What's the difference between salami, ham, and a sandwich? Benchmarking gives you a general representation of your CPU performance in comparison to other CPUs. MIPS and FLOPS are measures of your actual CPU speed. I haven't really heard of them much, so in general you would probably be better with just benchmarking your computer. One benchmark that I recommend is Performance Test Version 7. This benchmark gives you a CPU score that you can compare to loads of other CPUs at www.cpubenchmark.net