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The first gaming related test we
ran was with
MadOnion's
DirectX8 benchmark, 3DMark2001 SE. Keep in mind that
this is the first time we have used ATi's new Radeon 9700
Pro in anything other than a video card comparison, so the
gaming scores may be higher than you're used to seeing!
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MadOnion 3DMark2001SE
(Build 330) |
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DirectX 8 Performance |
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AMD still has some work to do if
they want to catch Intel in this benchmark. As video
cards have become more and more powerful, system memory
bandwidth and CPU performance have had a larger impact on
3DMark scores. In 3DMark2001's default benchmark
(1024x768x32), the 2700+'s higher clockspeed and FSB help it
surpass the 2600+ by about 5%, but the 2.8GHz Pentium 4 was
still the king in this test, besting the 2700+ by 670
points.
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Novalogic's
Comanche 4 |
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CPU intensive DirectX 8
benchmarking |
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Novalogic's Comanche 4
benchmarking demo was designed to compare the relative
performance of DirectX graphics accelerators, but it sure
does benefit by the increased horsepower provided by a fast
CPU! We ran this test at 640x480x32 with no audio, and
saw the 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with PC1066 RDRAM outrun the Athlon
XP 2700+ / nForce 2 combo by 5.4 frames per second, or
10.2%.
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Quake 3 Time
Demo |
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Fragin' at Top Speed |
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As it has gotten older, and
graphics accelerators have gotten faster, Quake 3 Arena has
become rather irrelevant as a video card benchmark, but it
is now a good indicator of relative CPU performance.
We set Quake 3 Arena v1.17 to 640x480x16, at its "Fastest"
graphics setting, and ran a timedemo using "Demo001".
We were pleasantly surprised by
the performance of the Athlon XP 2700+ and the nForce 2 in
this test. Traditionally, the Pentium 4 has been the
undisputed ruler in Quake 3 performance, but the new
Athlons, coupled with the nForce 2, have pulled right
along side Intel flagship CPU. As we mentioned earlier,
we didn't have an Athlon XP 2800+ available for testing, but
we're fairly certain it would have surpassed the performance
of the 2.8GHz Pentium 4 in this test.
MPEG
Encoding & Our Summation
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