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Please take note of our systems specs for both the Intel and
AMD test platforms. Comparable system components were
used in each system and a clean install of Windows XP was
setup before each run of benchmarks.
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HotHardware's Test Systems |
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Mo' Hotter Mo'
Better... |
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Intel
Platform:
Pentium 4
Northwood Processors at 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz
Motherboard and RAM Config
Abit TH7-RAID Motherboard - i850 (No RAID used)
256MB of Samsung PC800 RAMBUS RDRAM
Other Hardware and Software:
IBM DTLA307030 30Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive
On board AC '97 Sound
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 8.1
GeForce3 Ti 500 Graphics Card
nVidia Detonator 4 reference drivers version 27.50
Intel chipset drivers version 3.20
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AMD
Platform:
Athlon
XP 2100+
Motherboard and RAM Config
Asus A7V266-E (KT266A)
256MB Enhanced Mushkin
2-2-2 DDR-RAM
Other Hardware and Software:
30GB IBM 7200 RPM HD
GeForce
3 Ti 500
On-Board AC '97 Sound
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 8.1
GeForce3 Ti500 Graphics Card
nVidia Detonator 4 reference drivers version
27.50
VIA
4-in-1 version 4.38a chipset drivers
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Pentium 4 Northwood - 2.4GHz |
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Clock speed, up
and to the right |
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CPUID and
Cache ID - Click images for full viewing
Here we see
Intel's new flagship CPU at 2.4GHz and the "QuadPumped"
front side bus at 400MHz. (100MHz QDR). Feed this
bandwidth with a healthy about of RDRAM at 800MHz (400MHz
DDR) and Pentium 4 is setup for serious number crunching.
You'll also notice in the Cache ID shot, we have 512K of on
chip 8 way set associative cache. The additional 256K
of on chip full speed cache (512K total) that the Northwood
core brings to the table, helps reduce average memory access
times, thereby increasing overall system performance.
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Overclocking
The
Northwood |
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We hit 3GHz but
not fully stable |
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Frankly, our
friends at Intel are not too keen on the fine art of
over-clocking. However, we don't know of too many of
you in our audience who don't do it or haven't at least
dabbled in it from time to time. Let's face it, it's
interesting, fun and just too tempting to ignore!
CPUID @
2.95GHz and Sandra's Processor Tests @ 3GHz. - Click
images for full view
2.95GHz
stable
3GHz - Not stable but nice to look at
CPU Test |
Multimedia |
Memory |
The highest
over-clock we were able to achieve with normal air cooling,
was 2.95GHz or 123MHz times the new Northwood's 24X FSB
multiplier. We were able to boot into WindowsXP at
3GHz with a 125MHz front side bus but were unable to
complete a full round of testing and benchmarking, to prove
out decent stablilty. In any event, we were able to
complete Sandra tests at 3GHz, so we decided to post the
scores just for fun. What is most impressive here is
the massive bandwidth numbers that Sandra reports in the
memory test. Of course the other CPU test numbers are
nothing too get sleepy over either.
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SiSoft Sandra Benchmarks |
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Just for reference |
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Here are the
rest of the Sandra scores, just for reference. These
were taken at the stock 2.4GHz clock speed of the Pentium 4
Northwood processor we tested.
The 2.4GHz
Northwood reigns supreme here but please note that AMD's
highest end CPU is not listed in the reference numbers, nor
is the 2.2GHz P4. Again, these scores are really just
for reference, because we realize many of our readers use
this "quick and dirty" test for very basic comparisons.
The
"Real World" Benchmarks
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