusiast)

Current version of the program is SiSoftware Sandra XII (2008).