Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz and 2.0GHz Northwood Processors Review

Intel's Pentium 4 2.2GHz. and 2.0AGHz. Processors
"Northwood" Enters The Arena

By, Dave Altavilla
January 7, 2002

Turning up the heat a bit on the Multimedia side of things, we have 3DMark 2001 and Video 2000 MPEG2 Encoding tests, from our friends at MadOnion.com.

Benchmarks and Comparisons MadOnion's Finest and DroneZ

First up, the ever popular 3DMark 2001.  We ran this test at the default 1024X768X32 test setup and took scores from our various test-beds.  The results may surprise you.  The performance deltas were larger than expected.

Well now, here's a fairly significant gain that can be noted for the Northwood core versus the Willamette.  Although 500 points in total is really only a 6% gain, we have to remember that the baseline score in 3DMark 2001, for the average test system, is a few thousand points above the absolute zero mark.  As a matter of fact, there is probably no way to produce a "zero" score in this test, as long as you have a compliant system.  Therefore, the nearly 500 point delta we see between the 2GHz. Northwood and 2GHz. Willamette score, is much more significant.  Also, the new 2.2GHz. Northwood scores comfortably ahead of the Athlon XP1900+ in this test.

MadOnion's Video 2000 MPEG2 Encode test, isolates the host CPU in an MPEG2 compression processing test.

We are in the process of evaluating new additions to our Multimedia benchmark tests, here in the HotHardware Labs.  Clearly this test doesn't tax high end CPUs as it did almost 2 years ago.  All the entries here are within 2% of each other. 

DroneZ Benchmark is an OpenGL based test that relies heavily on system bandwidth to process its large textures and dynamic lighting effects.  We did however, tone down the settings to "GeForce2 Normal" which will tax the graphics subsystem less and isolate the processor.   In order to run this test, the test system must be configured with at least 256MB of RAM.  Here we see Northwood's additional cache garner an impressive 15% gain clock for clock.  Additionally, with the 2.2GHz. Northwood pulling away from the Athlon XP1900+ by a whopping 27%, you get a clear indication that the Pentium 4 will continue to dominate as one of the fastest gaming processors money can buy.

Quake 3 Arena and our final thoughts