Pentium 4 670 3.8GHz Performance Profile

We'll continue on briefly with more synthetic benchmark testing, which on its own isn't a true measure of real-world performance. However, it does complement a well-rounded benchmark perspective of overall performance within a given system architecture.  PCMark 04 is next.

Futuremark PCMark04 More Synthetic CPU and Memory Benchmarks

"The CPU test suite is a collection of tests that are run to isolate the performance of the CPU. There are nine tests in all. Two pairs of tests are run multithreaded - each test in the pair is run in its own thread.  The remaining five tests are run single threaded. These tests include such functions as file encryption, decryption, compression and decompression, grammar check, audio conversion, WMV and DivX video compression."

With certain parts of PCMark 04's CPU test designed to take advantage of multithreaded computing resources, the two dual-core CPUs in this synthetic test show the potential that lies within for multi-core architectures.  The Athlon 64 X2 4800+ takes the lead by a sizeable margin, however, besting the fastest Intel Pentium 840 by over 10%. Additionally, the slightly higher clock speed of the new Pentium 4 670 edges it just ahead of the 3.73GHz Extreme Edition P4, allowing it to place third in this high-end processor horse race.

The following are details of the types of tests run by PCMark04's Memory Test Module.

"The Memory test suite is a collection of tests that isolate the performance of the memory subsystem. The memory subsystem consists of various devices on the PC. This includes the main memory, the CPU internal cache (known as the L1 cache) and the external cache (known as the L2 cache). As it is difficult to find applications that only stress the memory, we explicitly developed a set of tests geared for this purpose. The tests are written in C++ and assembly. They include: Reading data blocks from memory, Writing data blocks to memory performing copy operations on data blocks, random access to data items and latency testing."

Bandwidth is king in this test, and the P4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz processor with its 1066MHz frontside bus handily takes the lead, followed by the new Pentium 4 670 with about a 10% shortfall.  From there it's nip and tuck between the Pentium 840 Dual Core CPU and the Athlon 64 contingent.  Oddly, we had difficulty getting the Athlon 64 X2 to complete this test without failing midstream.