SPEC CPU2026 Under the Microscope: Programs, Phases, and Samples

arXiv:2611.16376v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: SPEC CPU2026, the latest generation of the SPEC CPU benchmarks, is set to become the standard benchmark suite in computer architecture research, where new designs are often evaluated through sampled simulation with tools such as SimPoint. Existing characterizations of the suite focus on whole-run averages, which reveal neither how behavior changes within a run nor how well sampling captures it. We characterize CPU2026 on real hardware at three levels: programs, phases, and samples.